The food and coffee at the El Rancho Cafe were kinda blah, though the service was friendly enough. Wish I'd held out for Stockmans Restaurant about a mile down the road. I like their sign: "Come as you Are".
The shoulder of the new road past mp 122 is 4 feet or more beyond the rumble strip. Annoyingly enough, the shoulder shrinks to two feet or less just when I needed it the most after mp 119, like on the big downhill before mp 118. It widens to 6 feet again around mp 116. Entering Roosevelt, shoulder is unmarked so drivers use it as a second lane. Entrenched car culture for sure.
More bad coffee at Kim's. Ordered the patty melt, no fries. Very good sandwich, and Mrs. Kim is a trip.
Heading West out of town it's all industrial suppliers and such. Road is under construction, little to no shoulder. No mileposts for a ways, either. By happy coincidence, one appeared at 5:29 PM, about 12 hours ago: mp109. That made 44 miles for day 22.
Tried to charge my iPod because it was almost dead, but it was too hot in the afternoon sun. Apparently there's circuitry that prevents charging above a certain temp so the lithium battery doesn't explode. I'm cool with that, but it means I wasn't able to take notes on the shoulder width. I seem to remember that after the road construction ended, a decent shoulder appeared partway up the next hill. It lasted a mile or so, shrank, got bigger, shrank, got bigger, shrank again and stayed around two feet for miles, then widened to 3 to 4 feet for the last 10 to 15 miles into Duchesne. I'm on my way out of town already, it's really small.
I heard the drumming again tonight. It turned out to be, not some animal ritual as I'd imagined, but those huge-assed sprinkler systems the farms use around these parts.
It's 69 miles to Heber City. Sure hope there's a town or two in between. Couldn't find a wifi signal to check the map.
Twilight is just starting. Gonna be a long day, I imagine.
last updated 2009-08-23 17:29:57. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com