It felt great to be getting into the third state of our trip! But Southwestern Utah looks a lot like Nevada. It isn’t as easy to get a beer but other than that, it doesn’t seem too different.

Day 15: Baker to Milford Utah
85 miles, three passes, 100 degrees, 1 time change
Wow! What a day. We are exhausted. The temperature shot up as we were coming out of the high country and on the second longest ride we have ever done in our lives. Even though we made a net decent of over 1500 feet, we climbed three very long and high passes. In the valleys the temperature was over 100 degrees.

So how did we deal with it? We wrapped our selves up like Lawrence of Arabia (well not quite) and carried extra water. We went through over three gallons in all and I finished my last bottle on the step of the Motel we are staying at in Milford. Whew! What a day.

Day 16: Milford to Cedar City
56 miles
The early morning ride out of Milford was really nice. Milford is in a fertile valley with quite a few farms and the farmers were out early working the fields even though it was Sunday. There were large alfalfa fields under irrigation and one field that was being cut and baled with a very interesting machine I’d never seen before. The machine cuts bales and stacks the bales all at the same time. When a bale is created, it gets loaded into the bed of the rig in a six by four bale set. Once there are 24, the bed tilts up and pushes the set onto the back part of the rig on end. Eventually you have about 20-25 layers and the rid is full. Once it is full the farmer stops and unloads the whole thing. When the rid unloads, it tilts up the bed and deposits the little tower of alfalfa in the field. This one particular field we passed must have had 50 fresh alfalfa towers spread out across the farm. It was quite a site.

The rest of the ride was unremarkable except for a couple of things. One was that Gabi bonked just outside Cedar City. We could see the town for about twenty miles so she was trying to hold out for real food and didn’t quite make it. We stopped, ate a little and in a few minutes she was good to go. Then as we entered Cedar City, a young fellow named Dusty Ross caught us and we chatted for a while before he spotted a buffet and pealed of to chow down. More about Dusty and his trip tomorrow.

Cedar City itself seems like a great little city. It was kind of hard to tell because, being Sunday, the city was shut down. We got there a week before the beginning of the Shakespeare festival as well. The town itself is beautiful. It is nestled up against the first red rock mountains we have seen so far. There is also a creek that spills right into town and actually runs right through some peoples yards in the old part of town near the University.

And best of all, we found a restaurant close to our hotel with good food and a salad bar. We pigged out at lunch at around 2 PM then went back and pigged out for dinner at around 6PM. The same waitresses were there and marveled that Gabi could put away so much food, being so tiny as she is.