Day 16: Solitude

Kev Says:
After leaving packing up the hammocks, the first couple hours of riding were downright cold, which I much prefer to riding in the heat, as does Willow. After about 150km we stopped for a roadside diner breakfast where they had the same plates my mom uses at home. By noon we crossed over into Utah. Although our next destination is south to Arizona, we decided to make a big horseshoe to the northwest to explore the terrain Utah has to offer. Turns out it's pretty amazing. We went down roads that were endlessly flat and straight. We could ride for an hour or more without ever meeting another car. Then the flats turned into deep gorges and canyons. There were so many, after a while we stopped even slowing down to look at them. When we stopped at the Colorado river bridge, Trav informed me that the town we thought we were heading to is not a town but rather a natural monument of some kind an the next town was in actual fact still quite a ways further. Having no gas gauge on Willow, very little drinking water left and the sun dipping behind the cliffs made the next hour very stressful. We rolled into a gas station (that as literally inside a mountain) with lots in our reserve tanks to spare. No sweat, whay was I so worried? After fuelling, it became apparent that Fred is having some electrical problems, but we got him going and made it to motel in Cainsville (we hadn't seen good hammock trees in 4 or 5 hours). We decided to take a late morning the next day so we could take some time to update the blog and look into Fred's problems. We went check out the pool & hot tub instead of going straight to sleep. After a 630km day it felt pretty great.


Trav says:
As we started coming down out of the colorado mountains into a large plateau, it really looked a lot like Nevada to me. Very dry, flat, and desert looking. I thought in my helmet "Wow, this really looks like Nevada!." It was a realization that I'm getting really close to home, and I had this giddy wave of excitement come over me. This trip is completely amazing, but I do miss my wonderful wife Amanda. She's patiently waiting at home for me, hoping I don't kill myself.

We entered Utah and my mind exploded when we started going through the Glen Canyon park. Indescribable endless beauty which continued for 150 miles. We're only half way through Utah, and this is already the highlight of the trip for me. I can only imagine what Bryce and Zion parks look like. I have a fascination with desert areas anyway, but the buttes and canyons are truly amazing. This is a spectacular part of the world that I would recommend to anyone! Rock on Utah!

Ohh yeah, and we almost ran out of gas, but we didn't. Lesson learned: We'll need to be really careful when crossing the sparsely populated areas of Nevada. Our bikes will only take us roughly 180-200 miles before needing more gas.