Suck it up already!

After a lousy night of sleep, I was on the fence about going on a 20-mile bike ride in 90 + degree weather.  Despite my belly aching, we went for it and it ended up being well worth it.  There was a bear of hill that we climbed to its peak called the split divide, and then started this long down hill.  We coasted down it with speed, which was exhilarating at first, but then it quickly dawned on us that we had to go back up it with the sun starting to beat down.  We started planning different ways to get cars to pick us up and bring us back.  I waved at every car just be safe.  Long story short, the hill wasn’t that bad because the decline wasn’t steep, it was just long and gradual.   Funny enough, when we finally reached the split divide, and started back down hill, our trip was much longer.  Here were a few of the vistas. 

 Egyptian Temple

 Split Divide... we started way back there in the distance.

 

When we got back to camp, we hit the stream one more time.  I love this.  It brings me back to that time as a kid when you would play in streams for hours, moving rocks around, making dams, and throwing mud around.  Mike on the other hand treated it like a day at the spa.

 Chillin'

 

Next stop, not sure.  We wanted to get north, but we weren’t sure how long it would take us.  We took some non-highway routes that had more views and were more relaxing.  By the way, tons of cattle ranches and alfalfa farms in Utah.  Along the way, we stopped here for some jerky.  Mike picked up some cajun Elk and garlic buffalo.  In addition to the jerky, the proprietor had the strongest handshake ever.  I should have taken his picture, but his sign will have to do.

 Advertising 101

 

As we traveled north we bypassed Salt Lake City and took I-80 east, which is the way to all the ski destinations.  Not a very memorable journey except all the dead deer on the side of the road.  We saw an inviting reservoir in Echo, but somehow took the wrong turn.  This really took the wind out of my sails since the next turn around was 5 miles away and I was sweating up a storm.   When we turned around, we noticed that there was a river so we checked it out.  It was moving fast, but we didn’t care.  We then noticed some people tubing through and our eyes lit up like pinball machines.  We tried to swim float it, but knew that the float would make it great. Mike made the call to use his inflatable Thermarests so we ran back to Olive and grabbed them and walked up the road.  After dodging a few fly fishermen, we hit a mini set of rapids.  Mike was thrown from his vessel, which was hilarious from my view, but unfortunately, he got dinged up. 

 Youch!

 

After crossing back and forth between Utah and Wyoming (more farmlands), we finally reached Allred Flats campground in the pitch dark.  First beware of bears sign.  Yes, I’m scared… more so than when I saw the Grizzly at Sam’s Town.