Bluff - Mexican Hat, Utah - I've never been so ill prepared or so determined to tour

June 4, 2019

Bluff - Mexican Hat, Utah

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1,414 elevation gain. 1,561 of descent. Those numbers are deceptive. We had a huge climb over Lime Hill to get that elevation gain.

Nancy gave us detailed instructions on how to run the swamp cooler. We must not have looked capable, because then she came by and gave Oren instructions. There is one swamp cooler than comes down through a bare hole in the ceiling on both sides of the duplex. There are two sets of controls - but that doesn't do much good with one unit. Oren came over last night to say he was cold. But Jacinto was sure he would be hot later. I suggested a compromise of 'vent'. That worked pretty good until sometime in the wee hours when I got cold. I turned it off. Then I ended up still freezing all morning. I'm dressed now, with my jacket, and my legs are under the covers. I bet Oren froze all night also. Who knows about Jacinto - he's still snoring!

It is 58 degrees right now and no wind. Blue skies and the birds are chirping. We have 24 easy miles to town. We gave up a rest day in order to split a long day into two. Oren and I are planning on breakfast once we get to town. Let's see how satisfactory our lodging is tonight, with these picky men. Tonight we are at the San Juan Inn. It is at the far side of town, built on the cliffside overlooking the river. When we were driving to Tucson this winter I admired the location. They have their own restaurant. Anything else we need we will probably get on the way through town. Perhaps the guys will want to go back for an activity, but I won't. The website says plenty of covered outdoor seating. I plan to take advantage of it.

I slept reasonably well last night. I would have slept better without freezing. No jitters. Thank goodness. I don't know why I love touring so much, but get so nervous about everything and anything . . . sometimes it's not fun being a Type A person.

We are leaving in 15 minutes. I should get things packed. My legs are slightly tight, but today won't be a challenge.

Later - I did not succeed in getting things packed in time. I made a last potty run and we were 12 minutes late getting out the door. I found another goat head on our deck. Oren and I both checked our tires over. So far so good.

We agreed on a stop one hour down the road. Little did we know what was ahead of us. This is a beautiful, beautiful area. This is totally unique. I'm glad we divided the day up. I gave myself the mental allowance to really look around. An owl had nothing on me. Just call me swivel neck!

It's one thing to drive through here. We've done that a number of times. By bicycle every rock formation is shown in detail, all of the flowers. I understand a bit more now what bicyclists like about riding the Western Express. Except, there seems to be lots of agony in that route and I'm not so much into agony, just good scenery.

It was another picture perfect day. No wind, blue skies. But, wait. It can't be too perfect. Let's add in a honking climb. I had forgotten all about Lime Hill. Nancy had mentioned it last night. ~900 feet of climbing. That's not extra ordinary. It was about 3.5 miles of relentless climbing. Oren pulled away from me. He never stopped at all. This is the man who was worried that he was aging out of touring? Not yet, Oren!

I came around what looked like the last big pitch. The grade _appeared_ to slack off. Wrong. The Garmin said 7% and I was still in the bottom of my granny gear. I was sure that Oren was waiting for me at the top - but I couldn't quite see the top and my legs demanded to stop NOW.

In the back of my mind I was super happy that we had a short ride today. There wasn't any pressure to finish. We could look around. I didn't have to think about having another 40some miles to ride after Mexican Hat. We stopped there at Jacinto's request because of potential wind. Today was a low/no wind day - but I'm glad we stopped in Mexican Hat anyway.

Sure enough, Oren was waiting for me at the top. We agreed there weren't enough verbs to describe the vistas and how Jim Fitch had to come and ride this day. Jim - if you ride this 25 miles and still don't like red rocks, I concede you really don't like the area.

I was happy with our direction of travel today. Monument Valley is only 20 miles from Mexican Hat - I think we could see the formations in the distance. The downhill was gradual, traffic was light, so we had lots of opportunity to look around. Can touring get any better than this? The only slight mar on the perfection of our riding day was a few miles of cracks in the road that had been sealed. Bump, bump, bump. I was thinking about Jacinto and how he would like these bumps. I found them annoying on my recumbent bicycle. Jacinto has a saddle sore from changing seats out. Didn't we think that was a bad idea? He tried the puffy new seat one day at home. It was too soft. Then he took the seat off of his Dean Bicycle and put it on the Surly. At least it was a known seat. His original problem came about because the seam on his favorite seat split open a couple of inches. On the Moab day Jacinto sat down quite a bit, taking it easy with all of the climbing. He ended up with a patch of skin rubbed off about the size of a penny. Jacinto said it doesn't hurt that much and it just needs some fresh air and for him to pedal standing up for a couple of days. Because that would be most peoples' solution to a saddle sore!

We had discussed visiting Goosenecks State Park. We left the final decision until today. You know me. We were just outside of town and I was thinking about food. We asked some motorcycle riders at the Mexican Hat viewpoint if they had been to Goosenecks. Yes, they had. The ride there was real fun with steep dips up and down. That might be fun with a motor bike, but not so fun with a loaded touring bike! Jacinto's tentative game plan was to ride to the motel, drop his panniers, then go back to see Goosenecks. I did send him a text letting him know about the 8% marked grade down to the motel. Which would be uphill for him . . .

I told Oren if we hurried, we could get to town before breakfast ends. Wayne, I am a terrible tourist . . . I will have to see Goosenecks by car the next time we drive to Tucson. We did make it to the Hat Rock Cafe at 10:40. Breakfast finished at 11. Hurray! I ordered a smothered breakfast burrito, but minus the tortilla. Sometimes that slows waiters down, but if I point out that I'd like all of the ingredients, just not wrapped in the tortilla. That makes sense. Not this time. The waiter suggested a scramble bowl - but that didn't sound as filling. Which I mentioned. Then I was going to order an omelet, but I didn't want the toast or pancake. What to do? I ended up ordering the burrito, but with the green chili on the side. That worked. It was a shame not to eat the tortilla. I could tell it was homemade. The green chili was excellent. It was almost all meat. Oren said his food was standard fare except for the bacon, which he raved about a couple of times.

