Day 17: Marble Canyon (Updated on 6/3)

Day 17

June 2, 2015


Miles: 71

Cameron to Marble Canyon

We made it to Marble Canyon!  

It is now a little past nine on Wednesday morning and Di and I have just returned from breakfast.  We are both very, very tired.  I'm so tired that it was frustrating to eat my pancakes this morning because it took so much work to cut them.  I'm so tired that when the waitress came by to ask if I wanted more coffee, I said no.  I didn't know that I could be that tired.

Yesterday's ride started off pretty relaxed.  Di made us each one and a half peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast.  We left the hotel a little before 7am and the first ten miles were mostly flat with little climbing.  The terrain became drier and started to resemble the desert we thought we had left behind us.

Morning in Cameron

Return of the desert just outside of Cameron

Di descends the desert drive

I was excited to see the Vermillion Cliffs.  The Vermillion Cliffs were designated a national park by President Bill Clinton in the early nineties.  I was told about them a few days ago when Di and I had stopped to get something to eat at a service station.  Some guy struck up a conversation with me and, when he learned where we were headed, said we would be riding right by the Vermillion Cliffs.  "What are those?", I asked.  "Oh, its miles of cliffs of such amazing color", he replied.  "What color are they?", I asked.  "Vermillion", he replied with a little bit more of a superior attitude than I thought the situation warranted.  Sometimes I think I'm giving the folks our here in Arizona the impression that Rhode Islanders are idiots.  I'm going to have to start saying I'm from Connecticut.  On the other hand, most things out here are named after people who lived over a hundred years ago.  Just down the road is Lee's Ferry, which is named after some guy who started a ferry service back in the mid 1800's.  How was I supposed to know that the cliffs weren't named after Milton Vermillion, who started a horse and buggy repair shop right by the cliffs?  Also, I have to admit I'm not even sure what color vermillion is.  Who uses the term vermillion to describe the color of anything?

Anyway, I was excited to see the start of the Vermillion Cliffs shortly after leaving Cameron.  It was only later, when we were getting close to Marble Canyon, that I saw real cliffs and realized what I thought were the Vermillion Cliffs were just a bunch of non-descript rocks of an ecru color.

Faux vermillion cliffs

Di riding by Ecru Cliffs

As an aside, in order for me to get a picture of Di riding towards the camera, I start pedaling like a madman to get way ahead of Di.  Then, once I am a good distance ahead of her, I stop, try to catch my breath, get my camera out, focus, and then snap the picture of Di as she leisurely rides towards the camera.  I don't know why I do this, but for those of you who like to see pictures of Di riding towards the viewer, I hope you appreciate it.

A more sensible way to take a picture of Di

We stopped in the town of Gap to get some Gatorade and eat two more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches each.  The town is actually called The Gap and I told Di this is were the clothing chain started.  It didn't even elicit a groan.

                           

The Gap was at the 30 mile mark and we made it there at 11:30.  We still had another 10 miles of climbing to reach the high point of the day at Cedar Ridge.  Cedar Ridge is where we had planned to stay until we realized the the town of Cedar Ridge doesn't really exist.  It has no lodging, store, restaurant, or gas station.  As far as I could tell, it really doesn't have any buildings, either.  Just kidding about that last one, I actually counted about four buildings.  You can see the entire town of Cedar Ridge in the picture below.

Booming metropolis of Cedar Ridge

We crested at Cedar Ridge around 1:30 and began our descent.  We still had over 30 miles to go, but most of them would be downhill.  A short while later I saw these beautiful cliffs in the distance and shouted to Di, "Look Di, the  real Vermillion Cliffs!"  This is the moment I learned the cliffs we had seen earlier were just poser cliffs.  I may as well tell you now that these weren't the Vermillion Cliffs either.  When I looked at the map later that day I realized these are the Echo Cliffs.  We won't see the real Vermillion Cliffs until a few miles outside of Marble Canyon.  Somebody ought to put up a sign or two out here!

Another Not Vermillion Cliffs

We rode the last 30 miles with smiles on our faces because it was just about all downhill.  The fastest speed I saw on my speedometer was 37.9 mph.  That's pretty fast!  You have to go that fast because if you see an incline coming up, you need to get as much speed as you can to roll as far up that hill as you can before you have to pedal.  The best is when you have enough speed to roll completely over the hill without pedaling.  Nice!

We stopped about a quarter of a mile before the motel to walk on the Navajo Pedestrian Bridge.  It spans the Colorado River.

Di being pedestrian on the Navajo Pedestrian Bridge

View of the Colorado River from the bridge

We arrived at the motel around 3:30.  I was asleep by 3:50.  Di woke me up at 5:30 to say we should go get dinner.  So far we had eaten four and a half PB&J sandwiches and a granola bar each, so we should have be extremely hungry after the day's ride.  Strangely, though, we weren't and we both ordered salads.  We both wanted to start with something healthy and we planned on ordering more afterwards, but when we were done with the salads we were both to0 full to eat anything more.  At least we ate healthily.

Di preparing to eat a healthy meal

Our healthy initiative lasted about three minutes, because while paying for our meal we both decided we needed something more.  That something more for Di ended up being a Mounds bar and for me was a Snickers bar.

Candy makes us happy

We got back to the room around 8pm and I started uploading the pictures for this blog.  I fell asleep while they were uploading and awoke at 10pm to see the upload had failed.  Rats.  I futzed around with it for a bit and resumed the upload of the pictures.  I fell asleep again and when I awoke I saw the upload had failed again.  Rats.  I restored the upload, it finished at 10:30, but at this time I was finished too, so I decided to pass out and finish the blog in the morning.

It is morning now and we have to get ready to move on.  We wanted to take a rest day here in Marble City, but there are no rooms available and the campsite is full.  We then tried to make reservations in Cliff Dwelllers, a town about nine miles away, but they have no reservations either.  Instead, we are riding to Vermillion Cliffs, a town only 3.5 miles away.  It is such a short ride that today will count as a rest day.  And I bet I will finally see the real Vermillion Cliffs!

What do you think about on a long ride?

• Gooooooooooal Cameron!
• Men's room should be called Man's room when it is designed for singular use.  It would communicate both the sex of the rest room and its intended individual use. Same thing with Woman's.
• I bought Morality Play by Barry Unger in Prescott.  The title sounded familiar, so I thought it must be a book someone had recommended.  After reading the first page I realized I saw the play based on the book a short while ago with Alan and Kathy.  We weren't entirely sure of the play's meaning, but now, after reading the book, I will be able to lord it over them if we ever discuss the play again.  And you can be sure I'll find a way to bring it up in conversation.
• Thinking of seeing the play with Alan and Kathy reminded me of the time we saw a play at the same theater with Brian and Michelle.  Michelle had read the reviews of the play beforehand and told us that she read it was "Laugh out-loud funny!"  The play was about a man cheating on his wife and when his plans to leave with his mistress don't work out, the last scene shows him strangling his wife to death.  As we were leaving the theater, Michelle pithily pointed out, "You know, it really wasn't that funny."  We all started laughing as Michelle continued with, "I wasn't even laughing on the inside, never minding out-loud!"  This was the funniest part of the play.

On to Vermillion Cliffs!