Day Thirty-five, 090404 - Page, UT

Day Thirty-five, Date Saturday, April 4, 2009
Time in Saddle: 5:09
Distance for the Day: 62.43 miles: From Kanab, UT To Page, AZ
Accumulated Trip Distance: 1291.7
Altitudes: Starting/Ending ??/4041, Highest: 5798, Accumulated: 2136
Speeds: Avg: 12.0 mph, Max: 38.5 mph
Weather: cold, prt cdy
Expenditures: ~$45

Began day again by going back into the Men’s bathroom to continue blog work (whee!) Eusebio was already in there, and Cati brought in the bench from the Women’s bathroom, and joined us. As you may guess, hardly anyone ever uses that bathroom. Great news for Cati! Eusebio got advice from a fellow camper on how to look at the weather conditions for anywhere in the US, with webcam views. When he looked north at Salt Lake City, he saw lots and lots of snow. “I think we are headed south,” said he. “YUPI,” said Cati. At the Chinese restaurant, her fortune cookie fortune said, “A big change is coming in your life.” Hmph! Damn things work…
We packed up our gear, and took off east on Hwy 89 for Page, AZ. It was a late start at 11:30am, and Page was a good 65 miles away, so we didn’t mess around too much. Fortunately, the road was a generally easy uphill grade to a crest of something like 5180’. Had we taken the southern route through Jacob Lake, it would have been a long, tough grade up to almost 8000’. We took a lunch break of Subway sandwiches bought the night before in the lee of a small tree, and kept going, going, going! It was late afternoon, with lots of rain clouds all around us, but not over us, with Lake Powell and the town of Page within sight; maybe another 8 miles away, when Eusebio got the good idea of stealth camping behind a Sinclair gas station, also behind the local volunteer fire station. There was the back half of a truck bed where I could lay out my sleeping gear (that gave C&E a chuckle), and Eusebio found 2/3rds of a picnic table we could use to cook a pasta dinner from ingredients bought at the gas station store. Perfecto! I broke out my brand new stove, assembled it, lit it up, and…nothing happened. I pumped the fuel pump harder. Still nothing. It would almost start to start, but would quickly go out. Meanwhile, Eusebio got out his stove, fired it up, and began cooking the pasta. I fiddled with my stove a while more, and then broke out the instruction book to find out how to troubleshoot it. It sounded like it needed a cleaning (but it’s brand new!), so I took it apart according to the instructions and cleaned it, reassembled it, and voilá, it worked! We had pasta curlies with Sloppy Joe sauce, Pringles Salt & Vinegar chips, and cashews – yum! We piled into C&E’s tent; Cati and I worked on our computers, while Eusebio listened to music on the radio. Around 8:30pm, we called it a night. It sprinkled briefly, but that was it.