Day 17: Burley, UT to Willard, UT

Actual Kms: 100 kms in and 5 to go...I'm sitting in the Bingham Public Library and we are camped about 5 kms down the road.

Overkill Kms: Notta...and I was mapping everything today. Maybe I do possess better mapping skills than my Dad.

Road Things: 2 deer, 4 racoons (one particularly messy), lots of snake skins, 2 skunks, lots of little birds...and they were all dead.

Money Spent (so far): $6 batteries for camera, $4 for Pineapple upside down cake and coffee (see pic).

Wipeouts: 0 but Jake Kuyper's front wheel collided with an orange road barrel today. It was knocked off the road by a truck, and I for one am thankful he didn't have a spill.

Most Interesting Person Pick: John Vanderveen (?). He's from Ontario, probably weighs the same as me and is about 65. He packed less stuff than anyone here, but is also the one everyone goes to to have their bike fixed. Today when I mentioned that I had lost a strap for my camel back, he said..."I have something that just might work". He's a great biker, always up early and at 'em and very friendly.

Favourite Part of the Day: Realizing at 85 kms that I was in the lead and barely breaking a sweat. I motored today.

Worst Part of the Day: Not being able to download my pictures at the local library because I'm not allowed to put my camera card in their computer. Bummer.

Somedays biking is like playing video games. Today we had a 30 km stretch on the highway (which wasn't so bad becuase they were paving the right lane and it was finished, so we rode on that most of the way). Anyways, I was flying down a hill at 65 km/hour and there was a lot of debris (road tire, wires, road kill and pavement chunks) on the road. I was dodging, tucked down in my arrow bars and it was fun! The Mission Impossible song was playing in my head.

After I got off the highway, I saw the first SAG (Walter Vink and the motorhome) but didn't feel like stopping yet, so I caught up to Jake Kuypers and had a good little talk with him. Mostly about the splendid tail wind, temperature and view. Then we caught up to the "Chatham Team" as Jake called them. This is Barb, John Vanderveen, Cynthia Aukema, and about four others that always leave early. I passed them down some very, very flat and marshy highway. It was very peaceful riding by myself and I kept my pace at 30 km/hour. I finished 85 km from 6:45 to 9:45...3 hours. Which I was pleased with because that is about 28-29 kms/hour.

Then we got into the town of Corinne (I hope Corinne Smienk takes a picture there). The next SAG was there, so I stopped and then the Chatham crew came in so we went to the Golden Spike Cafe and had coffee and cake.

We ate for about 45 mins and then saw some more riders come in. We also figured out that Willard wasn't very big, but Bingham was, so I decided to bike the 15 kms to Bingham and hang out there. I found out that the bike shop here has weird hours 4-6 pm everyday, so it doesn't look like my squeak is going to be fixed here. Overall, after yesterday, I am very pleased to be done so early, especially since tomorrow is 150 km with a big hill at the end.

This afternoon my plan is to write postcards (I have many more to write to my sponsors), go swimming in the fresh water lake at camp (we are staying at Willard State Park), read the rest of my book (Nickel and Dimed), deliver some mail and (of course) call Tim.

Good Day.




Here's some pics from Huntington last week. This is a picture of me with my lovely blue riding sweater on. The people at the table were making fun of my cool looks.



Enjoying the tiny town of Huntington. We always forget to take off our glowing yellow vests for pictures.

First bum-Matt Z, Second Bum-Joel, Third Bum-Sarah, Fourth Bum-Jodie, Fifth Bum (up front)-Hans. Team Sweet as it was meant to be...Brian took the pic.

Team sweet at Shoshonee Falls before Burley. This was yesterday.

Team Sweet a few days ago.