We agreed to go to the 7-11 and check out the food section. I was hoping for an apple. They did have a variety of fresh foods. I speculated as to where people who live here would buy groceries? Oren and I both bought fruit parfaits. I also got a nice looking little salad for $2.99.

It was only a half mile down to the motel, but down is the key word. It was very down. We are at the San Juan Inn, right on the San Juan River. As in, right on the river, with great views of the red rock walls. We also have a great view of the giant climb out in the morning. We won't talk about that.

We were to the motel at noon. Check in was 3 PM. Oh, boy. I turned on the full sweet talking mode. Could we possibly check in, I know we are early, etc. Nope. 3 PM check in. Darn, ok, I understand. The second lady mentioned the many sights to see near Mexican Hat. I laughed and told her we were on bicycles and we had made it that far, we were done. But we would go sit on the patio by the river and wait. I must have been somewhat successful in my pitch, because the lady came outside after a half hour and said our room was ready. I think it was ready the first time, because we could see the cleaning people were all up on the second floor. But it was nice to get in early as it was starting to heat up out there. It was 83 degrees at 1 PM. Which isn't too hot for this area, but felt plenty warm to me.

We are sharing a two bed/one bath unit. $154. including tax. Look at me save money. Oren didn't complain about the room or the price. Let's see if Jacinto does. I've had trouble pleasing the two of them with the lodging this trip. It's a nice room. The shower is fabulous. Huge, great tile work. What do you call the shower that comes out of the ceiling rather than a regular spigot?

Oren and I have both of our big bikes inside and I think there's still room for Jacinto's. That is one downside to riding a long wheel base recumbent. The riding part is great, transportation and storing it is more difficult than a traditional size bike.

Jacinto just called at 2 PM, asking if he could buy a beer down here. They have a fully stocked store here, but neither of us noticed if they had beer. The lady was stocking the shelves as we wandered the store, commenting on how well supplied they were and where did you go to grocery shop if you live in Mexican Hat. The answer was Cortez. Google says Cortez is 100 miles from here. She did say Blanding had a smaller grocery.

Jacinto went to Goosenecks. He said the ladies were so impressed by his bicycling up there that they didn't charge him the $2. admission, plus they gave him a couple of bottles of water. I've sent his photos to me, but they haven't arrived yet. The wi-fi is medium slow here.

After dinner commentary - Wi-fi is so unpredictable in the middle of nowhere. Photos Jacinto sent me from the first day just showed up. His photos from today still aren't here. RWGPS is working fine (thank goodness - although my directions on the first day were to ride 51.3 miles, then take a left) but for some reason my completed rides aren't uploading.

We are sharing a two bedroom unit. It was $154. vs a one bedroom at $139. I thought it was a great deal. It has one bathroom that is attached to the second bedroom. That bedroom also has the air conditioning. The first bedroom has the entry door and the TV. We took the first bedroom so Jacinto could watch TV. Oren was freezing in his bedroom with the air on, but it didn't really reach our bedroom. Jacinto fixed that to some degree by going to the office and getting a fan.

We went to dinner at the attached cafe. If I were eating wheat, I would have had the Navajo taco. Oren ordered beef stew, which came with fry bread. The fry bread was the real deal and covered the whole plate.

We went to the well stocked grocery store after dinner and bought a half gallon of butter pecan ice cream to share. Oren was rather dismayed at the challenge of eating all of that ice cream, but Jacinto pointed out that it was much cheaper and we all got seconds and thirds!

The wi-fi here is dismal. Jacinto and I went outside and sat in the chairs overlooking the river. I watched one double FedEx semi going so slowly up the hill that I was afraid it was going to go backwards.

This is looking up into the ceiling. It's the vent for the swamp cooler. Oren had a similar hole on his side. One cooler, two units. You've got to love the practicalness.

Leaving our cabin. Notice the rough decking. I did not sit down as usual to clean my chain last night. Somehow the idea of picking splinters out of my backside does not sound like fun!

Oren says these are petrified sand dunes. Aren't they intriguing?

I was an innocent when I took this photo. I stopped here to show how nice it was they cut through the rock to make it easy for traffic. What I didn't know was soon to become apparent. You can't quite see the big arrow sign. It's on a downhill, which is far too short. Then the climb up Lime Hill starts. Oren found it ironic that it is not Lime Mountain. It was roughly 8-900 feet of climbing. Oren took it all in one shot. I had several breaks. It was tough.

Today we have a cattle guard. I did not mention that on the Moab day we went over an electrified pad that kept cattle out. We must be far enough away from the tourists now to do things the old fashioned way. Although there are plenty of tourists here . . .

The vermillion cliffs were outstanding. The colors of this area are best viewed at bicycle speed.

Typical scenery for the day. There were a large variety of wildflowers that don't show up in this photo.

Mexican Hat rock in the distance. My bike is a K frame RANS Stratus XP.

This is the road in front of our motel. We are going up in the morning, topping out at ~mile 12. I can feel my thighs complaining about the grade already!

Oren has taken perhaps five photos the entire trip. This is one.Bill identifies this as a primrose, possibly an evening primrose.

Jacinto took all kinds of photos today. Does that tell you how scenic the day was?

Today's ride: 25 miles (40 km)
Total: 128 miles (206 km)

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