Jeremy's Bike Blog

The WordPress Android app is SUPER frustrating to use with poor internet and posts with pictures.

I’ll try and add the pictures later, but I’m giving up on including them for the time being. 😦

After a luxurious night in the La Quinta, the morning consisted of a superfluous shower, gorging on the complimentary breakfast, saying farewell to Geoff and Janet with promises to get together during forthcoming trip by the latter to Seattle, re-organizing gear and reattaching fenders resulting in lots of little chunks of dried orange mud on hotel room floor interspersed with flopping on bed and basking in the high quality of La Quinta’s mattresses, and running some errands.  These errands consisted of getting an AC-USB power adapter and a rear view mirror, both replacements for ones I’d recently lost, and getting some general provisions at City Market.  Gabby joined me for these, and when we witnessed the gravity of the traffic getting out of Moab on a Sunday afternoon following the car show of the previous day, we resolved to get underway as quickly as possible.

Gabby was heading North for a few days of kiteboarding in Hood River and then catching a ship to Antarctica from BC, as she does a few times a year as part of her work.  She offered to give me a ride West a ways, which I took up in a 50 mile lift from Moab to Green River, the town, which is just over Green River, the river, along which we’d been cycling for the latter half of our trip along the White Rim.

For whatever reason (subconscious petulance?) I did a terrible job of scouting a route and choosing a point at which to be dropped off, so we found a somewhat arbitrary spot in town and said our goodbyes.  With my phone on which I’d cached some Google Maps, I found a road directly out of town, labeled “County Road” that eventually met up with highway 24 to Hanksville.  I opted to follow this road and avoid cycling on the interstate.  In hindsight, a much more expedient option would have been to have Gabbie drop me off at the junction of highway 24 and I-70.

The road started as paved, then became gravel, then became dirt.  Beyond a washout to which the road ran perpendicular and ostensibly crossed, there was no road whatsoever, just a smattering of dirt bike tracks, at times diverging and of those times, occasionally reconverging.  These led up into and along another washout, within which I pushed my bike through loose, dry sand.  When this terminated in a dead-end slot of 5+ foot walls, I hoisted my bike out and concluded that I had definitely lost “County Road”.

I had been using my phone that hasn’t been working very well for cellular data.  It should be T-Mobile through Google Fi, but perhaps because it has the same number I used before I switch from T-Mobile directly, it often stubbornly refuses to obtain cellular data coverage while my backup phone, for which I have a Google Fi data-only SIM card, connects fine.   Seeing a cell phone tower in the not-very distance, I turned on data on my backup phone and sure enough, I had full LTE coverage.  Using satellite image maps I could determine I was indeed about halfway between “County Road” and “State Road”, but if I followed the now improving tracks to the cell tower, it would lead me to “State Road” which would lead to highway 24, which is the road to Hanksville that I should have taken all along.

So, why the big and largely contrived mis-adventure?  Was I craving the excitement of deliberating whether I would be able to connect up or whether I should cut my losses and head back to Green River as I pushed my bike through sand too soft to ride on?  Why was I making this more difficult than it needed to be?

Gabby introduced me to the notion of type 2 fun.  Type 1 fun is just fun fun, like jet skiing, or snowboarding.  Type 2 fun is not actually all that fun while it’s happening, like, say, getting lost out of bounds when snowboarding, but is fun and satisfying to reflect upon after it’s happened.  So, maybe I’m a fan of type 2 fun, and I contrive these minor misadventures in order to obtain it.

That said, upon getting to highway 24, and feeling the bike fly across the large shouldered, lightly trafficked asphalt, I resolved to make a point of presenting myself and my progress with fewer obstacles from there on out.  I have plenty of ground to cover, and no doubt will have opportunity to surmount plenty of non-contrived obstacles, so diversions such as this one are not an ideal use of time or energy.  But, looking back on it, yeah, that was pretty fun.

As dusk settled, I got to the entrance to Goblin Valley State Park and waved down a vehicle that was coming from there and turning onto highway 24.  The two young couples reported that while it was paved the entire way, it was 8 miles that I’d have to double back, and $20 to camp for the night.  One of them suggested that I could probably just camp anywhere, to which I grinned sheepishly and said “Yeah, I suppose so”.

I continued on the road and found another road that seemed to eventually lead to The Maze district of Canyonlands.  I cycled in about a half mile to get away from any car noise from highway 24 (though the cars all but stopped passing after sunset), found a turnout that had been established by some kind of vehicles (to try and minimize new crypto-soil damage), and set up camp.

