Ride Notes 8-6-15

Mormon Immigrant Trail

I once said that everyone should ride Mormon Immigrant Trail at least annually so they’d feel better about any other ride they did during the year, and I still agree with that statement.  The first time I rode it, second day of a nine day ride, I composed a prayer-type of chant in my head just to get me through it.  I repeated it over and over and over, even after I lay down on the side of the road and cried.

“Oh Lord, I might be early, arriving on my bike.                                                                                                  

And we’re not talkin’ Harley; it’s the carbon-fiber type.”

Today I wondered what would rise to the surface in my thoughts when all was said and done.  The gradient (my pain), scenery, sounds, smells, stuff along the road? On that first ride it was clearly the gradient, but also the loose change we found along the side of the road.  How does that get there?  No one can stop to buy anything because there is no place to spend any money.  No services.  Thankfully, there is a restroom in the woods just before the Hwy 88 intersection, and if you still have the strength to hold your head up you can’t miss it. At first, today, I was sure it was the fact that I’d arrived in a sort of little Christmas Tree Land.  Little and fresh, they were everywhere.  Absolutely beautiful!  But, when I stopped and walked across a newly cleared area by the side of the road to take pictures, I realized the sound of the wind in the trees and the buttery smell of the forest was overwhelming….a natural and needed respite from my every day world.

The route:  http://ridewithgps.com/routes/9677684