Bryce Canyon

Watch out.
We went to Bryce Point to watch the sunset. From left to right: Jocelyn, Peter, Alyssa, Joe, Daniela, Andreas. It was a great group. We had a huge feast that night, cooking all the strange random foods we had all brought.

the CYST

Its been a traumatic few days here in dry Utah country.

My butt cyst came back. Scientific name, pilonidal cyst. It is not a glamorous or 'cool' injury. Well it kept getting worse and worse until we were camping at Bryce Canyon (beautiful) with Andreas, Peter and Joe. By then it hurt so bad that I was popping Daniela's Oxy just to go to sleep. When I woke up the next morning by the posterior throbbing, I was relieved to know it was the day of my doctors visit.

I got a ride into Penguitch, 25 miles away, hugged Peter and Andreas goodbye and went to see the doctor. The next few hours were the most painful few I've ever experienced. Doctor Tim was a huge jerk and had the guts to ask me "whats your name again" in the middle of the procedure. Lets just say he put a scalpel to my rear and incised. It was a quick procedure but felt like forever. I left the office, crying like a baby, prescriptions in my hands for painkillers and antibiotics.

One of the nurses felt sorry for me because I was bawling my eyes out and all alone in this dinky town so she drove me to the pharmacy. Daniela rode in, looking fly on her wheels .
quote from Daniela : "I was sad because she was crumpled on the sidewalk"

we watched Harry Potter in our motel room, slept for a few hours and then saw a fiddle concert. That night we were visited by a stranger in the night with a little tap tap on the door. It was a man with a beard named BEN! And he was SO liminal, thresh, dynospit, cerebral, just to name a few.

We've been hanging out in Cedar city in the Holiday Inn X-Press, seeing the doctor every day, getting better slowly.

Ben set up this thing called the 'slack line' AKA the 'shag line'. We played on that for a while. Daniela beasted at it, she was the best. Better than the professionals. Except for Ben, who could 'surf'. We had a movie night, made fajitas in our room, ordered a dozen cookies from our Phil downstairs. Ate a lot of ice cream, etc etc.

Last night we went to a renaissance fest and got yelled at for trying to photograph copyrighted costumes. Then we went to an all you can eat buffet (gross). They we went to an improv show.

Utah: Moab and west

Friday Alicia and Albey had to go to grand junction, but we ended up staying at the house because we needed to repair our bikes and just didn't want to leave yet. We had the most relaxing of mornings.

In Moab we got to pick apricots from Alicia and Albey's friend's tree. we would tap the branches and little orange juicy orbs would rain down on us like a thunderstorm. We collected and ate what seemed like hundreds. Later we would make apricot juice, muffins, and apricot tofu salad. In town we went to FOUR bike shops. very annoying. I really don't like bike shops because there is no standard bike knowledge. IT's all opinion. I needed a new chain and Jocelyn needed both a new chain and cassette. PHEW.
Done with bike repairs and ready to cook up a healthy feast. We got veggies and cheese from the market and headed back to the desert house. We made veggie pizzas (home-made crust), tofu salad, and apricot muffins. YUMM

It was so much fun cooking and listening to the Beatles.

We stayed up late writing and reading (a rare treat on this trip- usually we pass out around 9pm).


Alicia and Albey were so nice to bring us to Montecello so we wouldn't have to back track (that's the worst!). We were sad to part with the two of them because we had been having the most incredible esoteric/ philosophical conversations. It really got us thinking about things beyond cadence, gears, hills, WATER, lunch, soar elbows (jocelyn) and knees (me).

HEAD WIND all the way to bridges national park. It was rough. But the landscape was sooo beautiful it was almost nice we had to bike so slowly.
We were caught in the only thunderstorm that made it to the desert ground. Sheets of rain were pouring down in front of us. We couldn't see ANYTHING except the white line on the side of the road that we desperately tried to follow. drenched and actually cold, we rounded a canyon and suddenly the storm was gone. It disappeared just as quickly as it arrived. We dried off in two seconds and found a great cliff to climb.


