Todays Distance: 66 miles
Cycling time: 5hrs 11 mins
Average Speed: 12.7 mph
Distance so far: 913 miles
PROFILE
MAP
Dedication: Today is for the hard-working students of Providence who deserve a break and that includes Laihunshisha,Evangylene,Benson and Bantei. Keep up the effort. We’re all behind you.
It was a later than usual time for loading today because of the shorter day…66 miles. Still it was nice to be back on the bike after the Rest Day. Really enjoyed it and benefited. Four of the original group have gone but seven new riders have joined in at least for the Rockies. The Rockies will a shorter section than the Western States…only 8 days instead of 11. It promises to be something special. We’ll see how it pans out.
As often happens to me at the early stages of a day’s cycle some words of a song run to me as we warm into the action. I realised that we were finishing our second 500 mile stretch and I hummed the Proclaimers song with a few apt changes “ And I would ride 500 miles, and I would ride 500 more to be the one to help out Providence…daa, da, dada”. It set the mood.
Today’s route was mostly through suburbia, not the most scenic, and thus the navigation was very bitty…many turns and very few long stretches. It was something like Day 1 making our way through San Francisco. It would be a day to hang in with a bunch as some were uneasy about the length of the cue-sheet. For the last few days it was merely….get on I-80 for 100 miles, then into the hotel .Not today. There were two pages of turns.(see Heard Today). No more I-80; we had a nice relationship for a few days.
Some 7 of us cycled together till the SAG stop through the west and south part of Salt Lake City and the early morning traffic. 
At one stage we passed through a Business-Golf Park with the early morning workers/players just about to tee off.
The naming of streets and roads in Salt Lake City (and other towns we passed through today) are quite baffling at first but when explained prove to be very rational. The city is laid out in a regular grid with the streets/roads going east-west or north-south. The Temple is at the heart of the city.The streets are named according to their distance and direction from Temple Square – 800 South runs across 8 blocks south of Temple Square and 1400 West runs up/down 14 blocks west of Temple Square. The blocks are of standard size so to find your location go to the nearest intersection and you have the rectangular co-ordinates of your position. All very mathematical and I like it.
For most of the time today we were moving south and the early sun was casting shadows of each group to the right. 
Far to our left we could spot the workings of Kennecott Mine as mentioned on Day 11.
Each suburb we passed through had its own Mormon Church building (Temple) and most were of the same design. The Mormons in 19th century, under their prophet, Brigham Young were seeking religious freedom and migrated to Utah.
They established an agricultural athmosphere that has lasted to this day. It was so refreshing to get that smell of newly-mown hay as we cycled along. Also vegetable gardens and plenty of horses and ponies were visible.
I found that the miles clocked up quicker than usual with all the navigational turns; I felt that we were just getting in position to start the day’s serious cycling when the conversation in the group turned to the SAG stop. That was a quick 29 miles!
At this stage we were heading east facing straight at the Wasatch Mountains through a quiet suburban road. SAG was in a church parking lot on the edge of Jordan and a chance to refill the bottles and have a bit of fruit. Only one SAG today.
After SAG some of our group went for dough-nuts (?) to a gas station and three of us powered on – Peit and Hetty from the Netherlands and self. Immediately we were into construction work and care and watchfulness were needed.
We were moving out of the built-up area for a period with the snow-capped Rockies o our left and nice green draped hills on our right… it reminded me of a home scene. This was the highest point of the day…no real climbing on this route. We had a navigational problem at one stage as a result of unmarked roads (we weren’t the only ones) but we got back on track near the town of Orem.
We passed through the campus of Brigham Young University, a 30,000-student university founded and run as the leading Mormon institution of higher learning. With its many sporting arenas and the immaculate grounds, it was an apt photo stop. The decoration on top is a bee-hive – Utah is referred to as the Bee-Hive State. Early Mormon settlers have been described as having carried "swarms of bees" with them. This nickname commemorates the industry of the people of Utah. This campus is immediately beneath Y Mountain (8400 feet) and the college reputedly has the best dinosaur bone collection in the world.
At 1.15 the three of us had reached the hotel in Provo located on the eastern side of 250-square mile Utah Lake. The name of the town has no paramilitary connotations but but was named Provo in 1850 for Etienne Provost , an French Canadian trapper who arrived in the region in 1825.
Not the most scenic day’s cycling. No wow moments but it places us immediately on the threshold of the Rockies.
As I look out my window just now to the east, there they are rising majestically and waiting for us.
Average heart rate was up a little today, possibly arising out of the rest day yesterday but also in that I kept up a stronger pace; it was just a day to get from A to B.
Thank God for the health and thank God for the energy.
Heard Today: A cyclist looking in awe at the unusually long cue-sheet “What’s this, a novel”.
