Day 41 – A day in Boulder

Rest day! And a rest day in the middle of nowhere, so it was extra restful.

Here’s Bobby entertaining JP and our extra biker before we head out for a morning of sightseeing.

The ride south out of Boulder on the way to Escalante is amazing… and also puzzling. The road is totally insane. It’s unclear to me why anyone would build a road through this canyon. There’s a part of it about 1/2 mile long that is right on top of a knife edge ridge line. 2 lanes wide, no guardrail, no shoulder… just a thousand foot drop on either side. Seriously, THERE SHOULD BE A TEST GIVEN TO DRIVERS BEFORE THEY CAN DRIVE THIS ROAD. I barely trust oncoming drivers in normal situations. When those oncoming drivers are trying to avoid a huge cliff, I’m even more skeptical of their ability.

Anyhoo, we made it the Escalante Petrified Forest State Park just outside of Escalante without incident. They had a lot of petrified wood there, though you’ll notice the MCC was more interested in hanging out down by the lake than going on any hikes with us.

There are a lot of fast, 4 legged things in this neck of the woods. Some are mammals, but a few are reptiles. This little guy was hanging out with us in the petrified forest.

Even Dax got in on some of the hiking action.

The view from the trail going up to the petrified forest was impressive (as are many views around here).

After the hike, the boys and I did some more fly fishing. Their mechanics of fly casting is getting much better. However, that still didn’t yield any fish. The fishing in the lake was supposed to be good, but we totally got skunked.

This overlook outside of Escalante gives an amazing view of the Grand Staircase National Monument. As JP says, it’s like a buffer overflow for your brain. Again, it’s hard to wrap your head around how vast a view this really is.

Check out the road in the distance. Seriously, this canyon goes on forever.

Overall it was a very restful rest day. We ate, we hiked, we hung out in hammocks. Tomorrow, we ride again.

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.

Day 39 – Blanding to Caineville

(Editor’s Note – For those of you who might visit here twice I had the staring city wrong originally.  We were in Blanding last night, not Dolores.)

Sometimes this ride gets a bit odd. Today was one of those days. A few weeks ago in Kansas, I changed our route a bit to put us through towns that actually had hotels and to provide a little softer landing into the Rockies. Because of that change, we ended up a day behind where we needed to be to make it to Vegas and ultimately San Francisco on time. At some point we needed to “make up a day”… ie, drive a leg of the route we would have otherwise ridden.

Well, today was that day. Leaving Blanding, the next realistic place to stop was the Hite Recreational Area… which is a national park on the Colorado river. There’s no lodging there and it’s hotter than all hell most of the summer. So the goal for the day was to ride to Hite and then SAG up to Caineville. Armed with that knowledge, let’s see how the day went…

We rode out of Blanding about 7:30. There was rain nearby but we managed to avoid it all day. The route started with a few climbs and then had a serious climb about 20 miles in… 2.1k’. Not the highest climb on the route, but one that will still get your attention. After that it’s a slight downhill all the way to the Colorado.

The landscape around here is nothing if not stunning.

Within 10 miles, we were basically out of cell service so we went in to “no cell mode”… which basically means Art and Heidi stay closer to us while we’re riding and are usually tailing (rather than leading) us on the route. Sometimes, it seems like they’re stalking us.

The push up the hill was interesting. We already had quite a bit of climbing before we hit the hill itself, but thankfully we were at a relatively low elevation. JP put up a good fight and made it up ~1k’. I pushed on, and after 2 stops (one of them lengthened by an unexpected call during unexpected cell reception) I managed to hit the summit. The grade on the climb was very polite, which helped quite a bit. Here’s the view from the top looking back in to the distance at the valley floor.

Once we reached the top, we put the throttle down and started down towards the Colorado… well, mostly down. At the macro level it was downhill, but there were still some climbing.

Around 11:30, we broke for lunch. The temps were coming up fast and honestly I was a bit wiped out from the climb (and the previous week of riding). Both JP and I called it a day after that and started the long ride to Caineville.

So… uh.. the following pictures don’t do the drive justice. The landscape around here is amazing. And brutal. It was in the 100’s most of the day and there is literally nothing out here. We would drive for miles and miles without seeing another car, let alone a permanent structure of any kind.

Seriously.. I’m not sure how many square miles are covered in this photo, but I can assure you there’s not a single human in this frame.

This is one of the few shots that starts to convey how awesome the Glen Canyon area is.

