Mission #1 Accomplished

So, we're in Utah! Sweaty, exhausted, and cured like jerky from smoke coming off the scrub fires, but here nevertheless!

Our bike ride into Utah was pretty rough. That area is known for it's high winds and dust storms, and although we were lucky to not run into any dust storms there was a strong headwind the whole hilly 90km. Add to that the smoke and smell of charred cattle blowing at us from the hills and you might be able to justify our shoddy appearance afterwards =P

We were so exhausted when we finally arrived in Snowville, 7 miles across the state line into Utah, that we could barely talk. We even broke down and stayed in a motel room (Alana's dad gave us credit for 3 to 5 nights in a motel room as a gift - best gift ever!!!)

We made the best of our time at the motel. I calculated that I slept for about 13 hours before we checked out the next day. We decided that we didn't have the legs left on us to do the 70miles to Erica's house in one day, so we decided to split it into two days and rather than checking out early we would wait out the heat in Snowville then cycle to Tremonton in the evening. Nice.

A couple of words about road quality in Utah: they suck. Plus, miles seem to be longer here than in other states. Seriously. It's not heat stroke.

From Snowville we climbed to around 5,000 or 5,500 ft and then got to "enjoy" 10km of downhill into Tremonton. Only on Utah-quality roads would we wish that we were going uphill again instead of downhill!

In Tremonton we found a luxury campsite for ourselves in the parking lot behind the Sinclair gas station between some old cars. There was actually a campsite in town, but trust us when we say that our gas station suite was in way better condition.

Then, on Saturday morning we biked to Ogden! We got to Erica's place right at noon and have been overstaying our welcome ever since. =P It's been wonderful to relax for a bit, meet new people and eat real food.

Total cycling distance: 1688km. Total number of flat tires: 24 (with one flat caused by four separate punctures). Total amount of sunscreen used: 746ml (probably not enough, if compared to the amount of peeling skin).

We're using our time here to make plans for stage 2. It's harder than we had expected to get around southern Utah without a car. There's practically no public transportation, so we're pretty much just going to head down to Moab to see what we can work out from down there.

Wish us luck!