Day Sixty - Exhausted.

I set my alarm for 5:45 today, in an effort to try and beat the heat that I knew was coming. I got on the road eventually at 8:30, after an ordeal at a petrol station trying to get some cash back from one of my two cards since the ATM was empty. Neither of them worked (the guy must not have known what he was doing because one of the two always works), so I was forced to leave with only pocket change.

The first 25 miles were mostly uphill, with a few deceptive downhills that made me think I was further than I was. Eventually the downhill did come, just in time for the rain. Rain again in Utah!! Luckily it was only really at the top, so having put all my rain stuff on, I was peeling it off 10 minutes later,

The downhill went way too fast for my liking, and I was in 'Boulder Town' before I knew it. I pulled into a place that was a museum type building, and got talking to four young-ish people. It turned out (though they may well have been lying, it seems kind of weird) that two of them were on their honeymoon, and the other two were tagging along. They were doing backpacking, so perhaps it was to make up numbers. They fed me a small assortment of weird foods such as Wasabi peas and peanut butter filled pretzls. (they were from Oregon, apparently they're all quirky up there..). They drove off, and I went inside to ask if there was an ATM around so I could get money out. The woman snapped 'no.' quickly back at me, so I left. It was only 20something miles from here to Escalante, so I thought I'd just go for it.

My map told me that it was almost all downhill into Escalante with the exception if a short uphill. It turned out that this short uphill hadn't been drawn to scale, as I must have spent the best part of 45 minutes getting up it. It felt like it was vertical (which it almost was, as steep as any hill in the Appalacians). Once at the peak of that, it was downhill to the finish, but luckily for me my old friend the headwind was back, meaning I had to pedal downhill to maintain a mere 11mph.

I eventually made it, and stopped in the first place I saw, which luckily had a subway. Of course, I couldn't buy anything until I withdrew money, which meant going back to a petrol station I'd passed. I decided not to pedal back uphill, making my walk seem like hours. To cut a long story short, I eventually ate, but I was already beyond lethargic. I eventually persuaded myself to leave the unlimited drink machine in peace, and went up to put my tent up in the RV park. The earth here is as good as concrete, so I've had to do another bench tye-up to hold my tent up.

So tomorrow I've got a 67 mile ride to Panguitch, involving an up and over of two 'hills' (though at 7400ft and 7900ft or so, they have the potential to be killers). After Panguich, I have a steep 33 miles uphill from 6650ft or so up to 10500ft, and then an equally steep decent into Cedar City, for a much needed rest day. I also need to have a look at front racks there, because my right one has snapped in the same way as the left one has. I wasn't so bad when it was just one, because I moved all the essential items into the working bag, but now they're both out, they're both out of action. Either that, or I'll need to have a major reshuffle and prioritisation of stuff.