Sept. 20 – Taking it Easy

Turns out I was camping pretty close to the top of the pass, so my uphill climb in the morning wasn’t too bad. By the time I made coffee, had a light breakfast and got all packed up it was after 8am. The plan today is to make the 30 mile ride into Cedar City and then spend the day there getting cleaned up and taking care of business and personal stuff that has gone unattended. But first I dealt with this Utah unnamed summit issue. Done!

That’s right, from now on every summit in Utah will be named “La Reforma Summit”. From La Reforma Summit it was a nice mostly downhill ride through Enoch and into Cedar City – a decent sized town of about 25,000 and the home of Southern Utah University. I had planned to stay at a campground in town, but the $50 price tag seemed a bit outrageous when I could get a hotel for $20 more. So I made a reservation at the luxurious (not) Bardmoor Inn. It’s actually not that bad and since a storm hit last night with high winds and rain…..I am happy I was indoors! I stopped by the Utah welcome center and got some maps and a recommendation for a good breakfast place and had a nice late breakfast at Vittles Cafe. Then it was off to the post office to mail home some unnecessary stuff that I had packed. This is common in the bike touring world as you initially think you need all this stuff, but after a few weeks you realize that you don’t and you also don’t want to pack and haul anything that isn’t vital. Mine was mostly clothes and bike gear. I spent about an hour on the phone with Garmin trying to get my darn GPS to work – they even convinced me to not send it home as we were going to fix it…….nope. They even had me take the GPS to a local bike shop so they could hook it up to a computer to try and diagnose it….nope. Anyway, after checking in to the Bardmoor I did laundry (much needed) and sat down to make calls and get caught up before heading off to the hinterland again today. Right now it is the morning of the 21st and I am heading off to tackle my highest pass yet – a 20 mile, 5,800 foot climb up to La Reforma Summit #2 at 10,400 feet. My legs are already tired!