August 5th: Electricity all around...

I feel excited today: from this point forward it is as if we enter a part of Utah the way it is supposed to be - some red rocks, dry and looking a bit like a desert.
Breakfast at the café takes longer than I expected, but we still manage to leave Manti early enough to cycle the first part of the route in the somewhat cooler morning air. Sofie blasts away - I can hardly keep up with her pace and decide to let her go. I enjoy the view of the reservoir and the barren grey hill behind it. In GUNnison we cycle along the central Utah prison - kind of eerie! Road work in Axtell forces us to make a detour to Redmond. Yes, this is the place where the Real Salt originates from. At one point I speed up to get away from the bee which is annoying me by circulating around me. On to Salina where a slice of pizza from the gas station serves as my lunch. From here it's a boring 20 miles to Richfield and I do my best to find distractions along the road. There are the two longhorn cows and I wonder if they are the same ones of last year. I see the Fish Lake plateau in the distance and wonder how the ride will be... I'm slowly catching Sofie who's speed is dropping while the temperature is rising, the grade is getting a bit steeper and the wind is blowing a bit stronger. The bridge of the Interstate is a welcome shady place, but we know we cannot linger here too long. The red mountain to our right is fascinating at first, but after looking at it for more than 30 minutes the wow is gone! At last we reach the rather big town of Richfield. A room in the Comfort Inn offers us the possibility to cool off. I still feel very energetic and I drag Sofie to Wal-Mart. A sudden stomach ache sends Sofie back to the hotel. After my shopping I know things are not right: a dust wall is approaching from the south! This means lots of wind and the black sky brings rain or even worse ... thunderstorm. I try to run to the hotel, but one block short of it I have to seek cover for the lightning, wind and rain. Guess I couldn't find a safer spot: an electric appliance shop with TVs and computers, but also furniture to relax in. The door of the shop is thrown open and closed by the wind, the TVs and computer flicker off and on when power is lost and turned on again. The saleswoman wonders if she needs to turn them all of and she also offers me something to drink. Luckily the storm is short and after only 10 minutes or so I dare to go outside again. I notice the police is now leading the traffic around a cable which is lying on the street. A vision of cables trying to grab people sparks up in my imagination... I wonder how Sofie did in the hotel room...did the window hold??? I find her still in bed, still sick. Time for me to relax also while viewing the Little House on the Prairie... The soup and bagel form Albertsons is a great evening dinner for me.

August 4th: A fight with a Mc.Flurry with m&m's

Today the members of the volleyball team at home started their first practise and I couldn't resist to tease them a little and send a text message, wishing them good luck being sore!
Today US 89 was our route again, this time going south as this is the main direction of our trip.
After the 2nd mile, Sofie was already 500 meters ahead of me. Suddenly three young men on bicycles passed me and I decided to draft them... We flew by Sofie who was too amazed too jump on the train. Almost in Mt. Pleasant (again the mountain!) I let them go and waited for Sofie. This town is rather big - it even has a Family Dollar which we had to check out: they still sell the same goods, but at least the shop was arranged somewhat different.
The roadsurface to Ephraim, a college town, was chipsealed. We had another Mc. Donalds event in this town: I went for the coke float while Sofie chose the Mc. Flurry with m&m's.
The ride to Manti was easy for me, altough the heat was building and the air became hot. I heard some yelling in Manti and noticed a swimming pool! That looked like fun, I thought, until Sofie joined me. She had a fight with the Mc. Flurry along the road and didn't feel that well. A cool room helped. And instead of going swimming in nice cold water, we trotted to the laundromat, where it's usually hot.
The valley we cycled through today is known for Mormon Pioneer towns. Manti even has a big white tabernacle towering on a hill.
That evening we updated our adventures with NCIS, on TV.

August 3rd: It's not really Electric lake, but...

Wham, last evening I fell asleep at 8.30 pm! In the middle of the night I heard some banging on the door next to our room, but I did not peek out the window to look what was happening. Sofie slept through all of that noise!
The oatmeal breakfast cookie is one of the best breakfast to have with you on the trip: lightweight, but filling, which was what one needs when going to climb.
Yes, today a pack free climb was scheduled: seeing Electric lake along the scenic byway in Huntington Canyon. To reach this lake we had to climb 10% and 12%. On the left side of the canyon was a stone wall, on the right you could hear a creek running down, but you could not see it since bushes were covering it. The climbing was steep, but traffic was light! The scenery gradually changed from rocks to birch trees to open spaces with purple and yellow wildflowers. So far this was the best climb of the trip. We finally reached the top at 2810 m: a wild dance was in order to celebrate this achievement. Here we had an awesome view of the Sanpete valley where our motel was. A perfect place to lunch. Both of us agreed not to ride on to Electric Lake (this meant going down for 7 miles...and going back up those 7 miles). We were happy as it was! Came the great downhill into the valley: from breezy air to hairdryer hot wind! Sofie learned this the hard way and sweated the last fast miles on the road. That might been the reason why she took a nap in the middle of the afternoon, while I watched some TV. Dinner was across the street: on mondays there are not too many people eating out!