We ran in to some rain just outside of Caineville. Here’s a shot where we’re dry, the mountain is dry, but there’s a sheet of rain about a halfway in between us making everything look hazy. The wind was hammering when Heidi took this.. she was actually having a hard time standing still.

While we were taking pictures, JP and Art were meeting other riders on the road. We had passed a few riders and asked if they needed anything (they declined). JP had a much better approach… they’d roll up, he’d hold a cold water bottle out the window and ask if they wanted cold water. It turns out, yes they did want cold water.  😉

They also met a guy who was stopped on the side of the road and needed a new cleat. And in particular he needed the old style Look cleats that JP uses. The rider’s cleat was so worn that it wouldn’t even clip in anymore. After some effort the were able to get the old cleat off and JP hooked him up with a new set. JP and Art definitely made that rider’s day.

So here’s the Rodeway in Caineville. And, to be clear, this hotel is the only thing in Caineville. I’m not sure why there’s even a town name given to this place. There is literally nothing else here. The closest town is 20 miles away… as is the closest restaurant.

Luckily we knew that in advance and planned ahead. We picked up food last night so we could make dinner in the MCC instead of driving to the “nearby” town. Hotdogs, chili, chips, and brownies. Not exotic, but easy to do in the MCC. Dax decided to be the chip courier and brought chips one at a time to everyone.

The hotel is geared up for people that weren’t as well prepared as us, it seems. They’re stocked up with frozen dinners you can buy. All evening long while we were hanging out outside, we could hear the “ding” of the microwaves in the rooms as families warmed up dinner after dinner for everyone to eat.

So tomorrow we ride to Boulder… Utah, not Colorado. It’s bigger than Caineville, but not much. We’re spending our rest day there in an extremely small motel. Should be another interesting adventure.

Oh… and I broke my sunglasses today. I’m riding with my backup sunglasses now. Hopefully I don’t have another sunglass failure before I can hit an Oakley store.

 

Day 38 – Dolores to Four Corners to Blanding, UT

Today, we had a change of plans. While this trip is mostly about riding, it’s also about seeing the country. And one of our party had a pretty specific request. In particular, Bobby. Since he was 5 and learned about the Four Corners where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona come together, he’s wanted to stand at that spot. He’d ask questions about it, he’d look at it online, and ask even more questions about it. His bucket list clearly included the Four Corners.

Originally the plan had been to hit it on the way back, so this wasn’t on our minds when we came into the area. Then late last night we realized we were within 40 miles of Four Corners and as much as Heidi could have taken the boys there while JP and I rode with support from Art… what fun would that be. So we made the decision to hit it first before jumping on the bikes today.

We left about 7:30 and rolled in about an hour later.

The Navajo have done quite a bit of development at the park, including 4 rows of vendor stalls (one in each state) flanking the spot. However the USGS disk is still there and you can still stand right in the middle of it.

I think this is our first real family photo of the trip. We need the Microsoft “to the cloud!” thing tho… if you look carefully, Dax is doing something with his nose.

And here’s Art and JP. You can’t tell they’re related, can you?

Bobby was definitely stoked to have made the trip. Even tho it cut in to the day’s ride, it was awesome that he (and all of us) could make this side trip. Plus he got another sticker to add to his growing laptop sticker collection.

On the way out of the park we saw a dog in the brush on the side of the road. I tried to convince Heidi that it was a wild dog, so she took a picture of the “wildlife” to add to our collection.

On this trip we’ve passed a lot of mesas. Below is Red Mesa. We’ve also passed Blue Mesa and White Mesa. I’d really like to get to Black Mesa at some point so I can meet Dr. Freeman and buy a plush head crab. (Editor’s note: This is a reference to the video game Halflife. Yeah…I had to ask.)

We rode in to Utah from the south today rather than the east. We had a very nice ride through valleys of mesas, cactuses, and wild horses.

A wild oil pump appears! Well, not that wild, but it is freaking huge. There’s a lot of crude coming out of the ground around here.

After the ride we stopped at the Edge of the Cedars State Park here in Blanding. They had some really interesting Pueblo artifacts and this dwelling they had uncovered. I knew next to nothing about the Pueblo culture before today, but found the visit very interesting.

Tomorrow we’ve got some climbing and we’ve got some driving. It’s an odd day. I’ll talk about it tomorrow. Too tired tonight. Sleepy time.