Location: Starvation

Before I begin, I'd like to add the disclaimer that things are probably not really as bad as I am about to make them out to be. Despite the following, I am very content.

As we move west, things become farther and farther apart, churches as host locations become less frequent, and making dinner on our own becomes the norm. Goodbye pot-luck, hello pot-o-noodles. Every morning we receive a cue sheet that has both the route, projected mileage, and a little tiny picture of what the elevation will be like. One morning last week, I received the cue sheet, and felt good about the 75 mile ride. I did not feel good about the fact that we were going to be spending the night at a place called Starvation State Park. Starvation, though a beautiful campsite on the side of an enormous oasis-like-lake, represented the beginning of a long stretch of what I would call a slightly barren part of the country. That night we had burritos, but a leader (perhaps having never eaten a burrito) bought baked beans for the filler. The showers at this location weren't much better. Some other camper had actually used one of the showers as a toilet. Needless to say, Starvation was the first place I wore shoes in the shower.

The next morning, we set out for Park City. Despite the baked beans and the fecal matter, morale was high as we were headed directly for a day off in Park City. I have been to Park City before. They claim to be an Olympic City, but they seem more like the kid brother to Salt Lake City. Except for the mountains. I think we climbed straight up that day. I spent almost the whole day fantasizing about hitch-hiking. By the grace of God I arrived near the front of the group and (you may have to read this twice) got first choice of sleeping location. Thank you Park City Community Church Youth Group for your wonderful couches. Honestly, two nights on that couch felt like winning the lottery.

It was also at this location that we seriously evaluated our own food situation. Having run out of Gatorade mix, one of our leaders thought no one would notice if we just started having Kool-Aid. I, however, being on "Cooler Crew" noticed that we had stopped using any type of sport drink in an effort to save a buck.

That morning, I looked at the cue sheet that indicated an 80 mile ride. At first, today didn't look too bad: only 68 miles, an uphill but then a huge downhill and 30 miles of relative flatness. Then, when we looked closer we saw direction number five which read "right onto some road" and direction number six "left onto another road where some road has a T intersection." This is pretty much the cue sheets way of saying "you will not arrive in the host location tonight."

Sure enough, at mile ten, the entire group had stopped at the intersection of some road and another road, completely clueless as to the next move. So, we did what I think will become more and more of the norm, we hopped onto the nearest interstate! Now, there are positives and negatives to interstate travel. Negatives: six lane divided highways are scary, rumble strips and police cars monopolized the shoulder and most cars aren't anticipating 30 kids out for a morning highway ride. Positives: wow, we took a direct route! The interstate shaved off eight miles of our ride and eliminated one of our climbs, it was also a 5%-3% downhill grade for 10 miles where many riders hit their top speed for the trip. (My top speed remains 47.9 MPH, which was recorded in PA).**


**This entry does resemble the rider journal on the B&B website. Carys and I co-wrote that entry, so I felt OK about posting it here too.