When we finally made it to Bridges we were incredibly winy and irritable. We annoyed the park rangers for a while, watched a wilderness 16 min movie for kids and became junior rangers.
Ranger Dale swore us in and issued our badges. Although he was kind of creepy like the park ranger in Kentucky who ate ALL our fig Newtons, he was nice and concerned about our water supply. He ended up giving us 17 bottles of water and powerade for the next day (100 mile stretch without water).


We went to ranger Dale's outdoor lecture on how to take pictures in national parks (not that it would be of any use because we don't have a real camera, but we wanted to be nice). TIPS: dont put the horizon line in the middle of the frame, use the golden rule of 3rds, vary focus, texture, tone... blah blahblah. I don't even look through a lens when I snap a photo. I just hold up the phone, point it in the right direction and click. By the way, the above pictures are in no order and we will organize them when/if we get a chance.



OK so we left bridges with 8.5 liters of water each, thinking we had to bike 100 miles through the desert with no place to refill. Hite park, however, had a beautiful lake and a general store WITH WATER!
this was 50 miles into the ride. We spent the whole afternoon swimming and sunning on the rocks siren style as our chamois dried.

The water was amazing. Here we were in a LAKE in the middle of this dry, desert earth. it was certainly an oasis.

We met Joe, another west-bounder, and sufficiently creeped him out. I love it when we do that. he thought we were crazy, but really we were just loopy from too much sun.

we said goodbye to Joe, who was also pretty out of it, and set off on the next 50 miles to Hanksville. This is when things got a little rough. We had a terrible head wind. we were tired. Jocelyn had cyst pain and was quite upset. I was concerned there was no skin left on my bottom from the chamois and friction. We rode into the sunset as it dipped behind a row of blue and grey canyons. The night dawned. Stars filled the sky, but without a moon, so darkness everywhere.

We kept pushing on though. We could see headlights for miles before they got to us and im sure they could see us just as well (we ride with strobes at night).

FINALLY we made it to Hanksville (11pm). At the gas station this enthusiastic boy our age jumped off a boat and trotted over to us. We were not feeling social. He wanted to know everything about our trip and told us he talks to all the cyclists he sees. that's pretty neat, but we were so tired and bummed.
We snuck into a campsite to use the showers with the radio tuned to some oldies of course.

Then we explored the creepiest church I had ever seen. This was really scary actually. The door was unlocked so we crept inside. It was huge and had all of these passageways and closed doors. we used a red light to see, which made the whole thing feel like it was part of a horror film. THen the worst part. As we were sufficiently creeped out and leaving, jocelyn happened to see the alarm system. We had triggered a silent alarm and the control box said "trouble" and flashed. AGHHHH!

we had to get out of there!


We grabbed our bikes which were leaning against the wall behind the bushes and jumped on them. It felt too slow. everything was in slow motion and i wanted us to get away faster.

My shoe got stuck in my wheel as we peeled out of the parking lot. No time to fix it. I rode with the sole rubbing against the wheel until we were a block away and jocelyn came to the rescue to remove it. A car was following us. We sped down the rode and took the first left. The car disappeared and we raced down this road for several miles. We were exhausted.

We started looking for a place to stealth camp. I found a spot between two hills where we could pitch out tent concealed from the road.


Ahhh. Sleep.


we passed out no problem.

Colorado after Independence Day

So after the 4th we rode with John and Alex into Durango, the town everyone's been telling us to check out.

It was sweet. We ended up riding bikes on our off day with John along the river. We bought lunch at an organic shoppe (1 bag of spinach, goat cheese, and rosemary bread) and ate it with our feet in the Animas (river).
Jocelyn and I bought blue mugs at the thrift store so that we can share hot chocolate with all the bikers we see on the road (yes, we are the HOT CHOCOLATE girls!).

That night we watched 'Oh Brother Where art thou' at John's. "We're gonna RUNNOFT!"

The next morning, we enjoyed continental breakfast at the holiday, courtesy of Jonathan, who told us we ABSOLUTELY had to go to Mesa Verde.

On the way, we met the 30 bike and build cyclists for lunch. They look like a crazy army of biker chicks and dudes in their identical outfits, gear, and bikes. THEY'RE ALL THE SAME!
Well they look that way, but they are a somewhat socially diverse group.

