Day 40 – Caineville to Boulder

So, we’ve spent the better part of the last 3 days without meaningful access to the Internet. I’m going to try to play catchup on these posts, but you’ll forgive me if my memory is a bit fuzzy. If I start mentioning dragons or huge cities filled with people, I’m probably just making things up.

This part of Utah is desolate. There’s no life, nothing moving, but it’s stunningly gorgeous. It’s a great analogy for my legs 😉 It’s been a long ride, and we’re well into month 2 at this point. Between the elevation, the heat, and very little rest, the mountains out here are really kicking my butt. I’m looking forward to Nevada when the mountains only involve 2k feet of climbing, not 4k+.

Today, I rolled out of the Rodeway In the Middle of Nowhere on our way to Boulder. There’s a huge summit just before Boulder and I was skeptical of my ability to make it. JP woke up late and not feeling well, so I hit the road without him. It was in the low fifties so I was bundled up.

The road out of Caineville was relatively busy the day before. On this morning, there was nothing. You could hear the guardrails expanding in the morning sun and the vultures yelling at each other on the top of the mesas. The route was also uphill so even my bike wasn’t making much noise as I pushed up the hill. In summary: it was a great time to be on a bike.

The route went through the Capital Reef National Park. Nope, it’s not underwater, that’s just the name.

Right off the side of the road was a scenic overlook… but rather than looking over some vast landscape, this overlook was directed at a cliff face. It turns out, there are petroglyphs on the cliff. It’s pretty amazing to see art that was done 100’s (if not 1,000’s) of years ago still visible to this day.

JP and I rallied at the Capital Reef visitor center to head out on the rest of the ride.

If I was a geologist, I’d probably have a lot better insight into the differences in landscapes the last few days. But I’m not. I can say, there’s been more “rocks on top of rocks” going on in this section of Utah.

The climb out of the park proved to be a bit much for JP and I. We gained a fair bit of vertical in a short period of time.. and given how JP was feeling and my general inability to get my head wrapped around climbing in the rockies, we called it a day.

Like most passes around here, this pass leading over to Boulder had amazing views. Again, it’s hard to capture it in a photo…

Boulder UT is… uh… not large. Here’s a map of the town. That’s everything.

We hit the local state park and checked out a pit house they had. It’s amazing to think of how people lived in this area 1000+ years ago.

Honestly, this ride has really shown me how and where people live. The coasts are packed with people… the river valleys are green and we’ve settled those pretty well. But get away from running water in a meaningful way or head up mountains and there are very few people. That’s been true in every state we’ve been in. It’s pretty crazy to actually ride through it all.

Anyhoo, we stayed at a _really_ small motel in Boulder. Like “3 rooms” small. It was a nice get away. I spent some time playing frisbee with the boys. The dog in this picture loves to play fetch… with rocks or apples from the orchard out back. She and Dax hit it off immediately 😉

Meanwhile, JP and Art were out exploring the countryside and happened upon a rider going east. She was having a pretty rough time with the canyons outside of Boulder. They ended up SAG’ing her up to Boulder, having dinner with her, and helping her find a place to crash for the night… which turned out to be the MCC. 🙂 She’s a student from Pitt hoping to make it to the Atlantic in time to make her first day of classes this fall. We wish her luck and hope she enjoyed her stay in the MCC. She’s officially the first person to spend the night in it.

The stars are amazing at night in this part of Utah. Here’s a parting shot of the Big Dipper.