July 19 Crossing America

Red Canyon, UT – Cedar City, UT distance 69 miles, I rode 62 on my bike
Total distance through today 3,092 miles, on my bike 2,563 of them.

Old Guys taking a break after a hard day of riding. L-R:Chet, Frank, Ike, Aaron and Mark

A great night sleep and I was ready to ride.  A pleasant surprise the 12 miles to the first town Panguitch where I could get something to eat for breakfast was all downhill and I finished it off in about 40 minutes. Arriving in Panguitch, the only restaurant with any life in it (open) was the Cowboy Smokehouse café where the waitress Joy opened the door and let me in.  Joy turned out to be a credit to her name as she enjoyed her work and interacting with guests. About the time I was ready to leave Chet, Mark and Aaron arrived for breakfast.  I chatted with them briefly then got on the road, uphill for the next 34 miles.

The ride out of Panguitch was what else uphill but I was enjoying looking around at the scenery more then road while I could.  Holy Crap!  Right in my path was a rattlesnake.
I barely had time to steer clear of the critter.  Whew!  That was close.  Hey I had to stop
and go back to take a picture of this guy.  I must have pissed him off because he was coiled up and ready to strike if I got close enough to give him a chance.   Well good buddy glad I didn’t hurt you and even more glad you didn’t hurt me.  Thank you Guardian Angel
whoever you are.

Rattlesnake I almost ran over

The scenery of Southern Utah continues to dazzle me with its rugged beauty.

Cedar Breaks National Monument as stunning as Bryce Canyon

Cedar Breaks another view

Though I could do without the long climbs, today’s climb 34 miles gaining 3,500’ in elevation.  Not nearly as hard as climbing our Ozark hills but gets monotonous wearing me out mentally.  When 9 of our crew passed me on this climb I decided it was time to hitch a ride.  I must look pitiful when I look for a ride as the first pick-up coming by stopped.  Doug, his wife and son from Las Vegas are vacationing in Southern Utah which has several national parks to enjoy and some great trout fishing.  I gathered from our conversation the vacation is more for Doug to enjoy the fishing.  I asked Doug to drop me off at the intersection of State Roads 143 and 148 as I wanted to see Cedar Breaks National Monument, a miniature version of Bryce Canyon.

Cedqar Breaks one more view

Not to mention there was going to be a great downhill after the park I wanted to ride.  Oh yea!  The ride down was awesome dropping from 10,400’ to about 6,500’ in 15 miles.  Spirit and I managed to roar down the mountain and just missed the 50 mph mark by .2 of a mph.  After the little bump up the mountain the only rider ahead of me was Aaron and we whizzed by him due haste.  At the bottom I stopped and purchased some Elk Teriyaki Jerky from a roadside vendor.   Aaron caught up to us and we rode into town together and to the nearest bicycle shop.  Aaron needed a new bottom
bracket while I needed a tune-up and a new pair of riding shoes.  Yep, this stop cost me another $160.00 for bicycle maintenance.  I can remember when we owned the automobile dealership and folks would go ballistic when they had to pay $90.00 for a tune-up on their car.   I may have mentioned that before, forgive me it’s the Old Guy memory
thing.

At Cedar City we did a service project for the local Lions Club in exchange for the them treating us to a pasta dinner at the City Park our overnight town.  Mark Miller, the organizer with the Lion’s Club also has connected with Lion’s Clubs in Milford and Ely to provide us a meal in those two towns, too.  Mark you may be the recipient of next year’s Peak Award for Service to Bike the US for MS?

MONSOON in the desert!  A 4:00 AM I was awakened to what I thought was a very low flying airplane then suddenly my tent was being pulverized with rain next the demons from Haiti’s where spewing up from the ground as a wall of water was spraying into the right side of my tent.  Suddenly I realized it was the sprinkler system for the park.  I waited for the next pass over of spray onto the left side of my tent and made a quick exit, yanked out my tent stakes, crabbed my bags out of my tent and dragged the whole tent to the sidewalk area.  A little hindsight could have saved us from this fate.   About 8:00 PM some of our crew had the same thing happen to them on one side of the park.  They moved to the
sidewalk area to avoid another mishap.   Later in the evening Pepper and I asked a maintenance man if we had to worry about sprinklers coming on again during the night.  His answer, “don’t know, the sprinkler system is not my responsibility”.  Right then I
knew I should have asked him who was in charge of the sprinklers but didn’t.  The consequence everything in the lower half of my tent got drenched as did about a dozen of our other crew members gear including Pepper’s.  After we rescued our tents and gear from the manmade Monsoon Pepper was all apologetic for this having happened.  I don’t him it wasn’t his fault and not to fret.   Heck, it gave me something to write about and all of us to get a good laugh out of later.  Pepper you can’t be expected to accept the blame for unforeseen calamities.  Shit happen, life goes on let’s have a beer and a laugh at this one.

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