39.65 mi / 3:03:01 time / 12.9 mph avg. / 28.0 mph max. / 1713 ft. climbing
Staying at Fruita National Park Campground

We were a bit slower than normal getting out of bed, due both to our late night and the lack of a need to get anywhere in a hurry today. We tried another Hanksville eatery for breakfast, Blondie’s (which means we’ve probably sampled 2/3rds of the restaurants in Hanksville, but only 1/4th of the gas stations). It was an order-at-the-counter, grab-your-milk-in-a-bottle-from-that-cooler kind of place, but they cooked up surprisingly good French Toast and Biscuits & Gravy.

It didn’t take much riding for us to clear out of Hanksville, and now in better light it was interesting to see the different colors of the region. The artist who painted most of the previous areas we’d been through worked in reds, yellows, and browns, while the artist who did the Hanksville area worked in blues and grays. Those colors, along with the different erosion patterns that created tumbling piles of gravel and sand, gave the area the feel of one enormous mining operation. Which can be quite pretty, in its own way!

We were cruising along pretty well upstream along the Fremont River (which actually had water flowing in it!), with Dennis taking the lead because I really felt like relaxing today. Suddenly he called for a stop, complaining of some knee pain. I was concerned, but it said it was something he’s dealt with since he was a kid, so I figured there was a good shot it would be manageable, especially with the short day today.

A little farther on I noticed a woman up in a cottonwood tree in a nice shady grove along the river. Then I saw their bikes and gear…the first fellow tourists we’d crossed paths with! We stopped and exchanged the usual details and routing tips, happy to communicate with people who fully understand us. The amazing thing about this group was that they weren’t only Ben and Sylvette, they had their young son Zian with them, towing him in a Burley-like trailer all around the world for a year. And here I thought Dennis was a handful to deal with on the road! 🙂

Just as we were getting pictures, what do we see coming down the road but another touring cyclist! What a bizarre coincidence. This time it’s a solo woman, heading west like us. We do the introductions over again, but before we can finish exchanging all the new information, here comes another solo woman, this time from the west! So within a period of 10 minutes, four parties of self-supported, fully-loaded touring cyclists converged on this magical cottonwood grove. Perhaps even better than that, three of the six principals are women, two of them on their own. And remember, this is Utah!

When we got going again after the unexpected break, Dennis’s knee had stiffened considerably, and I could tell by the unpleasant noises he was making that he was fighting through quite a bit of pain. I wanted to stop so that we could somehow make it better, but he wanted to press on, with the thought that if we stopped it might freeze up and never move again. So onward he fought, through the hills, the hot gusting winds, and the blasts of dust, with me doing what little I could to shield him from the worst of it.

After what seemed like an agonizingly long time to me, and presumably ten times longer to Dennis, we finally reached the entrance to Capitol Reef National Park. We stopped at the Visitor Center to get some fresh water and cold drinks to use as stand-ins for an ice pack for Dennis’s knee. We were probably standing by the drinking fountain for five minutes, in a general fog wondering what to do, when I suddenly noticed that the white piece of paper tacked to this bulletin board was a message for us! It was from Dennis and Pat, the couple who had given us half their site (and all of their hospitality) two nights before, letting us know what site they were at. Only after that did I notice the sign that said “Campground Full” (ugh!) so once again we would test the limits of their hospitality.

And it apparently has no limits. Pat was relaxing and reading a book when we rolled up, but immediately got some real ice for Dennis once she heard our story, and they immediately offered the option of a lift as far as Escalante (their destination the next day) if it would help us out at all. At that point we weren’t really sure what would help. What we knew was that Dennis’s knee was not good, and that the next day began with a 30 mile climb that would take us to 9600 ft; hardly a rehab opportunity. But we also knew that Swati could be driving through the area tomorrow, and that we were all scheduled to spend two nights together at Bryce in a couple days, and maybe that would give some chance for recuperation.

So we walked (Dennis had absolutely no pain when walking, only when cycling) the mile back to the Visitor Center from the campground to try out their pay phone. Using Swati’s calling card number, Dennis was able to get her voicemail, and talk to his sister to get her to relay the same information to Swati through email. The message was that Swati (who was in the Moab area at the time, but out of cell phone range) might need to swing by Capitol Reef the next day on the way to Zion to pick up Dennis if his knee didn’t start feeling better.

Dinner started with chips & salsa from our hosts, then included mac & cheese from both parties, and concluded with pies, thoughtfully but comically purchased by both parties for each other. Really, our pie gift was purchased by Dennis, who is clearly still way more thoughtful than I, even when his mind was heavily distracted. Another camper came over and interrupted our dinner and conversation to talk touring bikes, which wasn’t a big deal, but it highlighted again what cool people Dennis and Pat are, and that we wouldn’t have clicked with just anyone as well as we did with them.

After dinner I took a moment to look around the park a bit. It’s an interesting place, where the park encompasses an enormous 100-mile-long buckle in the crust of the Earth. From a human perspective, it doesn’t appear substantially different than any of the other crazy piles of rocks that we’ve seen; you’d really need a high-flying airplane to fully grasp it. But the park is brought down to the human scale by the remnants of an 1880s Mormon settlement in which most of the facilities are set. Due to the Fremont River, the settlers we able to create a green oasis in the midst of the harsh and unforgiving land, and much of that remains today, including the many orchards where fruit is still grown and picked. That makes the campground a pretty special place, with watered grass, tall shade trees, millions of birds, and even deer wandering through.

None of that was much comfort to Dennis though, who had just returned from a short practice ride to see if the knee had gotten any better. It probably would have taken a minor miracle to make it instantly better, and unfortunately, we didn’t get one. So the plan was this: split ways temporarily, with me riding onward solo for two days, and Dennis getting lifted from Capitol Reef by Swati, taken with her and her mom to Zion, and then back to Bryce where we would all meet again. That would give Dennis three days for recovery, and then we’d see where to go from there. We remembered that we’d heard there was a phone at the campground (wish we knew about that earlier!) so Dennis was able to get in touch with Swati directly (rather than having me ride to the Visitor Center and relay the message inaccurately).

We went to bed with a wish that everything would snap back into place by morning, as if nothing had happened.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 11:57 am and is filed under 2009 Bike Tour, bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.