We left Baker (a little later than we wanted) and headed down the road towards Milford, Utah. Only 6 miles into the day, we hit the milestone of the Utah state border, our third state!

After the border, we went through a small town called Garrison which consisted of a Mormon church, a few houses, and a Utah DOT building. Fortunately, we had just enough food to get us to Milford.

We had 75 miles (85 on the day) and three peaks between us and our next destination. The scenery changes almost immediately. There was less sage brush and more flat barren desert. The first climb was less of a peak and more of a long slow ascent. Over 15 miles, we went up over 1000 ft. That is much worse than having a short steep climb. On either side of us, ground squirrels would flee back to their holes. The burrows dotted the roadways throughout our entire day. Some of the burrows even went under the road causing some of it to collapse.

We were going through water faster than we had the previous days in Nevada but we had brought more than a gallon each and had a water filter with us. Nevada was cooler and rainier and Utah had just started and was very sunny and much warmer.

We noticed that the climbs and descents were getting steeper. Our previous top speed was 46 mph. On our second descent we hit 51.3mph, a speed that felt comfortable but also made us worry a little about bumps and rocks in the road.

This area of the country has a lot of open ranching. Cattle are allowed to freely roam and then are rounded up when the time comes. Many of the fences were built to keep cattle out and not to keep them in. We dodged cattle guards on the road periodically. If you don’t line your tires up correctly with the bars, you get a jarring series of bumps. We would often see cows grazing near the road and watching us warily as we went by. They tended to stay in the higher elevation areas where there was more shelter and growth. Some would run away as we went by while others would moo at us.

Towards the end of one valley we came across a white house with a big tree in front of it. We had been told there was a well here with water so we decided to stop and look around.

The inside was very dilapidated and had graffiti. There was a mildew covered mattress and some other worn out furniture

We looked around the corral and the other run down farming equipment and couldn’t find anything resembling a well. A few broken hoses suggested that the well was gone.

We climbed the final hill before Milford and found another touring cyclist. He was a 68 year old retired man from San Francisco who has been on the same route as us and started only a few days earlier. He was traveling with a friend who had gone ahead. They had been in the same places as us for a while but were getting up earlier than us.

We took the long descent into Milford and then decided it would be good to figure out where to stay before it got dark. We looked at some of the parks as we went through and found some parks. We got burritos at the local Mexican restaurant and then found the much needed grocery store because food was at the top of our list. We had almost depleted our stores of food during that day. We discussed how we were gonna find a place to stay while walking through the grocery store at 8pm. While checking out, as if she knew we were trying to figure a place to stay out, our cashier asked if we were gonna staying the free RV Park. Surprised, we said that that sounded great. We asked for more details and she told us that all of the bikers camp out there and it was free. The RV Park was mostly gravel but we could set our tents up in the grass on the edge of the park. Ev ruthing was in sight of the entrance to the grocery store. It was a great way to end an 805 mile day. Once again, we started towards a town with no idea where we would stay and found one while there or on the way.

We set up our camp as it got dark and ate the cookies and other junk food that we found on the discount and day old rack of the grocery store. It was another cold desert night but we were very happy to have progressed to a new state and to have come across good fortune yet again on the trip.