August 2nd: Shrinked lama's?

We left town around 9 am and started immediately with a climb through a rocky canyon. I always imagine mountain lions lurking behind rocks...
While climbing I tried not to push too hard on the kiddy pedal... It seemed to work: no weird cracking noises anymore.
After reaching the top, we flew through the town of Fountain Green. On our way to Moroni our eyes caught something strange: what kind of animals are those? We still don't know if they were shrinked lama's or lambs with a long neck! At least the turkeyfarms were normal! We had a gas station stop with lemonade and nuts before we headed towards Mt. Pleasant... (that big mountain we have to climb, Sofie!). Sundays in Utah are very quiet - one can really tell the difference from other days in the week. So instead of concentrating on traffic, I tried not to cycle over too many grasshoppers and I also enjoyed the many butterflies along the road. The steady uphill to Mt. Pleasant (yes, indeed, it was uphill) was warm and without any shady places. At the junction with US 89 we turned north to reach the small town of Fairview: there is indeed not too much to see there, but the cafe across Skyline motel has a lot of customers on sundays (it's also the only cafe in town).

An uneventful day

It's already August!
Our ride today took us, this sunday morning, through Santaquin. They were celebrating something over there, 'cause some of the floats of the parade in Salt Lake City had passed us and people were sitting on their lawn chairs as we cycled by. We did the special parade hand wave to the people.
Santaquin is getting bigger every year - you now find horse corals surrounded by new houses. It looks a bit sad to see the horses near buildings.
Our route parallelled the Interstate going to St. George, which was the reason there was hardly any traffic.
Along the road we saw some fruit orchards and later on a lavender farm. In the small town of Mona, just in front of Mt. Nebo, there is a place where you can eat ice cream or have a coke float. From there on my Sweet Machine started to make some noise again. As we reached Nephi, my right pedal was really doing funny things. So while Sofie cooled of in the pool, I cleaned my Sweet Machine, took of the pedals, put them back on, cycled to a hardware store where they sold some pedals for 6 dollars and changed the one I thought was broken. With some ties I managed to put the clip back on. Tomorrow will be the test: is it only the pedal or is something else wrong?

July 31st: Our first Mc.Donalds

A note about yesterday's ride: saw the worst case of road kill - a dead horse!!!

Riding from Provo to Springville takes you along the Juvenile Correctional Facility. Not really the place to spend time. Most of the towns we cycle along, are surrounded by new houses, new businesses and the big department stores like Kmart or WalMart. The center of town is usually looking dead - windowshopping is not done here: the most shopkeepers need a course on how to promote the goods they sell. Maybe my school can organize a course here? It's a bit sad, 'cause the older buildings look nicer!

Sofie lead again - following her guts and her feeling of direction. She took me through farmland, over and under the Interstate, until we reached Payson.

Lunch here was at Dalton's family restaurant: Sofie chose a chowder soup, followed by... a hot chocolate, while I got new energy from an avacado/turkey/cream cheese bagel. Yes, all that stuff was on my bagel! At the restaurant some people came up to us and asked about our trip - they all wished us good luck.

We spent our afternoon in the library, catching up with friends and updating the blog.

Yes, our dinner came from Mc. Donalds, just across from our bed.

July 30th: Life on the edge

Boy, no breakfast food in the kitchen this morning. It's back to our good old (well, not too old) oatmeal cookies we have sitting in our packs.
For fun I headed on the road towards Mirror Lake, waiting for Sofie to yell me back... but she kept following me...
Sweet Machine is squeeking: I think it's got something to do with the pedal and I hope it's not the bottom brakcet. Anyways... I need a mechanic to check on him.
The ride to Heber City was fascinating: a 10% downhill for half a mile, followed by some climbing. We could see Jordanelle reservoir again - this time from the other side. On top we could see the dam and Provo river. You could also hear the people playing on the water. Our fun came also: a two mile fast downhill for 8%.
Heber City became our pit stop and bicycle shop stop. The mechanic tried to ride Sweet Machine fully loaded and he almost tumbled to the ground! I took over, but strangely, Sweet Machine refused to make any noise at all. I kept telling it felt like the pedal, but he focused on my old chain. Anyways, he tightened the bottom bracket somewhat.
Back on the road - on US 89 down Provo canyon - we needed all our concentration on the traffic. Next to us was Deer Creek Reservoir - an awesome waterbody with high mountains in the background - but we had not much joy of it. There was no shoulder on this part of the road and the roadsurface next to the white line had lots of holes and the traffic was horrible fast! We were so glad to survive these 4 miles. Finally, the road in the canyon was much better - well, at least we had a wide shoulder and the cars could race each other on two lanes down and two lanes up. We heared the Heber Valley train whistling in the far distance: hurry over, crossing four lanes of traffic, to watch it in the narrow canyon. We noticed there was a bike path here and claimed our territory: cars keep out - this is ours. Well, not for long...'cause a dog suddenly jumped out of a house. I shouted 'Stay - good dog" (he did stay) a couple of times, when suddenly a woman came out, telling us we were on private property. So it was back to the four lane road, cycling on the wide shoulder which had plenty of broken parts of cars on it, making it hard for us to go down fast.
We passed Vivian Park ( a mistake) and a few miles further we viewed Bridal Veils Fall from a distance - between cars racing up and down. As we looked in the woods we noticed another bike path and yes, a good mile later we were able to get on it. It actually starts at Vivian Park and takes you the rest of the way through the canyon into Provo-Orem.
Provo is a big city - spread out - well known for the Brigham Young University (yesss.... another bookstore to visit). The center is somewhat lost - maybe because there are no students now or maybe we see it in the middle of the day when it's too hot to be outside.
Our dinner that night was excellent at the Olive garden - and Sofie did not deserve a dessert: she did not eat all her food!

