Picture time! (...again)

Ok, so a bit more on the happenings since leaving Denver:

Hotchkiss is a beautiful area about 55 miles southeast of Grand Junction, CO. Jonathan, Matthew, and Colin live outside of town up on Redlands Mesa (at about 6,000 ft. - a good 1,000 ft. above the surrounding valley floor). That area is semi-arid desert, getting drier as you move west from there. The mesas in the area (there are many) are fairly well-watered, so there are a good number of smaller farming operations, many of them organic (including the vineyard that Jonathan, Matthew, and Colin all live and work at). While they were working, I spent my time hanging out, doing some maintenance on the bike, baking a little, reading, and enjoying the area. Friday night, though, we drove north to Grand Mesa - the world's largest flattop mountain, stretching all the way up to Grand Junction, much of it at 10,000 ft. or above. We hiked in just a couple miles and camped Friday night, enjoying our spaghetti inside the tent is rain came as soon as we finished cooking. Google (Colin's 6 month old puppy - half lab, half blue heeler) came, too, of course. Saturday we then hiked about 8 1/2 more miles total, following a ridge up to an 11,200 ft. peak, where we enjoyed lunch before taking the ridge the rest of the way back to the trailhead. The ridge trail was often no more than 3 or 4 ft. wide, with the sides going down with at least and 80 degree angle on either side about 1,000 ft. to the valley below. It was kind of nerve-wracking at times. It felt good to get down from there.

*The trail along the ridge

I got on my bicycle last Sunday around 10:00AM and rode about 75 miles until I found a decent camp spot along the road in what looks like an old, abandoned RV campground. I was smart enough to forget my tent poles in Denver (though they got shipped to Nate in Salt Lake City, so I have them again), so I got to rig my tent up by tying together a few sticks into a frame at either end, using guy-lines to keep them upright, and clipping my tent onto a central rope with carabiners. It took an hour, but it worked (kept the tent and bugs out of my face). The last town (until reaching Moab!) before that was Fruita, CO -10 miles back- so I loaded up about 3 gallons of water in preparation for Monday's ride (which would take me the final 90 miles to Moab).

*This is what a tent looks like when you don't have any poles for it. Luckily it didn't rain so I didn't need the fly.

Monday, I arranged with Nate to be picked up right around where Utah state highway 128 hits I-70 - about half the of that day's distance to Moab - so I wouldn't have to bike a 90 mile day in 100 - 105 degree heat. I did a 25 mile stint on the interstate (it's allowed there because it's the ONLY road anywhere nearby), got off, and found a dry creek bed that had fairly vertical walls, maybe 8 feet across, and was about 5 feet deep. By then it was 1:00PM and I was tired, hungry, and hot. I got out the tent fly and tied it up to bushes on either side of the creek bed to give me a nice patch of shade I could rest in (tall enough to sit up in, long enough to lay down in).

I hung out until about 4:00, and then climbed a hill so I could get service to call Nate to see if they were getting close. After a late start, they were just getting close to Moab to find a campsite before meeting me. I decided to go ahead and start biking towards Moab to cut off some time. 128 is a beautiful, winding road, following the Colorado River through a deep canyon, and I made it about 15 miles before I got picked up. It was a nice ride. Hot as hell on a bad day, but nice. I had about a cup of water left when I got picked up. I had been getting nervous about that.

After a supper of sandy hot dogs prepared by Mitch and Amber (they had stayed at camp to set up), we did a modest hike to a nearby cliff face, and we ended up kind of losing our way in the dark on the walk back to the campsite - had to find the "road" and work our way from there. No worries, though, we found it easily enough. About the campsite - we were camping (for free) on Bureau of Land Management land about halfway between Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, some distance west of Moab. To get there, you turned off the state highway onto a tiny dirt road, drove 3 miles, and turned onto an even tinier dirt road. Needless to say, nobody else was around. At night, when we weren't talking, the loudest noise was the campfire; it was incredible.

The next day, we packed the bikes (everyone brought theirs!) into the car, loaded up the water bottles and some food, and drove to Arches National Park. We biked the 12 miles or so to the opposite end of the park and spent probably 3 hours (noon - 3) just sitting in the shade at "Sand Dune Arch" where it was only a chilly 85 degrees in the shade on the sand and rock. We did a couple short hikes out to various arches/viewpoints along the way, having started biking by 7:30AM or so to avoid some of the heat. We then biked back to the car, roasting in the sun, but luckily coasting for pretty much the second half of the way back (we had a couple serious climbs in both directions). We finished the day jumping into a several-acre reservoir ("Ken's Lake") a ways south of town. It was cold and amazing and refreshing (though I still smelled bad after three days of biking in intense heat with no shower). 

The next day we drove through Canyonlands National Park (no bikes this time), did several easy-ish hikes off the road to certain viewpoints, and proceeded to spend the hottest part of the day hanging out on the shore of Ken's Lake. Schedule at lake: jump in, swim briefly, get out and wait the 15 mins. it took to dry, apply sunscreen, sit until you were too hot and had to jump in again, repeat (5 - 6x... we were there almost 6 hrs). Didn't even get sunburned. That evening, as the sun was lowering (but not the temperature by much), we drove back into Arches and went and hiked into a couple more viewpoints to get some neat pictures as the sun went down and we were out of the park just after it got dark.

Thursday we ended up packing up and driving up to Salt Lake City (where Mitch and Amber and Nate had met up before coming to Moab), and we have basically just been hanging out and doing a couple short hikes since then. Yesterday was a bit different though.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we went to a baseball game last night - the Salt Lake Bees against whatever Tacoma's minor league team is. The game started at 7:00PM. At 10:00, the 10th inning started. It was finally over after the 12th inning at 11:45. We stayed for the 30 min fireworks show afterwards, which was accompanied by a fairly cliché medley of America-praising/mentioning songs (ROCK in the USA, etc.). It started with the William Tell Overture, which was soon followed by the country song "Proud to be an American." Okay. That made sense, sure. What did *not* make sense, though, was the short segment in between those two songs of Lenny Kravitz' cover of "American Woman." Wasn't that a protest song? Hm. Whatever. I guess it says something about something American, so it must be patriotic, right?

Anyhow, now here I am, hanging out at Nate's sister's house. Our train leaves at 11:30 tonight (assuming it's not late... right...), so we should be starting on our bicycles by Tuesday morning along the California coast. It looks like it will be a lot busier than the ride in Kansas (...duh...?), but we still pass through some very small quaint-looking towns. And San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

And now, just a few more pictures to incite jealousy:

*The view from our lunch break on Grand Mesa at the peak along the ridge (the lake below is about 1,000 ft. almost straight down)

*Group picture! (at the end of the first evening hike from our campsite)

*A view in Canyonlands Nat'l Park (framed by some arch across the top)

*Sun going down Weds eve in Arches Nat'l Park

*One of three of these little guys we found in our campsite Weds night/Thurs morning. Cute, huh?