Mesa Verde was not nearly as cool as it should have been. First of all it was about 30 miles off route, with gravel road and terrible traffic. We ditched the bikes at the bottom of the Mesa and became part of some family's vacation for the day. We saw the Ancestral Puebloan ruins at balcony House, which is a series of dwellings and kivas built into and inside of the Mesa cliffs. The architecture was amazing. The tour guide was NOT. She moved us around like sheep. All the tourists had to snap one million photos and hold up the tour. People asked the stupidest questions that the tour guide for some reason had no answers for (for example: what are the houses made of, how long did it take to build them, etc). Pretty much we didn't learn anything from the tour.

However, Mesa Verde is an amazing place to see because of the ancient architecture.


After the Mesa, we ended up in Cortez, Colorado.
I felt soooo tired and ANTI SOCIAL. I didn't think I could talk to anybody. Jocelyn luckily had it together and was on top of simple transactions like buying canned peas and spinach.

We ended up sleeping under the stars because I flooded the tent with one of my jumbo water bottles that i can never seem to close all the way. Sorry Jocelyn!

We slept next to a Catholic church and the next morning, pastor Pat prepared breakfast for us. It was really nice.

We then hopped back on the bikes we call home this summer and zoomed toward Moab Utah.

As we crossed the Colorado-Utah line, the landscape began to change (along with the laws, religious affiliations, and distribution of people). We started to see HUGE cliffs begging us to climb them. So we did. It was beautiful. we could see for dozens of miles in all directions. Jocelyn was become quite the climber. We lay on our bellies on top of the cliff with our heads sticking out over the edge so we could see the cars drive through the pass 300 feet below. We made it to the Moab rest area and met Chief. He is a Cherokee Indian who has been riding throughout the country on his wheel chair for 4 years!
He was intense. He told us that he only needs one 20 oz bottle of water for two days. He also said he can zoom at 50mph down hills on his wheel chair, passing cars and all.
He explained he had grown up on the reservation, speaking only Cherokee. He married at 13 and had children soon after. Tragically, he and his wife and kids were in a car accident 4 years ago. He was the only one to survive, but without function in his legs.
Chief told us about the power of mind over matter. He said when you're out there and you think you will die from the heat or lack of water, you control your mind and calm your breathing. You don't allow emotions to take hold of the situation. Chief made me realize how capable the human body is. How strong its potential. How amazing our bodies are in all they can do. He is pushing himself all over the US even though his body is broken.

In the winter he will be the first man in a wheel chair to ride the trail of tears, so look out for chief as he breaks world records.



Alicia and Albey, with whom we were to stay in Moab, we extraordinarily nice and picked us up from the rest stop so we wouldn't have to ride up the dangerous hill to their house.

Their desert home is beautiful. It feels like a ship with all the windows that open up to vast desert: distant islands of cliffs and canyons, expansive sunsets, star-filled skies, wandering thunderstorms. It's incredible.

Alicia and Albey cooked us yummy organic and wholesome food (much needed and appreciated on this trip:).


The next morning, Albey took us on some of his favorite secret hikes through Arches National Park. we climbed cliffs and scrambled over boulders. We crept into canyons and followed ancient river beds (dry, of course). Up on the red rocks of the canyons we felt we had been transported to another world.

It was awesome. We just stood there grocking (new word that means something like 'taking it in' but i don't think we're of the right generation to really understand the term "to grock").

We hiked up to one of the natural arches. it was HUGE. another gateway to the west, but this one was natural!

we took a somewhat sketchy shortcut back to the car (there was one traversing move that was questionable.. actually albey threw us the rope so we could spot him as he crossed this section of rock). We all made it just fine.


It is HOT in Moab. REAL desert experience. I chugged about 2 liters of car-heated water when we made it back.

We did some bike shop things in town and then went back to the house for dinner (which was amazing).

That night as the sunset left the sky and one million stars popped into sight, we watched the most incredible process in nature.

We watched the datura flower bloom. We saw 3 closed buds open to the night creatures. A plump moth came to the datura as soon as it had unfolded to drink its nectar and spread pollen from plant to plaant.
This was astounding.

I am going to sleep now, but promise to finish catching up on the Moab stories tomorrow mornign
goodnight