0 mi / 0 time / – mph avg. / – mph max. / – ft. climbing / 5 mi hiking
Staying at Bryce Canyon Lodge

It was relatively late when we all roused ourselves, and I think we all managed to sleep pretty well together for an odd group of four. Thankfully the room was huge, so even with the bikes, it left plenty of room for me on the floor. I didn’t have any days completely off the bike on my last tour, so this would be a welcome opportunity to take it easy.

I went to do a load of laundry, while Dennis would take a test-ride on his bike, and Swati and her mom would prepare for the day. The laundry machines were funny, a load was $1.50, but it had to be in the form of a dollar coin and two quarters. The dollar coins could be obtained at the attached General Store. Is this some Federal program to artificially induce the use of dollar coins? I now have visions of Sacagaweas (or whatever the dollar coin is these days!) being the only currency accepted in bureaucratic government offices across the country, and poor federal employees hoarding the things in order to obtain a precious Coca-Cola.

We all met again outside the General Store, and Dennis dropped his decision: he would not be continuing on. This, despite the fact that his test-ride had gone pretty well. It was mostly the fear of re-occurance that was guiding his decision, and perhaps that was a rational and well-placed fear. Still, I wanted to make sure that he had all the necessary information on which to base his decision, but we could wait for later for that, and enjoy Bryce Canyon instead.

We went to the Visitor Center and watched the 20-minute park movie, inexplicably projected in horribly-compressed digital video. 70% of the pictures in the video showed snow amongst the stone, so it was too bad we wouldn’t be seeing much of that in the real version. Then we cruised the 18-mile drive to the end of the park, and saw most of the viewpoints on the way back. That was one place where the use of the car was really nice, because a 1100 ft. climb to over 9000 ft. would not have been a lot of fun. It would have made us a lot less sleepy though! For me, having already seen the Amphitheater area near the lodge, the viewpoints weren’t nearly as striking from a geologic perspective, but as the park brochure said, they did provide very expansive views of the surrounding terrain. The Natural Bridge viewpoint (which, as the signs say, isn’t actually a Natural Bridge, so why don’t you just change the name you idiots???) was my favorite of the non-Amphitheater views, with Bryce Point providing an awesome perspective on the Amphitheater that I hadn’t seen the day before.

Then we stopped back at the room for a bit, where I laid out the details of the upcoming days for Dennis. I noted that for at least the next week we would have relatively short distances or downhill grades, with several days off, and also mentioned some opportunities for van pickup service around the Grand Canyon area should we need any sort of bailout there. I really hoped that it would reduce Dennis’s fear of the unknown, and convince him that any issues would be manageable. But I also didn’t want to press him too much, because he is the only one who really knows how he feels, and is the only one capable of making the decision. Even worse than putting himself in a dangerous situation would be me influencing him into a dangerous situation. So I tried to just give the facts. But maybe I should have been more proactive and encouraging. We left it at that for the time, to give him the chance to digest the new information. Which is really the last thing I wanted to foist upon him, since I know he has been giving himself indigestion from all the thinking and re-thinking of the past few days, but I really wanted to make sure he had a full view of the facts to start from.

Then Dennis, Swati and I took a hike down below the rim, down amongst the hoodoos, fins and tunnels. The view of the Amphitheater from the top is incredible, but stepping inside it is like being given a brand new set of eyes to replace your old, worn-out ones. The most surprising part is that it literally takes only a few steps below the rim for the perspective to change dramatically. The late afternoon sun was lighting up the oranges, pinks, whites, and purples to full saturation, and the deep blue sky wasn’t being left out of the game either. The Queens Garden trail took us down and around many of the most famous hoodoos, many defying physics with their balancing acts. But my favorite part was when we connected with the “Wall Street” section of the Navajo Loop Trail, where we found ourselves deep within the orange fins, rising hundreds of feet above us while leaving a gap of less than 10 feet for the trail to wind through at the shadowy bottom. And there were tall evergreen trees growing down there! It was much like the bandit-hideouts at Arches, but even more enclosing, and far greater in scale. When we returned up a long line of switchbacks to the top, we could see that we explored just one of the dozens between-the-fins spaces; I wish I could walk them all. The brochure wrote “some say it’s the best 3-mile hike in the world”, which I thought was simply a load of National Park hyperbole, but after doing it, I think that’s a claim that actually would hold up in court. It was that good.

We had some time to kill before our dinner reservation at the lodge restaurant, so we got a set of cards from the front desk and played a drinking game without the drinks. The lodge has tons of games, which they provide as a replacement for TV, because, splendidly, none of the rooms have TV. Yay National Park Lodges! It was great to see Swati’s mom come to life during the game, and both Saxenas are very accomplished card shufflers!

Then we had our anticipated lodge dinner, treated by Swati’s mom. Even though I had been eating all day (including a whole new 6-pack of bagels), I still had soup, salad, bread, beer, my entire Thai-peanut-pasta dish, some of Swati’s mom’s dish, half of Swati’s dish, and a good chunk of the chocolate cake and ice cream in honor of Dennis’s upcoming birthday. Unfortunately, my meddling earlier meant that Dennis’s mind was elsewhere for much of the dinner, though he did enjoy his cake.

After dinner, Swati and Dennis went off for one last talk, while I waited anxiously in the room to hear the final, final decision. At last, they came back, and Dennis told me that his morning decision held: he would not be going on. That was disappointing to hear, and really quite sucky, but that doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision. And at least we had some finality, and hopefully an end to the mental and emotional torture Dennis had been feeling over the last few days.

We did some final exchanging of supplies to make sure I would really be ok on my own, and then said our goodbyes, since they would be leaving for Salt Lake City early in the morning. I can only hope that in time, Dennis will be able to see our ride together as a great two-week trip, rather than half of a four-week trip. Because that’s really what it was, and I’d have him as my wheelman again, any time, anywhere.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 9th, 2009 at 3:26 pm 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.