Day 61 – Learning to Listen to My Body

Hite, UT to Capitol Reef National Park – 78 miles

Yesterday I woke up at 330 am because I couldn’t sleep due to the heat.  I was super tired.  Saw what looked like a mouse run away from my bike as I walked over to it and discovered that he had chewed through a couple of my bags and gorged himself on my food.  Luckily he didn’t touch the oatmeal.  I made some for breakfast and drank some coffee to try to wake up.  I was packed up and riding out to the Hwy with Thierry just before 5.  We wished each other well and went opposite directions.

I rode across the Colorado River.  It was really cool looking at dawn, but couldn’t take a good picture of it in the low light.  As soon as I started to climb the other side my chain gave out.  It took a little work, but after cleaning everything really well I was able to get a new link in there.  Not a great start to a long day.  I continued riding and in a couple more miles my chain fell off of my rear cog toward my spokes and was lodged pretty bad.  It took awhile to get it out and I was nervous that I was going to get stuck in the heat before I got to Hite.  Eventually I got it dislodged and continued riding.  The sun was rising by now and I decided to stop at a pull off and walk down to the river that was running near the road to soak my clothes to keep me cool as it warmed up.

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The ride to the next town, Hanksville, really seemed to drag on probably because I was feeling pretty discouraged. I got to Hanksville at around 11 and stopped at the first restaurant I found.  Ate some breakfast, drank a lot of coffee, and hung out in the A/C.  I stayed there for close to 5 hours and considered getting my first motel of the trip, but ultimately decided to try to make it to a campsite just outside of Capitol Reef National Park, about 30 miles.

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It was still pretty hot as I pedaled on and I started to feel exhaustion set in.  I found some shade behind a rock before it got too bad and ate some food and drank some water.  The heat seems to really stifle my appetite, so I constantly have to remind and force myself to eat something so I have energy.

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I was about a mile away from the campsite that I was shooting for when I found a fantastic spot on the Fremont River and decided to camp there.  Clouds had rolled in, so it didn’t look like it was going to cool off much.  I setup my tent, made some food, and crawled into my tent as soon as possible to get some rest.

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