Day 68 – 5/20/16
46.9 miles biked
109.1 total

We started out with high hopes of making it all the way to Escalante today, 81 miles away. But then it got windy. Really, really windy. As in, we had to pedal 8% grade downhills windy.

The scenery was lovely, going through Red Canyon and the plateau around Bryce. We even had an actual bike path for around 10 miles. Not a bike lane on the edge of the highway, but an actual separate paves path paralleling the highway. It was great!

By lunch we knew getting to Escalante was not very realistic. We had lunches packed, but went into a Subway just to get out of the wind. The wind just got worse and worse as we continued on through Tropic and then Cannonville. Time to call it a day. But where to sleep? Even if we could find a place to camp it was so windy it wouldn’t have been restful. We shelled out the money for a motel room, twice the price it was during our first time through here on the Hayduke. Tourist season!

Once in the room, I discovered my wallet was missing. When we had been outside my bike had fallen over (there was literally nowhere for me to lean it where the wind wouldn’t knock it over). The pannier containing my wallet had been open at the time…did the wind blow my wallet away? Yes, it had, and amazingly I found it stuck in some weeds at the edge of the parking lot.
Having stopped biking by 3pm, it was a long afternoon and evening. With all that time and nothing to do, I shaved my legs for the first time in a couple years. Now I remember why I don’t bother.