I slept excellently, interrupted only once by what looked like a big rig, but must have been a horse trailer headed to highway 24 along the dirt road.  I was pretty disoriented when it woke me up, and for a moment it looked like it was headed straight for me, but I would bet good money that it didn’t notice me at all, panier bag reflectors notwithstanding.

I woke up, packed up, and noticed about a dozen of these black, pincer bearing, fuzzy feet having, cricket type things ambling about in my general vicinity.

It was a glorious morning, and even though it was still another 20 miles to Hanksville, I was happy on my breakfast of beef jerky dipped in peanut butter and sprinkled with corn nuts.  I rolled into Hanksville and the Slickrock Diner, where I ate breakfast #2 (standard cowboy) and got a refill on my coffee after most every sip I took by a woman that was probably 10-20 years my senior, and so pretty that I felt a bit bashful and had to make an effort to maintain eye contact when returning her smile.

I stayed there for about 2 hours, typing away, trying futilely to get their internet to upload my previous post, downloading new podcasts, Spotify tracks, and Google Maps tiles, and deliberating whether to continue on 24 going West, or to take 95 going South.  I opted for the first option and then went to the town grocer, who also had internet and sold pizza by the slice.  So I got a slice for lunch #1, and made another attempt to upload my post.  It succeeded, and when I complimented the lady at the counter for having the best internet in town (I’d also tried an open network for a motel across the street from the diner), she said, somewhat proud and defiant, but sweetly “Oh, I don’t even have a cell phone or a credit card.  My kids keep telling me I should get a phone, but I’ve got a land line and no use for any of that modern stuff”

Lot’s of rolling hills and cloud dappled, sunny blue skies for many miles.  At one point I had the unlikely good fortune to have a rain letting cloud in my vicinity (not directly above) letting fat little droplets down on me, but from my perspective coming down in an arc against a backdrop of radiant blue sky, and set sparkling from the side by direct sunlight, so that it looked like I was being showered with glistening little diamonds.  It felt pretty great too.  It also happened that I was on a long ~5% descent when it was happening, so I could (after verifying there were no potholes or cars for at least half a minute in either direction) lean back in my saddle propping myself up with hands on my rear saddle bags and enjoy the spectacle.

I stopped for lunch at about 4 in the first shade available for several miles.

As the sun was beginning to set, I came upon the entrance to Capitol Reef National Park, of whose existence I was unaware the day before, and so named for domes that look like a capitol building, and because sailors turned land-explorers would use the term “reef” to describe undulating hills and cliffs such as these.  There were ancient petroglyphs and old Mormon settlements to marvel at every couple of miles.  In a river valley with a late 18th/early 19th century settlement called Fruita was the National Park Visitors Center, and a mile down a spur road from that was a campground.  There were no limit of non-campground camping options for me and my bicycle, but there was also no shortage of signs admonishing people to only camp at designated sites.

Whereas I’ve been the only person at every campground that I’ve stayed so far, this campground had a sign up reporting that it was full.  It also said that sites were $20 each, which is a bargain for the site capacity of a camper trailer, 2 vehicles and 8 people, but not so much for a solo person on a bicycle.  Oh well, I’ll cruise the grounds and see if there are any sites anyways.  I no sooner pull away from the information kiosk than Kerry asks if I need a spot to stay.   I say I do, and ask if he’s the campground host, but he’s not.  He and his wife Judy are vacationing from Minnesota with their trailer and are happy to have me join them on their site.  I instigate some awkward discussion of contributing to the cost of the site which Kerry deftly dismisses as unecessary.  Judy offers me a beer, which I gladly accept, and when she brings out from their trailer a delicious can of EPA from their home state, it comes with a helping of cheese and crackers, which augmented with a self-provided granola bar, constitutes my dinner.

They build a small camp fire (my first camp fire of the trip) and we sit around making pleasant conversation, and to my credit I only space out once in mid-sentence, apologizing for forgetting what I was saying.  The beer hit me a bit hard after a 60 mile day in almost constant sun.  Judy brings out helpings of a small cherry pie they had purchased earlier in the day from a bakery on the road into the campground, and it is delightful, with a tart filling and the sweetness provided primarily by the buttery flakey crust.

As we wish each other good night, they retire to their trailer, me to my sack.