Day 62: Jesus for 300

Cedar City, UT to Milford, UT — 59.2 mi, 1525 ft

This morning was just like any other day, except there were two of me. My twin sister was going to bike with us! The plan was that she’d ride the 60 mile day with us, stay with us at the church for a little McCay^2 sleepover, and then she’d leave the next morning. Hopefully, she’d get a snapshot of the Spokes day to day experience. 

We set out at 10 am, a little later than what was probably ideal with this insane heat. Within the first mile, we came across a farmer’s market that was directly along our route. It was a test of strength that absolutely no one stopped to buy anything. Probably a record. 

I had Simon use my bike and I took Aarushi’s, the driver for today. We only ever had 6 garmins, so the driver usually hands theirs off to Nunu, who just switches between them. But since Drew’s garmin is stuck on the side of a cliff in Zion, we now only have 5. Anyway, there aren’t enough garmins to go around. So when we had to make a sudden and sharp right turn, we didn’t signal well enough and Simone didn’t have enough time to process it before she ran into Nate’s back wheel. It was crazy. She practically dove off of her bike, did a side roll on the ground, and immediately popped back up like nothing had happened. Everyone was seriously impressed. Ironically it looked like it had affected her the least.

We kept biking through the heat, had our buns rest stops on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and went over a few mountain ranges.

I honestly felt kinda bad about all of this, since I had invited my sister to bike on this nasty hot day, and all she got to show for it was a scrape on her knee. Around mile 20 I got a call from Nunu asking about a package that was supposedly delivered to our airbnb in Cedar City. And so with my mom planning on driving back to check for it, I also asked my dearest sister how she was feeling. She was rightly feeling hot, tired, and no longer having fun. So at mile 22 she decided to get in the car with my mom and escape from this ride. I mean if I had the option, I would’ve taken it too.

We continued until our next rest stop at a gas station, where I said goodbye to my family for the next two weeks. 

I took some delightfully boring pictures of the desert we biked through. 

Whenever we passed a crop circle, it felt like the temperature lowered significantly. Now I just looked this up to check if I’m crazy, and apparently it’s a real thing. When plants absorb sunlight, they release water vapor through pores in their leaves in a process called transpiration. The liquid water in the plant has to absorb heat from the environment to turn into a vapor that’s released through the stomata, meaning the surrounding air is cooler by a few degrees. Fascinating.

As we entered Milford, Nunu, Caroline, and I saw this truck on the side of the road, which I feel needs an explanation. It’s a waste disposal company; “iGOTPOOP.com has been serving the people of Utah since 2003.”

We got to the church and saw this Bible Jeopardy on the wall. Caroline was the self appointed Jeopardy host. “What category would you like to pick?”  I chose Jesus for 300. She said, “This is how many disciples Jesus had.” I guessed either 7 or 12. Well, there wasn’t an answer on the back of the card, and so we had to look it up. It was 12. 150 points for me. I’m not very good at Bible Jeopardy, in case you couldn’t tell. But whoever in this congregation made this game seems very lit.

We then began the search for the showers that were supposedly in the church. We had looked everywhere, in all the side rooms, closets, in the back of the kitchen. The only place we hadn’t looked was in the chapel. Behind the stage, on either side were two closet doors. There’s a reason this was the last place we checked. Why would they be there? There is no way that could be the case. But as I opened the door, there it was, a shower. Wow. There was even another on the other side of the stage. After our nasty ride, our tired brains thought this was the funniest thing ever. The thought of walking between the pews in our towels and behind the sanctuary just to shower. What are we even doing with our lives?

For dinner we got these delicious burgers and sandwiches at Scotty’s Diner.

We worked on our overdue blogs when we got back, until Aarushi had the genius idea of doing yoga outside. So Nunu, Caroline, and I followed Aarushi’s lead, which admittedly was a whole lot more stretching than actual yoga; no Adho Mukha Svanasana to Bhujangasana to Virabhadrasana I and Virabhadrasana II for us. Although we did do a little Savasana, or corpse pose, just for fun.

Then Tatiana, Aarushi, and I decided that tonight would be the perfect night to Cowboy camp (inspired by Stanford Spokes). With partial cloud cover and a baseball game that was still going on at 11:30 at night, perfect conditions for star gazing, we set up our sleeping pads. It was actually incredibly comfortable since the grass was like an extra cushion. At around 11:50 pm, I saw the sprinklers turn on in front half of the church’s lawn. But we were around the back. The sprinklers wouldn’t get us on this side. I was too tired to care, and just left it up to fate. 

At 12:40 am I was woken up to screams and cold water being shot into my face. The sprinklers got us. We truly are geniuses. We picked all of our half soaked sleeping bags up and ran inside. I promptly fell asleep in the aisle between two tables of a kids room, underneath a slightly warm and slightly wet sleeping bag.

We’ll eventually get this Cowboy camping thing right. 

Remember to learn from your mistakes,

Carmen