We got a motel with wireless tonight, so we could pop e-mail and otherwise catch up on things. I was amazed that I had only 15 new e-mails. I used to get hundreds a day. I dumped a lot of lists and put the rest of them on digest, but even still, a lot of digests didn’t come through in the past couple of days. Which is…restful. :-)

Friday, I managed to get everything done at work so nothing would blow up while I was gone. I’ll have a mountain of work to do when I get back (I think I have six separate books with chapters due on the 1st), but I’m so not thinking about it while I’m gone. :-) My boss took me out to lunch, ostensibly to have a pre-vacation wrap-up/update, but we mostly talked about Twin Peaks. I had a burger with brie, which was tasty.

Ken had taken me to work, so I had all my bike gear. It was a tad stressful knowing that I had to have everything packed, that I wasn’t going home again before we left, but so far it doesn’t look like I forgot anything. I packed fewer clothes than Ken, a fact that makes me gloat at regular intervals. He showed up about half an hour later than planned, which wasn’t bad, and we didn’t even hit too bad traffic. However, we did have an intercom glitch, which delayed us another 45 minutes while he went into the depths of the bike and rewired things. As a result, we didn’t get as far as we planned, stopping for dinner at Baja Fresh and then spending the night in Victorville.

We both woke up before the alarm, so we had a pre-breakfast munch of bananas and granola bars, and headed on our way. We ate a late breakfast/early lunch in Vegas; we found a small deli and had sandwiches. It got up to a miserable 107° at one point—there’s just nothing you can do about that—so at another point we stopped and shared a milkshake. And lots and lots of water.

Once we got into Utah, things got much better. We got off the motorway and onto fun, pretty back roads, eventually riding through Zion National Park. Absolutely stunning. As I said to Ken at one point, I can appreciate the beauty, even if it’s not the type that speaks to me on an emotional level (like the coast, or a primeval British forest, or the mossy mountain pools and falls of the Adirondacks). Stark red rocks in jutting, alien formations. When we stopped at a little store, I found a book about Zion as a holy place, dating back to the Native Americans. About finding what you need in the stark earth and clear sky, the chill water and fiery air, the silence and solitude. Although the book was pricier than I could justify spending, it gave me some nice things to think about as we rode through.

We stopped early tonight, in mid-Utah, in a quiet little town. We checked in to the hotel, changed into jeans and regular shoes, and strolled down to what turned out to be an excellent Chinese restaurant. Across the street from it, in the park, was a performance of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” We were tempted to go, but the siren call of a cleansing shower and comfy bed was too strong for us.

Tomorrow, we’re headed for Dinosaur National Monument. In part because dinosaurs are just cool :-) but largely because Ken’s grandfather, as a young man, was one of the people who excavated major skeletons there, including some that are in the Natural History Museum in DC.

Now, though, I’m going to relax with a good book before drifting off…

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Now Reading: Blue Dahlia, Nora Roberts
Lately Listened To: first four and a half Styx albums, in alphabetical order [g]
Recently Watched: amazing scenery