July 29th: Is there a bison along the road?

Today was the big day. Mirror lake - here I finally come! From Kamas leads a scenic highway high up into the mountains. First you pass the small town of Samak (yes... it is Kamas read the other way!) where they have a neat smoke house with tasty goodies inside.

Every 2 miles I stopped and wrote down our elevation. Whoever wants to ride their car on this scenic byway has to pay 6 dollars for 3 days. Luckily, the lady in the booth along the road let us go. Just as we got in, a deer jumped over the road! We ended at mile 23, still 9 miles from the lake, at an elevation of 2660 meters. By then I was a bit tired of seeing the same scenery all the time: winding roads and pine trees. I was a bit disappointed but I guess the nicest scenery was still to come. But at almost 1 p.m. I was eager to head down - also watching the clouds in the sky. Lucky us... while racing down (learning to draft) I suddenly noticed a young moose hidden behind the trees. Slammed the brakes and returned to see if I was not delirious from the oxygen shortage. No way... it was a moose and I bet mama moose was somewhere around. We enjoyed this moment for a while... noticing no drivers in the passing cars saw what we did! Somewhat further down the road a couple of big fat raindrops hit my helmet: good thing we were not high up in the mountain anymore - it looked eerie up there. Our luck of seeing wildlife was not gone yet as I suddenly yelled out to Sofie:"Kiek, kiek, kiek". Turns out she was looking for chicken while I was pointing her some strange looking brown birds with long necks, just walkin in the high, wet grassland. Turns out it were sandcranes - the lady in the booth told us so. And for good luck: our morning deer jumped out on the road again as we were leaving the payed highway. Thought this was a pretty good show! After seeing all that wildlife, Sofie confessed that this morning, while cycling uphill, she had noticed some black thing along the road and had cycled somewhat faster, scared it was some bison again. Turned out it was a big rock!
Samak smoke house became our hot chocolate stop (yes - it is still over 30 degrees out but Sofie enjoys hot chocolate everywhere).
Back "home" we relaxed in the garden again - making sudoku's or crosswords, read somewhat and I played with the horseshoes again but had no luck throwing that thing around the stick.
A dinner of ravioli with raw carrots ended may day. I guess, we would get the price making the weirdest dinnercombinations!

July 28th: Horseshoe's and other garden games

I got up early and fetched our bagels from the Einstein Bagel company down the road. I know by now that Sofie will never be disappointed if there is something chocolate in it.
Our start took us along a different bike path, this one towards US 40. Busy it was with joggers, cyclists and people who took their dogs out. We cycled one mile on gravel to UT 248. Boy, this route did not meet my expectations! In my dreams I thought this was going to be a quiet roadway, in barren surroundings. Well, it was a quite busy road and it is all ready to be exploited. Roads are already laying out... the housing still has to come. I guess Park City being so closeby and the views on Jordanelle Reservoir State Park makes it a place to bloom in the next couple of years. Signs for deer to cross at certain points are dotted along the roadside; I just hope the deer know this! The Provo River gives it water to this reservoir, made by a dam, and necessary for the water in the surrounding towns and cities. So it was a climb with a view... On the other side of the hilltop lays Summit Valley. On one of the slopes stood the letters S S ... referring to South Summit, I later learned. The valley is irrigated which gives excellent opportunities for farming. We arrived way too early at the Inn. Scoop out town , we said. Well, Kamas is a very small town, but it did have a library (but only a short time limit on the computers - not like here in Payson). What to do next? More walking ... and eating lunch. What a blast was that. Our waiter expected us to choose from the menu but instead we ordered a coke float (my favourite) and Sofie had a white lady (dame blanche) with a cherry on top (o no, they were out of cherries, instead the waiter arrange for a raspberry). The price of our lunch was ridiculously low.
We waited in front of the Inn till 2.30 p.m. We finally were able to see our majestic room . We enjoyed the afternoon sitting, playing and reading in the lovely garden.
Dinner at 5.50 p.m. was in the local shop. The burgers there were voted best of Utah 2009 ... who would miss such an opportunity?
Sometimes we have bright ideas and that evening was one of them: lets rent a DVD! What a bummer was that! The movie "Australia" was hard to follow in the beginning, but once we understood what was going on, the DVD played tricks on us... making watching irritable. Instead of finishing the 2 hours 30 minutes movie we went to bed.