Tuesday, July 30th: Manti, UT or … hate those rumble strips!

The first part of the ride is uphill into Nephi Canyon. Here my woman has this fixed idea mountain lions are spying on her! You can guess it… she is nervous again! The canyon is not green – rather brown greyish. The only animals we saw today were the sheep on the hillsides. They were calling us! 

 Once passed the junction to Mount Nebo, I suddenly here a woman and a man… They are singing about Barcelona…It’s Queen! My woman’s new toy should help her on the uphill, but we can hardly hear anything – even with the loudspeakers. Maybe the ear buds are a better idea? But … when no car passes us I do get to enjoy the music and soon I find myself howling along! Just before reaching the sign of pass, I spot a license plate in the grass along the road. Someone is going to be happy! 

From now on we can cycle around with another gadget to carry along. Before going down, my woman turns of the music… there will be too much wind now! 

The ride through Fountain Green onto Moroni passes very quickly. 

At the junction we head into the gas station, of course! Replenish that body is a good idea. 

At the same corner my woman has a talk with the man of the always on her bicycle woman. He thinks she’s from Australia… 

After a chat session, we finally head on to Ephraim. This part of the route, all the way to the end, sucks a bit. The turkeys are waiting in their coop to be picked up. Some of them are already on their ride to the factory - I can see their feathers in the grass. Poor guys! 

My woman needs all her concentration again to navigate on the small shoulder, while rumble strips to our left and a ditch to our right make life unpleasant for a while. Also, the traffic doesn’t help: here the cars are more unfriendly than in Montana, I think! Ephraim means a visit to Walmart and to Mc Donald’s for a coke (we are playing Monopoly in Mc Donald’s). The last 7 miles are a bit of the same scenario. My woman has to look down and gets no time to look around at the scenery. Even I get a bit shaken from cycling on the small shoulder where some gravel is laying. The distance to the Manti Temple slowly gets shorter and my woman is so happy when she finally gets more room to cycle (in town). 

This big Mormon town has something which reminds her of home: a clock which sounds a melody every 15 minutes.  Today there was hardly any threat of a thunderstorm anymore. Maybe this region will dry out, while we are touring here!