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!