Slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter

October 10, 2021

St. George loop, take 1

The morning dawned with clear blue skies and sunshine. It looked like a beautiful day ahead with temps in the 70's. It's sure nice to be in a warmer climate! We hardly needed the furnace at all last night.

By 11 we headed out to do a ride on Garfield. There was a bike trail that ran along Bluff Rd./Highway 18 next the Elks and we chose to follow it north toward Snow Canyon state park. Don had looked at a route on-line and saw there were some extinct volcanoes not far away that we could see. That sounded good to me.

Right out of the gate we started climbing, and it was slow going as we left the city behind and entered a desert preserve. When we reached an intersection with Red Hills Parkway/Snow Canyon Parkway, we saw there were other trails that followed those roads. One direction went up an even steeper hill and the other way dropped downhill. Hmmm - which way to go? Downhill sounded good, but would mean more climbing to get home.

We decided to keep going straight along 18 even though it was still trending uphill. And BOY! Did we ever find the hills!!!!! HOLY TOLEDO!!! This town is hilly!!!

Several climbs were so steep that we ended up walking. The tandem has a good granny gear, but Don has a tough time keeping the bike upright when going so slowly. So we walked and walked, and walked some more.

As we kept going we could see that the grade on the highway next to us was not nearly as steep as the trail. Maybe we should just have ridden the road. There was quite a bit of traffic but there was a good shoulder so it would have been okay. However, there was a fence between us and the road.

We only went another mile or so and saw ahead of us that there were some even steep climbs. I told Don I was done with this nonsense as my calves were screaming at me and my ankles were sore from walking in bike shoes.

Turning around, we were finally able to access the highway and rode the shoulder for a short distance which allowed us to avoid some steep climbs. Things were much better on the road!

When we reached a parking area for some hiking trails, we hopped back on the bike path. This time when we reached the intersection with Snow Canyon Parkway, we decided to follow it to see where that went.

This trail went downhill steeply at first but it did level out some. I enjoyed looking at all of the nice homes in the neighborhoods we passed. As we rode, we debated retracing our steps on this trail which would require quite a climb back to Highway 18 if we stayed on the trail. Once again, the road next to us had a much better grade along with a wide shoulder.

We stopped for a break at a small fishing pond where we saw that there was a connecting trail that we could take, but there wasn't a sign indicating what the name of the trail was. A detailed map of the area posted here helped us decide on a route back to camp.

The trail we were on did continue further but we opted to turn around now as we wanted to have enough energy to dance later.

This time we turned off of the trail onto a couple of highways that circled us through some older mobile home neighborhoods back to the Elks. As with all of the roads we've seen so far, there were wide shoulders/bike lanes that we could use.

There was some climbing as we made our way back to Highway 18, but it wasn't bad until we reached the access road to the Elks. We did have to walk a section here as we got close to the lodge. This place reminds of the Elks in Lewiston, ID which also was perched up on top of a hill.

We were happy to be home but the total mileage was pretty pathetic. I know we could have ridden much further had it not been so hilly. Oh well, maybe we can do better tomorrow.

The rest of the day wasn't too exciting. We had time to take showers and put our dirty laundry in the washer. While the machine was running, we tried some dance practice in the pavilion which was part of the bathhouse.

The floor was polished concrete and we found that our dance shoes moved quite well on the smooth surface. I was concerned that the many seams in the concrete would cause a problem, but that wasn't the case. We couldn't even tell that they were there!

We only danced for a short while since our legs were pretty tired from the biking. Don wanted to work on our new EC swing moves and I think we've got some good ones to add to our routines!

A fellow camper heard the music and came over to watch us dance. She particularly loved the waltz we did.

We hope to do more bike rides in the area - maybe the trail along the Virgin River which should be much flatter. Don also will be attempting to locate the furnace switch we need and get that installed.

Lots of things to do in just a couple of days! Wednesday we move to an RV park in Kanab.

So many choices! We were impressed with the good trail surface and signage at this intersection.

There were lots of desert wildflowers still blooming and since I was walking, I had time to take lots of pictures. Globe mallow, Bill?

Sigh........one more hill to walk! This picture doesn't really show just how steep this one was.

Ever since I took a course in Lichenology in college, I've been drawn to any I see on our travels. The neon green color of this crustose variety was the same shade as my hi-vis bike jacket! There were also a few patches of a gray variety on the same rock.

These pretty flowers were covering a small tree next to the trail. Bill???

We turned around at this small fishing pond. I liked the look of those homes as they blended in very well with the surrounding desert landscape. Several people were fishing here so they must stock the pond.

A pomegranate tree?! Wow - never seen one of those. I was tempted to pick one, but didn't think the home owner would appreciate me harvesting his fruit.

This is a 'kitty kage' that is attached to the slide out window on one of our neighbor's RV. The cat comes out the window and can sit in the cage to get fresh air and watch what's going on. Ingenious! But Don saw the cat escape out their front door a few hours ago, headed for freedom in the rocks behind us.

Today's ride: 12 miles (19 km)
Total: 578 miles (930 km)

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