Shout out to picnic tables with roofs over them.
We woke up in the cool shade with the sun still not yet having crossed over the tops of the canyon walls that we slept between.
We had about a water bottle each and 19 miles to the next watering hole so we didn't mess around getting packed up and on the road.
The 19 miles were downhill to our lowest point of elevation in Utah to Lake Powell, wowzers is the desert basin hot.
A few miles before the water spigot my back tube blew out. Flat count now tied at 6 to 6 between Jack and I.
Hollywood invades Utah.
We stopped and loaded up on water and fuel at Glenn Canyon State Park. The park had few people in it but trailers, RV's and movie cameras packed the parking lot. Apparently they've been shooting the movie for the past few weeks. All we could muster out of a guy with dark glasses and a walkie talkie on his hip was that the movie was to be called Dark Moon. Hope it's not the newest installment in the Twilight saga. And Jack and I looked hard but we didn't see Tom Cruise anywhere.
Nap time in the shade.
If I didn't make it clear earlier - it was hot. Like don't go outside hot. Jack and I were gassed after doing 19 downhill miles.
There was only one logical decision to be made - it was time for our first night ride. We laid out our sleeping pads under one of the four trees in the park and napped for a few hours. Thankfully the breeze completely saved us and we were able to drift off to sleep.
Seth, Eric, and Dave are 37 days into their cross country ride.
Lesson #42: Riding 6300 miles on a tandem bicycle is a great way to figure out if you should act on your hunch and ask your significant other to marry you.
After napping we met Seth, Eric, Dave (dad). Dave had gone 6300 miles 30 years ago with his wife on a tandem bike across the USA. He was doing the second installment of the trip this summer with his sons. We were both on the same route, in opposite directions. We learned many tips and lesson for the route to come, good eats, great places to stay. Sounds like we have less elevation ahead of us, but many more people and towns. Disclaimer - The "6300 mile" test is solid but not foolproof. Dave let us know he was no longer married.
Lesson #43: The desert is meant to be explored and experienced under the cover of darkness.
We left at 6:30 pm for our first night ride of the trip. It was still blazing hot with the sun beating down for a good 3 hours.
About 10 miles out of the canyon we disrupted movie shoot. The sunset brought a much welcomed evening cool.
The desert became outlined by a sky full of stars and we couldn't find the moon. A few hours into darkness the moon started to rise.
The night ride was the most calm I'd felt on the bike. Jack and I finished our 40 mile climb and around 1:00 am. We slept under stars on sandy river bed, no need for our tent, just sleeping bags.
Riding at night. About that life.
Not much about the movie on IMDb either: "A black-ops mission to the moon has unintended and disturbing consequences. Angel and Leo have taken a two-lane road to a one-horse town - here there be monsters." Genres: Horror | Thriller Director & Writer: Olatunde Osunsanmi.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of our trip last summer our group came upon a film crew in the Marina in San Francisco. While they left Cate Blanchett sitting in a car (she is eerily beautiful, btw), several crew members talked to us about bike touring. Maybe horror films make crew members a little paranoid!
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