Thursday, June 26, 1998

This day's route was all on Utah SH 9 from Springdale through Rockville, Virgin, La Verkin and Hurricane to St. George. It is generally downhill all the way with a few really roaring decents. SH 9 is a super-two-lane with shoulders 8-10 feet wide. Nice ride on a great road!

I started off with Jim and several others, but stopped to take a picture just a few miles out and they all left me behind. I decided to just loaf along knowing some of the other were behind me. Soon Jack, Harry and Harvey caught up with me. These guys generally rode a little more slowly than my normal pace, but on this last day, I was in no hurry. If I stopped to take a picture, they would either stop or slow way down so I could catch up.

At Hurricane, there was several miles of road construction. We had to wait for a few minutes at the edge of town for the luggage truck, but we had a cool, shady place to wait.

After Hurricane, I rode along most of the time with Bob and Marilyn who were on a tandem. We had a really rough country road just before we arrived in St. George. That was really the only stretch of bad road on the whole trip. After that, we were on some brand new asphalt that was really getting hot in the desert sun. Those who came through this stretch later in the day said it was so soft the bike tires were sinking in and leaving tracks. You can guess what that does to rolling resistance.

We checked into the Holiday Inn again, and Jim and I went across the street for a fruit smoothie. By then, the temperature must have been in the very high 90's. That was the best fruit smoothie I've ever tasted.

After that, we came back to the motel and sat in the hot tub for a while to let the muscles relax. That sure felt good!

That evening was our traditional "Survivors' Party". As club president, it was my duty to act as a sort of Master of Ceremonies for the event, so I went back to the room to make some notes for that.

The Survivors' Party went well. We all had a few laughs and reminisced about the trip

 Day's Mileage: 38.8

PICTURES (click on thumbnails for larger view)

created by John Wente, jwente49@cox.net
last modified: July 6, 1998