Day 13: Wild, wet and wacky start

June 11, 2010

Mental note: When the city park manager says they will alert the maintenance crew to turn off the automatic sprinklers in the park, don't believe them...

...all I can say is, at 5:00am this morning, you have never seen 3 cyclists move so fast from a dead sleep. It would not have been an issue, except that none of us set up tents, and my sleeping bag is down so, well, you get the idea. After that it was NOT difficult to get an early start.

I rode with Steve and Tyler for 15 miles or so and then we turned left, and up. They were going to go in a different direction after the climb, and subsequent downhill, anyway so I told them to go on (and up) without me. Bye Steve and Tyler, had fun riding with you for a few days... :-)

Today's ride was relatively easy-which feels like a weird thing to say, because I DID ride 50 miles with almost 3000 feet of climbing and one 10 mile climb that ended at almost 8000 feet. I guess my body is getting used to all of this, though it was cool today too, which always makes it easier.

I had planned on camping but it was a little chilly today, they predicted rain, and my stuff is still damp from this mornings automatic sprinkler debacle. For all of those reasons I got a hotel for the night.

Incidentally, Did you know that juice in plastic bottles can explode when they go up to close to 8000 feet in altitude? I did NOT know that, until today. It would have not been that bad but my freshly laundered Ex officio shirt and assorted other clean clothes were in the same bag. Not only that...fish like to be damp, even under water damp, but goldfish CRACKERS--well...let's just say that soggy goldfish crackers are still delicious, but they are MUCH better al-dente as they were intended.

The light was not good for pictures today but I did my best...

Steve and Tyler. Oh, did I mention we had a 15 mile stretch on interstate 15 today? Perhaps not... Either way, it is supposed to be illegal but several cops past us and did nothing. I'm sure they recognize when there are no other road alternatives for cyclists.

I was told this area of the country is dry. This just proves it.

The top of the 10 mile climb--wooo hoooo!

Uuuuh, Garmin, you are a little off! Maybe the barometer was low today?

Isn't that a beautiful sight from the top!?

This was the jerky truck. The two guys running it were really interested in my trip, the Trucker and my Garmin. One of them does a little rock climbing...
I didn't buy any jerky but I DID buy the most delicious pine nuts I have ever had, picked at the Great Basin National Park. They also had a small box of tubes and CO2 cartridges to sell to cyclists. I thought that was funny/interesting (see arrow).

Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 1,090 miles (1,754 km)

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