The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (or to Nevada at least!)...

So this is about day 17 in the good ole US of A and here we are in Cedar City Utah! When we last wrote we had just crossed the Tioga Pass and were writing from the Visitor Center in a small town called Lee Vining. This is near the shore of an alkaline lake called Mono Lake. Although still in California the terrain was already changing drastically. That night we free camped a few miles on from the Lake and then the next day was a long haul over some more hills of about 8,000 ft , dropping down to about 5,500ft to a place called Benton where we snoozed a couple hours and carried on at about 3 pm crossing the border into Nevada 7 miles later. I gotta say that never having crossed a state border before I was a little disappointed - I thought the signs would be a little more impressive and larger - but I guess we were basically on a smal;l road and Interstate Highways may make a biggere deal of leaving/arriving in a different state. Anyway - the next few hours were quite gruelling with headwinds and a steady climb back to 7,167 ft before heading all that way back down again to set up camp and cook dinner quickly before nightfall - just off the side of the road. We cycled 6o miles that day so were tired.

Next day we cycled about the same distance - doing 20 miles before breakfast as we descended steeply then some nice flats. The next 40 miles were not so much fun and was getting pretty hot but we rolled into Tonopah at about 3pm Saturday. An hour or two prior to that as we were pulled off the road taking a drink a truck stopped and the driver chatted with us and was very kind and gave us iced water and V8 to drink. Similarly at the rest stop a little further on - a woman gave us two bottles of iced water and many people asked us what we are doing and wished us well. It kinda makes more sense now knowing what terrain laid beyond!!

Anyway...Tonopah...mmm...how to describe it? Dusty, grey, bleak...sorry any Nevadites reading this but what else can I say? Just a little town in the middle of the desert with every second business closed down and no physical beauty around. We were pretty tired so treated ourselves to a day off here and stayed in a motel where we could wash and do laundry (you can imagine the color of the water after a week of wearing 2 sets of clothes :-) ). So on that Sunday off Nicole headed to the laundromat and I did some research re our route out of there - and there was really only one option - to Cedar City Utah via a place called Rachel on the Extra Terrestrial Highway - but still we needed real careful planning of food and water as there would be two 2 day stretches with no services or water. Mmm...

Monday morning came and our intention was to be on the road by 6 a.m but I needed to change my rear tube so we were delayed 45 mins but headed out of Tonopah- glad of the rest but not sad to say goodbye to the town! Nevada is described as "Basin and Range" territory - basically the whole state is a series of flat baisns surrounded by ranges - one after another, after another, after another.... We experienced that all day and the heat by 11 a.m was pretty tough & our water planning not very adequate. At midday we had to stop and rest a few hours in the heat - putting up our tent fly as there are no trees to give shade - just low lying sage-bush. Lying under the fly was like being in a sauna! At 3.30pm we carried on and got to a deserted settlement called "Warm Springs" before 5 pm - with 3 passes achieved that day - and a really nice fellow called Mark who talked to us in one rest area and gave us an old pump as mine has been a real pain - bending valves etc. He is a cyclist so gave us encouragement and advice - and must have thought we were nuts!

Anyway ...the desent down the last of the 3rd passes into Warm Springs was long and for both of us quite depressing as it just opened up another HUGE basin with more large ranges to cross in all directions. When we stopped Nicole said "we need to talk" and within a few mins we had decided that this was ridiculous and actually not safe for us to carry on. The remoteness, the heat and the need for large amounts of water (impossible to haul on our bikes) meant that we decided we would need to hitch hike out of there & so we tried right there and then - with no luck, camped that night with the trickle of a warm creek soothing us to sleep in the distance and got up early to stick our thumbs out the next a.m.

Ok ...so you might be wondering ..are these guys crazy? Hitch hiking with two fully laden bikes in the middle of a desert on a very lonely road - yeah right - dream on getting a ride!! Exactly how we felt!!! A few kind people stopped to ask if we were ok and although couldn't give us a ride donated iced water or Gatorade. At about 9 a.m a woman travelling in a large vehicle with an empty cycle rack on the back went by...and our hearts sank as she carried on by and turned down the road we wanted to go on and off into the distance. She had the ideal set up for us to be picked up with ...but was a woman travelling alone through the desert so we accepted that she shouldn't pick us up. We sat a little dejected for a few minutes more and then - unbelievably she appeared again and had turned around and come back to pick us up. She was an angel sent from above that day and you can imagine how elated we felt - and even more so when she said she was going to Cedar City, Utah and could take us the whole way!!!! Her name was Jo and she was a nurse from the San Francisco area with a week off going to help her friend in Utah sort out their garden. We loved chatting with her for the next few hours and learning more re the area we were driving through (and reconfriming how impossible this would have been to cycle through here) and the huge Mormon influence in Utah. We stopped in the small town of Rachel at the "A'Le'Inn" - the only store in town - where UFO spotters congregate and all kind of Alien/UFO kitch is sold! We thought of our good friends Kev and Darlene here who had looked this place up online before we left & laughed about it with us - yep - it was every bit as weird as you can imagine K & D!!! Hope to post a pic or two soon :-)

Arriving in Cedar City there was a real mix of emotions - we were so happy to have not cycled that stretch of the road (about 200miles), sad to say goodbye to our angel Jo, and also sad to now not be able to say that we will have cycled the whole way across the USA. Having said that, we know this was a wise decision and even if we had been able to carry enough water it would have taken 6 days to make it here and through some very bleak terrain - not much fun.

This post is getting long and I am about to get kicked off the internet (US Libraries are great - free internet) so will continue the story later...but basically we have just hired a car the last 2 days to go see Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks and are hopping on a Greyhound bus with our bikes tomorrow to Grand Junction in Colorado to begin our attack on the Rocky Mountains. Seems weird to not be cycling through Utah, but we decided that although the distances between towns here is better - it is still very hot and lots of barren desert still - and we would rather enjoy our cycle through Colorado for now....

Bryce and Zion were BEAUTIFUL with a capital B and again words are inadequate to describe them.

Thanks to so many of you for taking the time to write encouraging and interesting comments...from South Africa to Sweden and in between too!!! Keep them coming!

We are really looking forward to Colorado and heading to Boulder and Longmont where we have friends from Kabul days.

Catch you then

Lotsa love
M & N