Leg 5

You know inevitably that on any trip, and project, any adventure that you begin, you will face adversity. Something won't go right, the conditions won't be perfect, or in some way, you will need to improvise to keep yourself going. This is as much an allegory for life as it is a universal fact about the things we choose to undertake.

With that said, I'd like to hereby nominate that we change the name of Monday to Misery.

Almost 4 hours of the 6:45 I spent riding today were done in a 30 mph cross-wind, through traffic and endless construction with grooved roads, being seemingly singularly picked out to be run off the road. I was so accostomed to my bike being leaned over at a 13° tilt, that when I finally stopped for gas, I almost fell over trying to stand straight.

Today was the first moment that I second guessed not only what I was doing, but my commitment to keep going.

It wasn't all bad. And no trip, even with it's head(err, cross) winds ever is. Death Valley National Park is a treat. If you plan it accordingly, get up early and beat the heat, enter from the West Side and slowly fall from 5,000' of elevaltion to -287', you come to appreciate a desert beauty of absolute nothingness.

Would I play the Devils Golf Course that is at the bottom of Badwater Flats? A featureless salt bed in the middle of Death Valley with 9 holes plopped into the hottest place on earth? No. But I hate golf and that prospect was going to lose anyways.

From Badwater, I climbed up to Dantes Overlook which is another 4k feet of elevation gain that ends with a spectacular view looking across the whole of Death Valley.

From the exit of Death Valley, the road becomes straight, East, and the aforementioned miserable. I skirted along the north of Las Vegas on my way across Nevada, never wanting to exit a stretch of highway faster.

However, as I exited Mesquite, NV, and made the climb through the corner of AZ and into St. George, UT the sheer immensity of the canyon I was climbing overtook me. The road began to climb, the heat began to fall, the straight lines I had been endlessly been traveling like a pencil along a yard stick finally gave way to twists, turns, and wide open lanes. The red layered rock swallowing me on both sides was like a crimson slot canyon and I cannot get the memory of that section out of my brain.

From here, a 2 day reprieve just outside of Zion National Park. I spend tomorrow exploring Springdale and a little of the Park, before heading out Wednesday East through the park proper and then down to the southern most point on my trip, my Nana's bed & breakfast in Phoenix, AZ.

Thank god today is over. My whiskey is toasting calmer roads ahead.