Bob came from Bakersfield, Brent came from San Luis Obispo (visiting his sister) and I came from Santa Barbara. The most convenient convergence point is Martinez in Northern California.
I discovered it’s the home of John Muir, the birthplace of Joe DiMaggio, and they even claim to be the place where the martini was invented.
On the train, we met several interesting people. Michael was an avid old school cyclist with rich stories like when he rode across America solo in 1972 on his 1960 Bianchi (Italian) road bike with super narrow sew-up tires. He is traveling to his 3rd RAGBRAI ride across Iowa.
We also met Rowan, a art and english graduate student at Willamette University. She contributed to our frivolous conversation on the nuance of Lollygagging vs Dilly-dalying terms.
We arrived in Salt Lake City at an inconvenient time of 3am. After a stop at McDonalds and Subway (slim pickins) we chose a nice IHOP to eat breakfast and hang out until sunrise.
We rode thru the University of Utah and the Mormon Heritage Museum called “This is the place”.
A 28 mile ride with 3000ft climb up the Emigration Canyon route was our main physical challenge of the day in addition the the higher altitude of 7450ft. We safely arrived at our planned Big Rock Campground. There was no water but luckily next door a resort had a nice chilled water dispenser.
A thunderstorm with double rainbows painted the sky and entertained us with its lightning before we anxiously went to sleep to try to recharge our bodies.
Next we ride to Botts campground and we’ll honor our fellow Ready Rider Steve Botts.
Hurrah for lollygaggling! It was great to meet you guys. Have a great trip!