Miles: 37
Pedal time: 4 hours 46 minutes
Elevation max: 10,600
Elevation gain: 4,000ft
High: 90
Low: 40
You'd think we'd slept like babies, bed, pillows and all, but the AC and stark creamy white walls of our motel kept us up for most of the night. Patiently waiting for sunrise, telling stories of sun and moon catchers, we finally passed out at early dawn, not be awaken for hours. A midnight plan, with 4 days left, we could ditch Cedar Breaka Monument and pull 75 mile days making it to the Grand Canyon and back. But one night of living the life of technology and electricity had spoiled us, and instead, upon a warm sunrise, we stocked the town for good coffee, nursed hangovers, and planed to spend extra days off the saddle hiking Zion, trying to rid ourselves of our hilarious farmer tan lines.
35 miles is all we rode, and barely did we break 11mph, granted 30 miles of that was climbing a massive mountain to snow bank peaks at 10,600ft. But the landscape called our name, sucked the oxygen from the crisp air, bled freshness under our skin; pine trees surrounded us like as if we were home in the high sierras of CA. Lakes deserved swims, picnics were taken without a clock in sight, and pee stop after pee stop was taken. Distractions came in 2 hour British acent practice sessions, lots of gum chewing, and talks about eating dead deer for dinner. Ravished for anything more than a clif bar, each turn of the mountain looked like it have way to the summit to only be discouraged corner after corner.
Got to give it to Ralph for saving the day. 5 hours in, we were famished, but without any water, we had to push on. There at the top we found a blockaded campsite, closed for the season, and too hungry to seek out a hiding spot we sought out the solo humans in sight, three 76 year old Texans, in a large campervan preparing to host the campground for the summer. Ralph in hand, helmet on, we only needed to pitch tent, devour Mac n cheese and pass out. They had their hesitation, as it appeared their boss would not be happy if we were found, but staring at an innocent girl, who just claimed she biked 30 miles uphill, with sleeping bags and tent, to sleep under the stars with a stuffed reindeer, they took us in like their own kids, fed us dinner and tea over grace, and chatted our ears off about their kids that lived on sail boats in their warm mobil home till sunset. We hugged upon departures to sleep under the cold starry night happy to be friends with trees again.
It is an ironic contract, that most of the time walking into any town store or cafe, or abandoned campsite, in full sweaty spandex brings out the extroverted curiosity in most people. But every once and a while people stare as though a UFO just landed in their backyard. Thinking we're disheveled out-of-place runaways for wearing or pedaling such an atrocity is disheartening. Sometimes, we are strangers in a town that one has lived their entire 50 years surrounded by the same 300 people and a half stocked grocery store with only canned goods and overprocssed breads. As big city dwellers, where people rarely have the time of day to stop and look at the big puffy clouds floating by but can indulge in overly academic dialogues at upscale cafés where the coffee is of the utmost quality and milk is only organic, we are just curious what drives someone to stay in such a deserted desert town for a lifetime. Their unwelcoming silent stares makes one feel all too out place to try to spark a friendy inquisitive conversation. But that is what is beautiful, knowing that most of the time there are good people out there, despite unyeilding interactions, and that we as humanity are not alone in this world.
