To Blanding

The sun rose on Hite Recreation Area as I rode away this morning. You can barely see the bridge over the Colorado River as I climbed the first steep hill.

Riding a bike, you cross what looks like an ordinary bridge, and discover dramatic clefts which make you stop.  In a car I think you miss a lot of the little (big) things.

A faraway rock on a mountaintop called Jacob's Chair:

This one is called Cheese Box Butte.  To me it looked more like a yurt, but perhaps the early butte-naming pioneers didn't know what a yurt is.  And I didn't know, until now, what a cheese box looked like.

We have arrived in the part of Utah where cows might be seen hula-hooping.  I find it interesting that most of the cow warning signs now have double red flags.  I'm not sure any self-respecting cow should be eking out an existence in this environment.

We drove the 9-mile one-way loop through Natural Bridges, a good place to have our lunch break.

Sipapu Bridge, spans nearly 270 feet and stands 220 feet high.  The name is borrowed from a Hopi Indian legend and alludes to "the gateway through which the souls of men come from the underworld and finally return to it."

Mule Canyon Ruin is the site of a small Anasazi village:

Tonight we're in Blanding and planning to take a rest day tomorrow. I love rest days.

Miles = 1073