Wednesday, July 31st: Richfield, UT or …some severe cycling

My woman woke up in the middle of the night and had a hard time falling asleep again. I could feel her restlessness! In the morning she has a difficult time getting up, of course. But once we are ready to roll, she feels happy again. This morning ride has something special – we decided it’s the different colors we see: yellow, brown and green for the sunflowers along the road, the blue of the lake, the red of the sandstone, the grey of the hills… 

Although we are still on US 89 heading south, we have a bit of a shoulder this morning – making it even more enjoyable. We pass two prisons who are just 20 miles apart from each other. The biggest one is in Gunnison. Just before reaching this town, my woman thinks her tree is missing! We’ll have to check some pictures of the previous years. But there are some swings along the road which look kind of inviting! 

For sure, the canon in Gunnison is gone! Two miles further down the road we head into the gas station of Centerfield. We have now reached the deepest point of our route of today… the rest is all slightly uphill again. I suddenly notice a geyser in the fields….or is it the way they water the fields here! 

Axtell is a small town with a very small post office. The third part of the fun ride comes now: I call it the Teddy Bear part, because the hills I look at just seem to have the fur of a teddy bear. No crops are grown on this part and my woman wonders why! 

To the right we can see Redmond: the Salty town. Here salt mines give us the salt we find on the tables in the restaurants (and at my woman’s house – I’ve seen a small bottle of it). But we cycle into the town of Salina and suddenly it jumps into my woman’s brain…now that means salt too! Here we stop at the Maverick gas station and my boss almost bought a hot dog. We watch how a truck drops it gravel on the road next to the pumps – probably some road work to be done? Enough resting – time to go, woman! While I’m going to take my afternoon nap, she cycles the dull part. Those last 19 miles always seem to take forever – this straight slightly uphill into the headwinds road sucks! The glittering of the cars in the distance tell us that we are almost halfway the boring strip.

 I suddenly hear my woman call out girl’s names – a whole alphabet! Then she does the same with boys’ names. When that’s finished she starts on veggies and fruits but that poses a problem! And suddenly the town of Richfield is there! Here we find another Thomas shop! 

Good job! We cruise around town before checking in. I know I’ll have to convince my woman to stick to the plan: no detour on the easy route this year!