Hopkins 4K for Cancer

July 11, 2006

Blanding, UT
Since my best friend, Katie Young, is also on this trip we make an effort to ride together every few days. On these special days we are essentially chatterboxes and are in no hurry to get to our destination. We don’t necessarily talk every day so we take advantage of the opportunity to catch up, ask for guidance, and share our perspectives and experiences. Today was one of those days… for the first part anyway. It’s nice being on roads with relatively little traffic so that we can ride side by side and chat. We took time to talk and enjoy all the scenery Utah had to offer us today- one rock formation we saw looked like a massive turtle (probably a couple hundred feet tall?), randomly dropped in the middle of the desert.

Today was definitely a day of animals- a rattlesnake, ants, and dogs, lots of dogs. Clare and Emma saw a rattlesnake when they were setting up the day’s first water stop. I believe it was the first sighting of the trip. At the second water stop, a bunch of us ended up playing around an anthill for at least twenty minutes. We enjoyed watching the ants react to the morsels of food and drops of liquid we placed on or around their hill. It’s amazing what things will entertain you after you’ve ridden three quarters of the way across the country. At lunch we had a canine visitor that refused to leave. When we reached Blanding, we found that it is a town with a lot of dogs, wandering aimlessly.

On the trip we have not encountered too many bugs so far, so it was a surprise when we ran into thick walls of black gnats as we neared lunch today. We were still finding them in our jerseys after we finished eating. I spent a very long time at lunch today with Joe, Derick, Ryan Slater, Katie, and Dave. I think we all had a little too much fun reading Cosmo before heading out to finish the day.

We were surprised to find that we had one locker room for all of us to shower in. There were plenty of showers, but it was the first time we’d encountered a co-ed showering situation. That turned out to be slightly challenging when we arrived in mixed groups, all eager to get clean in the showers that felt like power washers. For dinner we had an assortment of foods from establishments in Monticello. Everyone appreciated having a diverse and balanced menu of Mexican, chili, pizza, and fruit.

In Blanding some people decided to rent rooms in a local motel. The price was reasonable enough to get the chance to sleep in a real bed. The town also had other perks- a library and Laundromat being the most important, of course! Some riders went to the local theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2, while others visited the A&W, and a few decided to view the community’s production of Into The Woods.

When I went to bed I thought about the next day’s destination- “the one tree.” That was the description I’d heard of where we were supposed to camp once we reached Hite, Utah. Boy, were we all in for a surprise…

-Erin