118 miles today in total - a stunning day for riding, bright blue skies, moderate tailwind, and temps in the 70s. I just concentrate on the 15 miles between rest stops and fortunately most of today's climbing was in the morning so we knocked a lot of it down before lunch. Monument Valley was amazing - the rock formations are spectacular and just seem to rise from the ground with nothing but sagebrush around them. Mexican Hat is tiny, but the colors in the hills around it are incredible, particularly in late afternoon. I'm most familiar with it because a major bus crash happened near here in 2008 that's kind of a rural EMS case study - which is ironic, because we waited about 45min for an ambulance today for one of our group that was run off the road by a car (all he remembers was a car coming across the white shoulder line). Thank god for helmets... He is maintaining a great attitude and should make a full recovery but is being transferred to a trauma center for further care - we'll miss him and it was a sobering end to the day - could have been any of us... Most drivers have been very good around the bikes, but it only takes one... Walking back from our steak dinner we could see the monument formations in silhouette against the horizon twilight with a quarter moon setting - beautiful... hoping for a safe and inspiring ride tomorrow - 102 miles but 114 if we go to 4 corners - and most of the climbing at the end tomorrow - I'd better rest up - thanks for following my journey! we're about 25% done :)
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| Shade is good! |
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| Some of the group as we enter Utah - on to Colorado tomorrow! |
Yikes. Sorry to hear about your fellow rider. The menace of distracted driving.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to your daily update with a history lesson to boot! I have plotted out your journey so far on google maps. Amazing how far you can get on a bike.
very cool, thanks so much for following Andy!
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