Kiki Bikes Across America

Sunday, July 19th – 4 miles east of Utah to Moab, Utah

Well we didn’t wake up at 5:30am like we’d hoped – the alarm went off and I immediately turned it off. I was exhausted, but thankfully Lauren knew we wanted to leave early and she woke up early anyway, so she came and woke us up about 6:30am in the camper van that we slept in. So that was definitely nice and then she offered to make us a breakfast burrito, so we had egg, cheese, spinach, and tomato in the burrito – amazing! We departed about 7:30am and climbed for a good number of miles – about 14 or so before we were finally able to try and enjoy some downhill, only to be mixed with some really heavy headwinds. The winds were terrible – I was going downhill at one point, but crawling at 5mph pedaling. Finally about 12 miles later and we were at the bottom of the downhill portion and at La Sal Junction where Utah Hwy 46 intersects with Hwy 191 that goes to Monticello and Moab. I tried getting info from Google on when Arches National Park closes, but was unsuccessful (google failed me). It was now about 11:30 or so and I was wondering if we’d make it to Arches in time since the wind was so horrible. I figured the park would close at 5pm or something and we still had 30 or so odd miles to go. Chase and I debated what to do and then I just decided to ask the next person driving out of La Sal and turning right towards Moab if he was going to Moab and if we could get a ride. Sure enough, we lucked out – Wayne was heading to Moab to do some errands and had space to give us and our bikes a ride.

We threw our stuff in the back of his truck and hopped in and rode about 25 miles to Moab and then before we knew it we were at the grocery store picking up lunch items to take into the park and then off to Arches. We were able to convince Wayne to even join us for the park visit, so we just hung out all afternoon with Wayne while visiting all the arches and everything. It was great – the park really wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable if we had to bike it – the roads were narrow without any shoulders and it was hilly…and HOT. It was 102 degrees and the sun just blazing down on us, so we were very grateful that Wayne also wanted to see the park and had the time. He hadn’t been before so it worked out well that we all visited the park together. We had a nice lunch up underneath one of the arches in Windows and I climbed up another arch across the way – but it was super hot, I climbed barefoot. Amazing view from above though, but I didn’t climb with my camera – I was just trying to be super careful that I didn’t slip or fall and that no matter how I got up, I had a way down without risking any chance of falling. It was amazing though.

So we spent about 4+ hours in the park and got lots of photos and then Wayne drove us back to Moab and we unloaded the bikes and each ate two snickers ice cream bars before splitting ways.

Afterwards, Chase and I went to the laudromat to do laundry and I started transferring photos to the computer. Once done we rode up to the Lazy Lizard Hostel in Moab and got a bunk in a dorm for $9/night, so not bad. It’s air-conditioned too which helps and cheaper than camping, believe it or not. We unpacked, showere, and then rode our bikes back down into Moab’s restaurant area and grabbed a bite to eat at Hogi Yogi where we had spicy hot chicken on rice, a drink, and ice cream. Back to the hostel afterwards to catch up on photo album stuff and then crashed around 1am.

GPS Stats: (Arches and biking portion)
105.3 miles
66.0 max speed
20.2 avg speed
05:13 moving time

Computer Stats:
25.7 miles
33.3 max speed
9.0 avg speed
02:51 moving time