We woke up on our tarp the next morning (earlier than normal because we had an exceptionally hard day) to some surprises. As mentioned in the previous post, a dog had showed up in the middle of the night and woken Aaron up. Jonatan had gotten up in the middle of the night and set up his hammock because the blowing sand was keeping him awake. We also had this wonderful spider on one of our bags.
Who knows what other things had crawled on us in the night. We picked up our things and carried everything to a picnic table outside the bathrooms. We ate our breakfast of oatmeal and a cold bagel with peanut butter and started packing our things. While doing this, a nice family from a nearby tent site who had talked to us about our trip before came over and offered their leftover homemade breakfast burritos. This was just what we needed before the 8000 ft of climbing and 70 miles we had left in the day. This is also an important tip for bike touring: look miserable in high traffic areas and people will notice and help you. We will make a page with more tips and recommendations for doing your own trip soon.
With a real nourishing breakfast, we now felt truly prepared for our hard day. We did need more groceries to eat us through it. We looked on our map and found two stores. We went to one and it was closed because it was Sunday and Memorial Day weekend so we wen to the other. It was labeled as organic with lots of pretentious decoration which instantly made us worried. We walked in and discovered it was not the place for us. A single banana (that was very ripe and would not last in one of our bags) cost $1. There was a very limited selection and everything cost 3 times as much as we were used to paying for it. We decided to continue on and get the next grocery store in the next town. This store was a trap for the rich Californian tourists who weren’t sensitive to prices like us. As we left, a fancy Mercedes pulled in with a Beverly Hills Mercedes license plate cover on it which confirmed our theory.
We started out of town through some rolling hills flanked by farmland and cattle ranches. There were occasional stops with informational signs about the first pioneers to cross this territory. We ran into a couple from Quebec who were on a three week tour of the area. They did yearly 3 week tours with the time they had off from work. They said they stayed in calf creek canyon which was just over the hill. They said it was amazing but we didn’t quite expect what was coming over the hill.
We crossed the top of the hill and the road started winding around and down through beautiful colored cliffs. It was a stark contrast to the farmland that we had been going through before. The road was newly paved and the scenery was breathtaking. We continued to descend until we were down in Calf Creek Canyon. The reddish orange rocks surrounded us and greenery grew at the low points. There were people everywhere taking in the scenes. We had unknowingly stumbled through one of the more popular attractions in the area.
We went past the entrance to the main hike and they were turning people away because there wasn’t enough room for all of the cars. We really wanted to stick around and hike but knew that just meant that we needed to add this to our list of places to visit later on in our lives.
We began the ascent out of the canyon with steep cliffs on one side and the canyon on the other. The climb was steep but we didn’t really notice because we were so mesmerized by our surroundings. While riding, a small rock fell off the cliff and hit David on the arm. It wasn’t painful, just surprising. We eventually reached a point where it leveled out. We looked back and saw the sign for cars coming in the opposite direction that warned of the steep road.
After leaving the canyon, we went across some windy roads through farmland. We eventually arrived in Boulder, Utah. We needed groceries so we stopped at the first store. We discovered that it was the same as the other organic grocery store we had stopped at in the morning with a few more convenience items. A small package of Oreos was $7. We decided to continue on into the town to find something else. We eventually found another store that was good enough. Everything was more expensive in this area due to the remoteness. We grabbed some bananas and some other food and went for our classic bagel and peanut butter meal. We ate outside of a museum and were greeted by a dog, Frank. He ran up to us with his slobbery pine cone and got us to throw it to him. He would chase it down and bring it back with an extra drop of slobber and drop it in our hands (not really what we wanted while eating). Eventually the pine cone broke and he switched to trying to steal a bite of bagel from our hands when we weren’t paying attention. We gave him a spoonful of peanut butter instead.
While getting ready to go, a guy a few years older than us came over to talk to us. He had recently moved out here from the east coast and was enjoying the change of scenery. He asked about our trip and we talked about the fun culture associated with bike touring and other outdoorsy hobbies. He also knew the girl that we had run into in Nevada who was preparing for the cross country race, a pretty crazy connection to make.
We left Boulder and started our final hard stretch before our rest day: up and over Boulder mountain. With the sun beating down, we started climbing. We were tired but excited at the thought of rest on the other side. We put our podcasts and audiobooks on and agreed to stop every hour to bunch back up and eat. The temperature slowly dropped as we climbed making the day more comfortable. After a while, we reached a point where we could see the surrounding Utah countryside. The mountain itself was green with pines all over but the red and orange desert like regions were visible in the distance. It was an amazing contrast.
While stopped at one overlook, the family that had given us breakfast burritos at the RV park pulled up. We chatted them for a bit and they wished us luck before continuing past. Another couple who we had briefly talked to while riding that morning. They were new to the idea of bike touring but impressed by our trip and expressed interest in trying it themselves. We talked about our trip and all of the things that go into planning a tour.
Not long after the overlook we reached the summit. It was much colder up there but certainly gratifying to be done with the biggest challenge of the day. We are a quick cold bagel with peanut butter (which was surprisingly satisfying) and got ready to descend. We even got snowed on while up there though it was just a few flurries.
The descent was long and included a few short uphill sections but we were able to coast down and really admire the surroundings. We eventually made it to Torrey, Utah, our final destination. The previous morning we had called the RV parks in the city and they were all full for Memorial Day. We called one and he said he was pretty full but then I mentioned that we were cyclists. He instantly switched his voice and proclaimed, “oh you’re cyclists? Oh yeah we can find a spot for you.” We rode out to the park and he showed us to the campsite. We found some food for supper and then went to bed. We were excited for the chance to be lazy the next day.