Day 23: Roadkill Volume 2
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!
Day 22: Teaching Take Two
(Teaching Workshop 2, Pleasant Grove, UT)
Cole:
The morning of our second teaching workshop began like any other: Maceo loudly singing us awake with ad-libbed lyrics at 5:30am, and Anna, already well into her day, handing me a hot cup of coffee from the local shop she had been working at (Anna is simultaneously doing this trip and launching an affordable medical device startup) for the past hour or two.
Day 21: 10 Miles
(Saratoga Springs, UT -> Pleasant Grove, UT)
From Sean: Today we left the Lincoln’s home. Many thanks to their hospitality!
We biked a short 10 miles (seems kind of silly, we probably could haver planned this route better) to stay with the Blinzinger’s and were welcomed by breakfast for dinner. Sean and Cole biked 50 miles to do the alpine loop around Mt. Tim and missed dinner.
Day 20: Saltiest Day
Day 19: Flats for Days
My legs were absolutely wrecked after our first 100 mile day, but after the second one (in a row), they were slightly more OK—they must have just gotten numb to the pain :(. But the result was that the 25 mile day after such huge rides felt amazing in comparison, and I started my ride listening to music as we cruised along Utah lake.
Day 18: Hundred a pound
(Delta, NV -> Provo, NV) from Anna:
Happy 4th of July! We woke up in Delta High School and were greeted with a lovely breakfast from our hosts & their adorable dog! Travis was greeted by a miniature replica of his bike (our host, Dick, happens to be a big fan of Travis’ Lemond). If anyone is looking for Christmas presents for Travis, I have a couple ideas hat involve tiny figurines of Travis and his beloved (??) bike. Cole, Asia, and I chugged cans of coffee in the cold air and everyone prepared for a long bike ride.
The ride was fairly flat and went through many small towns, which was a nice change of scenery from the empty desert. Maceo was able to ride a few miles and he, Travis, and I crashed (not literally) a Fourth of July party in a park and sat in the shade eating snow cones for a little while.
The group met up in Payson (“Bin-Bin”) at a private park where we briefly considered stopping for the night. But we ultimately decided to power through to Provo, Utah.
Travis, Cole, and I continued on to Provo, battling a brutal headwind (we’ve learned that there are often headwinds in the afternoon because the hot air is in the Valley while the cold air is up in he mountains, and the air wants to rush into The Valley then... I think!).
I finally rolled into Provo, Utah around 5:30pm while the rest of the team was taking showers at the local community center.
We quickly deposited our stuff in the backyard where we would be camping, and headed out to celebrate the 4th of July on the town. We had a giant meal of Vietnamese food followed by nitrogen chilled ice cream, and then further followed by a round of charades in the dark. Fireworks are legal in Utah and so we slept outside as the fireworks were exploding around us. Sounds very poetic (but in reality it was quite a bit past our bedtime and we were ready to sleep after the long day, but the fourth only comes once a year!).
Today was 96 miles & yesterday was 98... so we’re ready for a short ride tomorrow and a rest day!
Day 17: Roadkill
Asia likes sunrise circles!
Today we woke up at 5:00am at the church in Baker. Maceo played the church organ and sang some lovely tunes to get us out of our sleeping bags. When we left at 6:30am the sun was prepared to deliver its wrath. It didn’t disappoint. Today was a 100-mile day to Delta, Utah. We stopped as a team at the state border. I really thought there would be a drastic landscape shift from Nevada. I was wrong. Instead we were met with heat, hills, and loneliness. I had a great downhill after a large climb. The scenery was something out of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I had hope for Utah, but that was abruptly stolen away. Next came the hardest 20 miles I have ever biked.
Cole embracing the morning sun
I was sweating like a broken sprinkler and mucus was draining out of my nose like a leaky faucet. They were coming out simultaneously, so I could not distinguish one from the other. I would just wipe my face The hill we were climbing kept turning and would not stop. And we finally got to the top it was flat and hot air blowing across our faces. The flat salt lake paralleled the right side of the road and the electric poles were on the right. It was bright; the sun reflected off the white gravel. This has become as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one. The vast emptiness enclosed us like we were trapped in a snow globe made from hell. Each mile tore away at the muscle fibers in my quads. I just wanted to get to the car to get more water. To top it all off, I saw so many dead animals along the road. It was a rough biking day.
That being said, we had a wonderful dinner with our warm shower hosts. We stayed at a really modern high school in Delta, Utah. They cooked a delicious meal of pulled pork sandwiches, cheesy potatoes, cornbread, lentil soup, and homemade ice cream. I ate so much. Need to replenish my bike fuel.
One final note: Richard, the warm shower host really likes bike. Apparently he really fancied my old-school Lemond Bike and wanted to buy it from me. He knew more about the bike specs than I did. The following morning he brought a paper-mache replica of my bike that someone had gave to him a while back. It was a strange moment to say the least.
The paper mache model of Travis’ bike
Tomorrow is 4th of July! I am exited to see fireworks with our team and to have good food in the next city. We deserve the celebration after two 100-mile days.
Travis
Day 16: Stars
Today we started in Ele (Asia: Sean, it’s Ely) and biked 65 miles to Baker, Nevada. We are only 8 miles from the Utah border, so close!
The day of riding was mostly uneventful. The final hill was difficult, and Travis, Cole, and Maceo accidentally took a 3 mile “detour” at the end of the day.
Baker is next to great basin national park, an officially sanctioned dark sky location.
Maceo and Asia are Junior Rangers at Great Basin National Park.
The park had a night sky viewing event with 3 large telescopes pointed at various astronomical objects tonight. We looked at Mars (Asia: it Jupiter), but then decided the lines for the telescopes were too long and went back to Baker.
Cute Baker Sunset.
Sean
Day 15: First Day Teaching!
After a rest day yesterday spent finalizing lesson plans, I was excited to get a chance to teach. The teaching workshop didn’t start til 2:30, so we spent the morning practicing our lesson plans on each other and giving feedback. It was fun to see the creative ways everyone had come up with to teach complex ideas through games and activities that students of all ages could learn from. Lesson practice was followed by some last-minute runs (maybe more like walks) to the store to pick up teaching supplies. Sean had disappeared earlier in the morning and reappeared looking clean and well-groomed (a rare sight for any of us these past few weeks).
Day 14: Deep Rest Day in Ely
I slept for 11 hours last night. And Sean slept even more than I did. We are staying at the First Baptist Church in Ely, Nevada. Our sleeping pads and sleeping bags are sprawled across the floor in several rooms on the second story of the church. It is so nice to stay somewhere with a fully functional kitchen, because we can make more sophisticated meals and can really clean our dishes.
