Tired

The past couple of days no blog, due to a lack of time/wifi/computer power.

On the 9th, we left from Torey with the aim of getting to tropic or Cannonville, which was roughly about 100 miles away. Would have been a long day, but that would have left us only a very short day to Bryce canyon, where we would take a rest day. It turned out as just one of those days which didn't go to plan. We had a tough 15 mile climb to start the day, which was just really tough. Not necessarily because of the gradient but we were just so tired mentally and physically, as this was our 8 day on the trot, without a proper break. It took us over 4 hours to get to the top. However, this was also due to the fact we me lots of interesting people on the way up. The first lot f people was a group of Brits, fulfilling their 'American dream' of cruising around the USA on Harley's. We had a great time chatting with them, and then 1 mile up the road we ran into two girls coming the other way, Lulu and Sue, so we exchanged advice and stories for quite a while. Another half a mile and we ran into yet another cyclist, Jeff, so more banter ensued.

After we finally reached the top, we scooted down the hill and reached Boulder at around 3:30(only 38 miles from where we had started). We had been recommended to go to a special grill restaurant in Boulder, but it was closed, so we ended up in a really nice grill house just down the road. We ended up spending over 3 hours there. Whilst there i drank over 3 litres of coke, just indicating how dehydrated i was without knowing(they refused to fill up my glass eventually) We realised how tired we were, so reneged on our initial plans to go so far that day, so we decided to do another 13 miles or so to a recommended campsite. At the campsite there was a great waterfall 3 miles away, which can only be reached by foot. The waterfall was great, and although we got back at around 10:15, it was so worth it.

Yesterday, the 10th, we set off from the campsite with just over 65 miles to do in the day. We started with a 6 mile climb of 6-8%, the hard way to warm up! We stopped for breakfast and then set out on a 17 mile climb. We were only going up around 1500 ft, so a really gentle climb, but against the wind this was really tough! The wind was so strong, one of the worst we have had. I think we covered the 17 miles in around two and a half hours. Battling against the wind is like Gordan Brown-Very dull and frustrating. We finally reached Bryce canyon and camped with a kind family who we befriended the night before at the previous campsite. They also kindly took us out to dinner.... Then straight to bed!