Day 14 Evanston to East Canyon
Miles 49.5

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This morning it was cold again. Since we aren't equipped to handle cold very well we slept in until 7:00. We broke camp and were on the road by 8:15. Since we have nothing for breakfast we stopped at the first restaurant we came to. This place is decorated like a nursing home. Spencer and Rhielle are sure that they must have performed here some time in the past. The music is mild new age and I could go right back to sleep. I've decided that the difference between a restaurant and a cafe is that a restaurant serves thick ketchup, that won't come out, in glass bottles. A cafe serves runny ketchup in plastic squeeze bottles. I think I prefer cafes.

We finally hit the road. I didn't realize that it was 11 miles out of Evanston before we had any downhill to speak of. When you hit the Wasatch exit is when it starts. Then it doesn't last long before you have to pedal to go very fast. Echo Canyon is much flatter than I realized. It is amazing how you see the road different when you are bicycling it. I was worried about the construction but it started just as we got to the Emery exit. That is where the old road starts so we avoided all the construction on I 80. We stopped at a cafe in the little town of Echo which is in the mouth of Echo canyon at 12:45. Nothing on the menu looked good. I guess we ate too large of a breakfast and we have had enough experience to know that a large hot hamburger type of meal just doesn't set well and you ride sluggish the rest of the day. They only had strawberry ice cream so we all ordered strawberry shakes for lunch. They served the first two in these huge funny looking glass goblets. However they only had two so they served Spencer his in a large styrofoam cup. After the ice cream we were back on the road again. I had been bothered by my left knee all day and ibuprofen hasn't helped much. As we turned west out of Hennifer it really started acting up. As we made the first climbs toward Heartbreak (Hogsback) ridge it really started acting up and I could hardly peddle. We had not purchased supplies for this evening or tomorrow as we thought we could make it to This is the Place State Park today. Now with my knee hurting I felt that I couldn't go on. With great disappointment I dug out the cell phone and called LeeAnn to come and pick us up. We kept on moving to try to get as far as we could while she came. We made it over the ridge and down to East Canyon. The road along the lake in East Canyon is level and I found that I could peddle slowly. It turned out that there is a state park campground at the upper end of the lake and the store and restaurant at the East Canyon Resort are open to the general public. We could have stayed at the campground and purchased supplies at the store. Though it was getting to be 4:30, with a nights rest my knee might have been able to handle the climbs over big and little mountains tomorrow. If not with a whole day to do it we could have walked our bikes the 6 or 7 uphill miles it would take to get to our destination. It is interesting to note that the part of the trip closest to home was that part that I did the poorest research and planning for. That lack of preparation caused us to quit the trip just short of our goal. It felt funny to see the road go by so fast but it feels good to be home again.