Dolores --> Blanding
Carrie’s hammock was crazy comfortable. I would have never gotten up, but after the third apricot fell off the tree onto my forehead I was fairly ready to hit the rode. I wrote Carrie a note on the back of a receipt and left it on her porch since she had gone to a cookout in Durango the night before.
I rode out of Dolores towards the Anasazi cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde. Sunflowers flanked the road miles deep almost all the way into Utah, and far off solitary peaks dotted the horizon. Of course I stopped to take a picture at my first state crossing. It had taken me too many days to make it through Colorado and I was hoping to make it through Utah in a little more of a hurry, and considering I was feeling much more comfortable on the bike I though it was very doable.
Soon after the border I decided to reward myself with some Charleston Chews, a quart of iced tea, a half gallon of milk, and several pounds of fried chicken. Although this was a delicious decision it wasn’t the best for on bike performance, so I rolled fairly slowly into Monticello. I stopped in a beautifully green park, a rare sight in Utah, and laid in the grass and relaxed until I realized I was in the shadow of a library. I ran inside and checked my email for the first time in a week then hopped on the bike to book it to Blanding.
I made absolutely great time to Blanding and probably averaged 38 mph over that hour and a half, but once I got to Blanding I was faced with an 80 mile stretch of absolutely nothing. More out of fear for this uncertainty of what laid ahead than fatigue or lack of time, I stopped early for the night and headed to a Subway to get a bite to eat. After a fairly low key day the lameness continued while the subway employees rewrote their supervisor’s rules using a Book of Mormon that one of them just happened to be carrying in her purse……. Welcome to Utah!
I waited till dark so I could set up my tent under the cover of darkness in the town park, but a policeman who looked incredibly like Barney Fife had stationed himself in the park and obviously wasn’t going to permit my squatting. I rode the town for a bit looking for an alternate place to set up camp but I decided to stay in the Four Corners Inn and get some rest before I peddled myself across blank stretches of dessert for the next ten days.
Day: 83.25 mi
Total: 482.25 mi
Elev. Climbed: 600ft
Elev. Difference: -800 ft
Elev. Peak: 7300 ft
1 comment:
Charleston Chews are terrible.
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