June 15, Day 15

June 15, Day 15
Price to Green River, UT
Mileage: 66.88
Weather: Gorgeous. Started at 60 degrees and ended at 94 degrees (one cloud we spotted on the horizon)

Dear All,

Today we really saw Utah. The ride out of Price was a little bland, but as we continued down the road the views just kept improving. It was a short day (relatively speaking) and so most of the riders weren't in a real hurry. A little pace line developed but the pace was leisurely. Some road construction was present but since we started real early, the traffic was reasonably light and as a result the every present construction barrels didn't distract from the ride. The road surface, however, was a different story. Apparently, out here in the rugged West, they lay the asphalt with pretty good size stones and just let the traffic smooth it out. It's like riding with a vibration machine inside the handlebars and the seat post. Numbness develops in the two places that the human body comes in contact with those parts of the bike requiring frequent stops for the purpose of redeveloping feeling.

After a very small climb of only a couple of miles, we reached the top and suddenly the landscape opened up and simply took our breath away. It was incredible. We had to stop and simply soak it in. John took a couple of pictures, but again the camera fails to see what the human eye sees. We simple stood there silently and absorbed it trying to make it part of our being.

At the bottom of the hill was the first SAG stop. Normally riders pick up water and food, spend a couple of minutes and then head on down the road. Today, people simply stood and looked all around. No one was in a hurry to move. The rock formation behind the picture of us was something to see. You wonder how such beauty came to be. Maybe there's an explanation on the Web and maybe there's a science to it, but it is far better to simply look at in wonder. We're told that as these rocks erode they find dinosaur bones and pictographs.

We rolled on and at one point John noticed another gas station of interest. For those of you who have been reading, you will recall that there was a gas pump at Hill Top Country Services (see the June 14th blog) which showed gas at 39.9 cents. Well, folks, we don't want to discourage you, but the price is going up. As you can see, in Green River the price has risen to $1.89 (or it did until this particular owner decided to go pan for gold).


We arrived at the hotel having now put more than 1000 miles on the bikes. Most of us decided to just relax after arrival since tomorrow is likely to be a dandy. The temperature will be in the 90's and we have around 95 miles to ride into Grand Junction, CO, our fourth state.
Your contact with the weather gods has been magnificent. For those of you who have been saying the appropriate prayers, KEEP IT UP.

Keep sending the good vibes.

By the way, if we don't post a blog on any particular day, please don't assume that we fell off a mountain. Sometimes the WiFi doesn't work, some of the motels don't have WiFi and sometime the Internet gods simply conspire against us.

One more by the way. If you log into http://audreycyclesamerica.blogspot.com/ you will be able to see a short video of us at the bottom of her June 15th blog. In addition, the first picture on that page is John taking a picture.

Take care.
John and Amy
PS If you don't know, you can click on a picture and it should appear on a page by itself which is somewhat (not a lot) larger.