Mechanical Maintenance Morning

We woke up at 5 and have had our slowest morning to date. In the first 10 miles, we've had a flat, two chains fall off (minor issue) and a chain break (much more involved repair) - Which Alec was able to fix, woohoo! My flat (my first of the trip) happened from some sort of sharp thing that flew up and hit Alec in the chest! Oops, sorry Al. I didn't notice the flat until halfway up a big hill, and Alec was a little too far ahead to hear me (he always waits at the top for me), and was without cell service, so I walked up the rest. When we were fixing the flat a big semi pulled over to see if we needed anything. We were really tempted to hop in for a ride.. We didn't but he did give us a Gatorade. Really nice!

Our route today had a TON of climbing and was one of our hardest days. It was hot and Alec didn't want to put sunscreen on his wounds (that he insists I caused by running over him..!) so he wore a long sleeve shirt and covered half his face with a bandana. 

We stopped in the only town of the day, Blanding, to grab some food. We stopped into the dinosaur museam too. 

And we had to sign the visitor book. Also, the lady working there gave us free passes, awesome. 

Right after waving goodbye to Blanding, which we knew would be our last town and services for 140 miles (except for water that night at our campsite), we ran into a fellow bike tourist, Neil, headed east. He started in San Fransisco and is headed to Shelton, CT where he lives, so we are basically on the same route just different directions! He was a cool guy, and did the entire ACA Trans-Am route last summer, and says he'd go cross country again after this trip. Wow, go Neil. 

And as always, we were excited to see this sign. Alec is giving a fist pump of elation and success. 

Our second to last downhill of the day!

And after cutting through this mountain we had a our last downhill... 

And then we climbed..

And climbed...

And climbed. 

And then after a short downhill and a couple short up hills we got to the campsite, woohoo! We were pretty exhausted. We camped at Natural Bridges State (National??) Park. And it has just what it sounds like - natural bridges! They are really cool and were formed, basically, when the river got too lazy to keep winding back and forth an just cut straight through (over a long long time). Cool stuff!

Daily stats:

Mileage: 56.5

Average speed: 8.9

Elevation gain: 4140

Haiku:

Cutting through canyons,

Climbing red rocks in July,

Utah services...?