Mind the gap.


We arrived at our camp for the night, Gooseberry.  More amazing food was prepared:



Salmon Slabs and...



Dutch Oven Cake.  Nope too late, Maggie and Mike have already promised to adopt me.

We slept the sleep of the just. Somewhere in the middle of the night I woke up and gazed up at the stars. For whatever reason, the stars in Utah always seem mind-bendingly amazing. I was in the Sahara desert earlier this year, and made a point of doing some star gazing there. Yes, they were amazing there too, but Utah seems to be just a tad more intense.

The next morning we woke up, breakfasted like kings on French toast and fruit, and saddled up for the day's ride.  Today we were riding along the southern section of the White Rim, a 25 mile cruise from Gooseberry to Candlestick. There were some sotto voce comments about a "little bit of a climb" at the Murphy Hogback, but I wasn't gonna be shifting much, right?





I don't mean to whine, honestly, I don't. But I was starting to get a wee bit tired. The process for taking these photos is to load myself down with many pounds of photographic equipment, along with the usual riding gear, and sprint ahead of the group to scope out and set up a photo (which often means getting off of the road or trail a ways, which in the desert means finding a non crust-busting route), pull out the camera, adjust for light conditions, snap a few pics, stow everything, hop back on the bike, SPRINT to catch up and pass the group, and do the whole thing over again.  I've been traveling through this part of the country since I was a small child, which is helpful because I have developed some sort of instinct for how the landscape is likely to unfold and what might be a likely shot.



(Hey, that's MY bike!)




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