Day 13
Scavenger Hunt day...nothing left laying by the wayside after we went through.

DAILY DOINGS: I think the riders had a good time yesterday on the off day just resting or touring downtown SLC.  By mid morning I didn't see anyone at the motel.  Some spent time tending to their bikes and just resting their butts for the next leg...my favorite through Utah and Colorado.  My morning wasn't as enjoyable, however, I had an appointment with the oral surgeon to have my tooth removed...yep, that was a fun morning.  Feeling OK today but hungry!  If I'm feeling OK the doctor said I could be back on the bike in a couple days...but I don't even feel like getting in and out of the van today...even that tires me.  Just getting old I guess.  I'll just take it a day at a time.

Today was our scavenger hunt day so teams were formed and strategies set.  I won't say the competition is fierce, but one item was a piece of a fan belt and when Lisa came upon one, she and her teammate Paul cut off a small piece and threw the rest far away from the road so no one else could use it.  I'll talk more about the scavenger hunt when we have the judging this evening.

Our route today took us through most urban areas today...Lehi, Orem,  Provo, and the BYU campus.  Most areas had a nice shoulder for us to ride on and even when we didn't have one, in most cases the lanes were wide enough for us to ride OK.  All morning we could see the Wasatch Mountains (right) surrounding our route...we're starting to enter the Rockies and lots of climbing but although today we saw severe terrain all around us, where we rode was pretty tame. 

The town of Lehi was originally noted for polygamy in the the mid 1800s until the federal government moved in and drove them into hiding.  Just south of Lehi is Utah Lake, the largest fresh water lake in the inter-mountain west.  We also rode through Provo, home of BYU.  Provo was named by Etienne Provost, a French-Canadian trapper in 1825 and is now a central area for the Latter Day Saints.  There's almost as many LDS churches in this area as there are Baptist Churches in Alabama...but not quite.

Even with all the navigation today, everyone seemed to enjoy the change of pace from the interstate.  As I said before, we were in urban areas most of the day so never out of touch with stores and people.  Plus, even though we were around housing areas all day, the terrain was still pretty scenic and the ride through BYU was beautiful...what a nice campus.

After rap, we judged our scavenger hunt.  We only had 2 teams that finally entered.  I think we started out with about 4 teams.  Seems the Brits (David, Bill, and Alan) and Herb recruited Richard P. to help them and then didn't look for anything themselves...so Rich was drafted by Team Winner made up of Johnny, Linda, Greg, Sue, Scott, and Tim.  Team Loser (Left: Clarence, Rich M., Lisa, Jenny, and Monica) disbanded when they felt they were not competitive since the only thing they had was Clarence's flower.  Clarence and Rich M. joined Team Small (Marc and Joe) to form the second team.  So it was Team Small against Team Winner (what an original name).  The judging was tough and fair (even though Clarence tried to slip one of the judges a century bill).  He would have been successful had I seen how much it was...when I saw him trying to slip her a bill, I had already chimed in that it was illegal to bribe a judge...had I seen it was a Franklin, I may have kept quiet.  After order was restored, the items were judged and the competition was close.  Clarence's flower almost turned the tide, but it was the fax from the Governor's office that tilted the scales to Team Winner.  Seems Johnny called the office of the Governor and got an actual fax sent to the motel welcoming us to the great state of Utah and wishing us a safe journey to the east coast.  Had he gotten the Governor himself to show up, it would have been an automatic win for his team, but the fax was pretty impressive and worth 3 bonus points.  We wrapped up the competition with awards for the winners...first in line at buffets 'till Pueblo and a free tube...probably the most cherished item on the road lately.  If only Team Miller would have been here, they needed tubes dearly.

We welcomed 6 new riders tonight and you can check them out in the "Meet The Riders" section.  We also lost 9 who left in Salt Lake City.  We'll miss seeing them on the road and especially Team Miller and their peloton.  Now I don't have anyone to buy tubes during the day.  We hope they all have a safe journey home and will come back and ride with us again someday. 

Tomorrow we head to Price...maybe a rodeo is in our evening plans.  We'll have more climbing than we've had in a while, but we're stronger now and look forward to the challenge...check back and see us tomorrow.

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