Day 17, June 22 2009, Kenab to Zion

We’re going to Zion today!!! Yaayy! I have been waiting & waiting for this day ever since I found out I was on the Sierra team, and now it is finally here!

The day in Kenab started great, with everyone waking up and riding over the local Best Western for a buffet breakfast. I was starving, so I sprinted over there with Steven in thr front and was the first in the line at the buffet. I loaded up on waffles, eggs, sausage, muffins, toast and cereal several times. I was so psyched to have a cup of tea (or three), since I haven’t had tea since I left Austin (trying to cut back on the caffeine). Once I was hitting my food coma again, we headed to the parking lot for our ride dedication and hakka.

The ride to Zion National Park ended up being a very short ride, which was such a treat. 36 miles now seems like such a walk in the park, and we were all so excited to get there early. On the road, we climbed a long gradual uphill, and were greatly rewarded with a 7 mile downhill. It was the coolest thing to roll down into our first rest stop, past massive green rocky mountains. The downhill wasn’t as steep as our downhill into Farmington, but was much much longer. After cruising at 38mph+ for seven miles, we road into Carmel Junction for lunch. We ate at the Thunderbird restaurant, where I ordered an egg salad sandwich. I thought twice about the egg salad, wondering what the last leg of the ride would be like, wondering if I would see that sandwich again or not, but then decided to go for it anyway. After perusing the souvenir ship with Joe and chowing down, people slowly began to make their way back on the road and through the last leg into the park. I rode off with Kath, Jenna and Sheila, taking our time up the first hill. Kath had some bike issues with her derailer, which was dangerously close to her spokes, but with a little tweaking with her multi-tool, we were good to keep going. After about 10 miles or so of hill climbing, we saw the sign welcoming us in to Zion National Park!

Once we entered the park, the ride was absolutely amazing. We began twisting and turning right along the huge red mountain bases. It was like riding amongst giants, with these enormous rocks towering over us. It almost didn’t look real, with the deep red mountains looking more like mounds of ice cream than rock. We were pretty much riding the whole way with our heads up, looking all around the whole time. We had about 5 miles of gorgeous park riding, as we winded around the mountains, before we stopped right outside the main tunnel. The mile-long tunnel wasn’t safe for us to ride through, with no bike lanes in a pitch black winding tunnel. Once we loaded up all our bikes into the trailer, we boarded the vans and road through the tunnel. It was a really neat tunnel, with an occasional window that opened up into a beautiful view of the canyons and mountains. It was funny as we passed by each “window”, as everyone ooo-ed and aahh-ed. Once outside the tunnel, we drove down the switchbacks, which were steep, steep roads, cutting back and forth down the mountain. We wished we could have ridden them, but it wouldn’t have worked to stop in the middle of the road outside the tunnel and unload all of the bikes. So instead, we all peered out the windows at the towering mountains as we descended into the campsite.

We pulled into our spot at the campsite and began unloading our bags and setting up our tents. Typically, we dubbed our tent the “party tent” and scoped out the area for the prime location. Once we were situated, a couple of us decided to walk down to the river running through the campsite to swim and cool down, while others wanted to ride the bus to other places in the park. Since it was getting late, we decided we would only have time to go to the river, which ended up being perfect! Max, Megan, David, Michael and Kath and I walked down, decked out in our bathing suits, to the river/creek. The water was really cold when we first got in, and we were all squeeling (guys included) as we dunked under the water. Eventually, the water felt great on our sore legs, and we just relaxed in the fast moving creek, sitting down on the rockbed as the water rushed around our waists. We pulled out the Brommers soap as well before we left for a quick shower. We have become so resourceful with our self cleaning methods.

Once we were all clean and refreshed, we headed back to the campsite, where we enjoyed generous helpings of Frito Pie for dinner, cooked by Sarah and Kath. For not liking beans personally, the frito pie hit the spot! Since we had a rest day the next day, we decided to take a bus ride into town in order to hang out and grab a drink. We jumped on the bus to Springdale, and found a little sport bar where we caught the tail end of the Texas Baseball game against LSU. The group of us hung out for a while at the sports bar, before we were the last ones to leave at 10pm. Since it was my birthday at 12pm, we picked up a case from the market, headed back to camp, and all hung out by our bonfire. It is really great to have become so close to all my teammates, and thoroughly enjoy just being around one another. It was a perfect way to end the day and start the beginning of our awesome rest day the next day. We all hung out around the campfire, singing random songs from all decades as Richard played the guitar and just relaxing. My teammates sang Happy Birthday to me when the clock struck 12pm and we welcomed in my birthday by shotgunning with Joe, Steven, Sheila, Kath, Megan, Tesfay and Lance. I couldn’t have pictured it better. Couple hours later, the party tent residents all climbed into our sleeping bags for anything but sleeping. Once it was just too late, I feel asleep looking up through our tent at the most beautiful starry sky I have ever seen.

I can’t wait for tomorrow!