In and Out of Utah in only 1 Day

Day 8  -  Utah Border to Colorado Border  -  105 Miles

Aaron cooks up some 'camp-worthy' pancakes

We woke up late on Saturday on our mildly-comfortable outdoor camp-site, under the billion or so stars that we fell asleep with overhead.  Without skipping a beat, Aaron was at the stove, cooking up some pancakes...or what we have affectionately decided to call "pancake-glop."  Without oil or butter, the bisquik-water mixture stuck to the pan a little more than was desirable.

les is standing on the road where Forest stops running, in the movie, Forest Gump 

After we got on the road, with a slight climb through beautiful Monument Valley (see above picture, or google: monument valley), we took a sharp and thrilling descent (probably 45+ mph) to a store in Mexican Hat.  Pulling up to a gas station convience store for a mid-morning snack, we saw two touring bikes, fully loaded, like ours.  "No way!  I wonder who they are and where they are going."  These were the first self-supported touring cyclists we've actually been able to stop and chat with.  Suddenly, out of the store come two men in their late sixties who were on holiday from Holland.  For some reason, they decided riding around in Arizona and Utah for the summer sounded like a good idea.  How absurd!  Only insane people do such things.

This is Hat Rock, for which Mexican Hat is named...I don't know why...

At any rate, to forget about the heat, Aaron and I started making jokes about the two Dutch fellows we had just met.  Things like, what if these guys don't even have to pedal, they just use their Holland powers to get up these laughable American hills.  Every once and a while, we looked back and half-way expected to see them gaining on us, with their old bikes, flat pedals (no cleats, like ours), and upright handlebars.  "Aaron, they're gaining on us.  Go!" was usually all it took to motivate us up one more hill.

Our first glimpse of clouds since the paradise of Peeple's Valley

From the Hat, we rode to Bluff, took lunch, wrote some letters/thoughts, read and ate.  When we returned to the road, things started to cool down a little, and we even began to see clouds overhead.  As the sun was on its way down, we realized we could make it to the Colorado Border, if we really pushed it.  So we did, 105 miles - our longest mileage yet on the tour.  Oh, and we almost ran out of food and water and a truck that had driven past us 5 hours earlier recognized us, stopped to say, "Hello," and re-fueled our systems.  But we were only 10 miles from a town anyway, so we were going to be okay...really.

les made it.

Aaron made it, too.

Happy to be in Colorado, for our rest day tomorrow.