day26 97mi 7:35 30mi se of gunnison,UT

Agony & Ecstacy
Today was agony and ecstacy. Woke up and left early. I'm kind of getting sick of eating oatmeal for breakfast. It was cold so I had arma nd knee warmers on. It got cold last night, Once I got out of my tent to pee and was shaking by the time I came back from the restrooms 20yds away. My left inside quad decided it didn't want to play fairly early and that made the uphills pretty miserable. My achilles felt relatively fine and I ended up taking out my insole before lunch. The first pass felt kind of long and I ended up stopping on the descent at majors junction to refill my bottles and grab a bag of cheetos. The old owner of the bar was talking about pot plants wich was kind of odd to me, but to each his own. The sacramento pass climb seemed to go on forever and I kept hoping,wishing, praying for the summit sign around every corner. Eventually I summitted but I had to stop a 4-5 times for my left quad because I would get a sharp pain every once in a while. Just after getting into baker I saw another cyclist and we rolled over to a restaurant he said was good. They opened at 3:30, so I bought a cream soda and we talked for a bit. His name was jeremy and he was a hippie/stoner from austin going to san fransisco. I waited around for a while, bought another cream soda and eventually ate across the road because it was almost 5 and the restaurant still hadn't opened. Jeremy left before I ate and told me he rode the milford to baker stretch at night and no cares ast him. He said there was a full moon and enough moonlight to see by. I ate a pizza and then decided to roll out. I stretched in town and massaged my quads. I filled up my bottles and rolled out. I passed into utah and the pavement once you hit utah was red for acouple of miles. It was a nice break from the varying shades of gray I have been seeing. I passed through gunnison and 2 dogs came out and started barking. 1 of them had broken its chain and it was dragging about 15 feet behind him. They just ran alongside and barked, but it was still unnerving. I came to one of those fake cattle gaurds across the road and one of them stopped for a second and then they kept on going. About 30 yds after that they both stopped and turned around. I was thinking about getting my pepper spray out, but it was in my handlebar bag and I needed the manueverability of both my hands and neeeded to keep an eye on what they were doing. I passed through a herd of cattle and the young ones were alitle skittish and would run along the side of the road. The others just stood there in the road loking at you with a bored expression on thier faces. I passed through another little herd of cattle and just down the road a car coming my way stopped and rolled down thier windows. It was 3 college girls from boulder on a roadtrip. They couldn't believe I was riding my bike across the country. We chatted for a while with their care sitting in the middle of the road. Eventually another car came by and the girls pulled over to the side of the road. I got some water from them and gave them directions to great basin national park which is where they were planning on camping. They drove off after wishin me good luck and I pedaled on. I kept riding and since I started in garrison only 5 cars had passed me in anhour and a half. It was absolutly perfect. I was having one of those zen days that holly talks about when everything is just 'right'. I think that I finally just relaxed and didn't worry about mileage, food,camping, friends, speed, terrain, anything. I kept riding glancing behind me every once in a while to check out the sunset. I didn't need to check behind me for traffic since you would hear the cars miles before they passed you. After a while some stars came out and I stopped to put on arm and knee warmers. I started up some ascent and it was amazing. It was like you weren't even moving or that you were in space. There was enough light to see about 10-20 feet in front of you and that was enough. It was so cool just to roll along and be content. I got a picture of whatever summit I reached and started down the backside. I sat up and just kept to the left of the white line. After I started to get chilly and not being able to warmup by pedaling I turned on a little side road for about 50 ft and set up my tent for the night. A total of 7 vehicles passed me after leaving gunnison 30 miles ago. Talk about desolate. I wke up to the full moon shining at me sometime in the night. It was so bright that I thought it was a car! There is no light pollution out her and you can see so many stars its incredible. It was an amazing day. The first half was agony with my quad and those never ending climbs that dragged on. The second half of the day was ecstacy with not acare in the world and being able to experience something that very few people get too. My quad didn't even bother me at al and my achilles felt pretty good.
How is the giro de talia and the maglia rosa going?