Happy New Year!

(Bloggers note: I guess I forgot to push post last night, but here is my post from yesterday...) I pulled into my motel in Wellington, UT at 7:21, precicely the time that my phone said sunset would occur there. That's significant because on the Jewish calendar the day starts at sundown meaning I ended my ride at exactly new years! While there was no ball dropping or big Rosh Hashana parade (probably because I'm the only Jewish person in Wellington tonight), it was definitely a cool way to close out the year 5768.

It was a day in which I went almost 90 miles - 25 of which were in a pickup truck run on biodiesel. That was actually a really lucky story. I had intended to be climbing a huge hill most of the day on US-6 which I guess is the third deadliest stretch of highway in America. I stopped off at the last bit of civilization to grab some provisions, fix a spoke and make some bike adjustments for the big climb. While there, the owners of the convenience store fell in love with Stanley and kept feeding him fried chicken and dog biscuits. The woman even gave him a free bag of treats for the ride. Evidently they were pretty concerned for our safety because they decided to ask some of their regular customers with pickup trucks to give us a ride to the summit. One of the first people they asked happened to be an electrician that was running his truck on bio so we threw our stuff in the back and enjoyed a nice ride up the hill with David. He turned out to be a big environmentalist and I learned a lot about the wind power projects in the area, natural gas conversions for cars and more.

The rest of the day was spent riding through beautiful mountains and rock formations in the Uinta National Forest, which looked familiar from my past west coast road trips, but seemed totally different on bike. It made me remember how nice it was to feel so close to nature a la Labor Day Weekend.

Since we got a ride for part of the day and also went downhill for 8 miles, we had plenty of time to enjoy the Utah nature, learn about historical facts and get my bike mended. Since I ended up getting the ride, I hadn't had a chance to take care of my bike repairs. The biggest problem was that the wheel was getting looser from a missing spoke. I had actually forgotten about it until I ran over a big rock and got a flat 8 miles from Price in a town called Helper.I figured I'd knock off two birds with one stone and fix the flat and spokes. Unfortunately, since I'm a pretty novice cyclist and bike mechanic, I didn't have the proper tool to get the cartridge off the wheel. I fixed the flat and went to visit Fuzzy's Bike Shop about 10 miles south in Price. He didn't have time to fix it himself, but hooked me up with a good deal on a bunch of spokes and a tool to do the work myself. I set off for my uneventful ride into Wellington, where I now sit and blog.

I shall do my repairs and set off for Green River or points east further tomorrow. Then... Colorado!!!! Certainly, one of, if not my actual, favorite state that I've been to. For those of you that don't know me well, that would be all states but Hawaii, Alaska and North Dakota. Please let me know if you have any friends in Colorado to hang out with and possibly even stay with. I already have friends in Denver and Summit County, but not many west of there.
Until next time...