Woke up this morning cold in the basement of the Blinzalkerallis home. I had restless sleep, kept waking up on the hour. We decided on a bright and early 5:45am wake-up time. Great! Kendra had made us delicious homemade baked oatmeal that contained strawberries, bananas, and chocolate. So good, and I’m not even an oatmeal connoisseur! Within the first two miles of biking, Asia got a flat tire. After the repair, we took this wicked bike trial that ran along side the highway. I was working on maintaining a more-smooth cadence, so I fell to the back. Just spinning my legs out. The trail paralleled the mountains and we were following a river. We stopped to take a picture of a gnarly waterfall. We got to our stop and I ate a brownie and oatmeal. The next part of our quest took us closer to the highway and this is where a melancholy wave set it. I swear to all the readers, I must have biked around 8 dead deer and a couple other miscellaneous road-kill animals. I try not to look at the deer, because I do not want to see their soulless eyes. But I accidentally made eye contact with one of the deer. This made the rest of the ride a little somber and lonely. Only Maceo and I mentioned the deer to each other; I don’t think the group really wanted to talk about it at the preceding stop.
On the next part of the ride, we kept passing these huge lakes that contained speedboats, people fishing, and other water sport activities. I thought I saw a glimmer of hope in the distance, but I was mistaken. Just another 1000ft climb. Typical. We finally all made it to the top of the summit and had a gorgeous view. But if I am perfectly honest, I couldn’t completely enjoy this stop because I was dripping in sweat. The final part of the ride was to Kamas, Utah. We are staying in this gorgeous cabin, 15 minutes away from the main streets. As soon as we got there Sean and Maceo set up the hang board. While they did that, I took a nice warm shower. The rest of the evening I listened to my audiobook and fell asleep. I woke up ready for dinner! But had to wait another 2 hours. I used this time to look into grad school programs. I think the neuroscience master’s programs in Europe (Netherlands, England, Scotland) look interesting. Will be doing more of this during my free time.
The warm-shower hosts were Jess and Anna-Lee. Dinner was awesome. We had a nice veggie salad with cheesy bread. The main course was either meaty or veggie lasagna. Some of us really liked the sweet tea that Anna-Lee made. About time we had lasagna! First Italian plate of the trip. It is one of my favorite dishes. For dessert we had chocolate fudge brownies with baked marshmallows on top and a side of ice cream. We ate well tonight. The warm-shower hosts were really sweet and loved talking about their past guests. I don’t know how it happened, but I had the pull-out bed all to myself. Tomorrow is a little more miles, I better get good rest.
-Travis
This is the waterfall we stopped at.
The team at a stop and Asia making a silly face.
One of our beautiful views. Wish we got to swim!