Mark's Big Ride: Day 12– Why yes I am and I’m very saddened…………..

We’re in transition today. Where going from a town built on excess and conspicuous consumption to a town built on completely different principles. I’ve never been to St. George before, but to carve a city out of this tough landscape is a miracle. Maybe I’ll feel differently tomorrow, when I spend some more time checking out the town, but right now it feels like an oasis. Maybe it has something to do with being in the Penthouse at the St George Worldmark (just what is this bit of conspicuous consumption doing in Mormonville?), maybe it’s because the land between here and Las Vegas is harsh – and to see trees, green grass, the Virgin River and neat and orderly greens, lawns and parks is a total and compete contrast for anything else for miles and miles. I don’t care, it feels good, it looks good and when we are camping in two days in Zion Park I’ll have fond memories of the shower with two showerheads. And the green manicured parks.

The ride today was pretty darn hot. Somewhere around 104 degrees with what I would estimate to be a 25 to 30 mph crosswind changing to headwind changing to crosswind yet again. For some reason, it never felt like a tailwind…..

Our only stop today was at the Valley of Fire Park just a tad bit northeast of Vegas. Sediments laid down back in the whatashooozic era (yup, should have picked up a park guide) steadily eroded and revealed these wonderful red rock formations out in the middle of squat. I mean, for miles and miles and miles, you see nothing but same old, same old, but you hang a right off if I15, travel 20 miles east - it’s red rock country. The rock formations were picturesque, beautiful and probably would have been just amazing at sunrise or sunset, but as far as I was concerned they were just perfect while we were there. You putt, putt around and look at the formations, do the obligatory ohh’s and ahh’s, but once you take the time to get off the bike, out of the car and take a walk – well it become personal. The park was full of petro glyphs from people that lived there, knew the land, respected it and made their way. We saw some amazing art made with a stick or a bone, scraped into the sandstone that had endured. And it’s real.

The other amazing sight today was the trip through the Virgin Canyon. It’s hard to imagine where the freeway is going, from 10 miles away it looks like it just disappears. It’s not going to the left, it’s not going to the right, it just disappeared. But once you go closer, much, much closer, you could see the highway going into a small cleft in the mountains. From then on it a series of 55 mph sweeper turns – hats off to the Arizona Road Crew for building such an awesome road!

Mileage today 169 miles/3,665 cumulative
Best thing today – seeing petro glyphs, that was totally unexpected!

Most awesome thing today – We’re in the Albertsons in St George and some hick cowboy walks up to me and asks if that is me on the cover of one of the rag magazines at the cash register,. The little tiny 1” square picture inset - top left of Farrah Fawcett – her ex husband Ryan O’Neil. I must admit, there is a strong resemblance, but I do believe that he’s about ten years older than I, so I’m not sure how I feel about that. But to have been with the hottest pin-up girl of the 70’1 – well, that’s Robert Johnson deal with the devil…..

Challenge for the day – dealing with the crosswinds. At 80 mph you must lean into the wind at approx. 18 degrees, unless you are within 63 meters of a truck, in which case you dynamically deallocate by the square route of pi for reciprocal of your speed for each square of the nearest kilometer. In other words, I got beat up bad leaning into and then almost getting blown off the road by the wind, big trucks and people on my ass