It was a day of angels. We both were dreading the day ahead, with our bodies battered by all of the climbing in recent days. Today we had on the menu a 3,500-foot, 25-mile climb up Boulder Mt., followed by another grueling and STEEP 1,000 foot climb in desert conditions. At the bottom of Boulder Mt., as soon as the climbing began it was miserable, and so we decided to take matters into our own hands. Stephanie flagged down a minivan, and asked if they might be able to do us a favor. The passengers of the minivan didn't quite understand the request, but once Stephanie discovered c'etait des francais, tout allait bien! A quick explanation in French later, ces anges francais took our heavy bags up to the summit of the mountain so we could bike practically weight-free! 25 miles later, we found our bags right next to the summit sign (9,600 feet) and our legs rejoiced the entire way up. So did we, actually, as we laughed and chatted for the first part of the climb, instead of being covered in a cloud of doom instigated by our pain.
The second set of angels came as we were taking a quick sun-filled siesta at the bottom of the Boulder descent at a state park. We awoke to find a cold Pepsi near Molly and a cold Dr. Pepper near Stephanie--it was the same couple as yesterday who had offered us cold drinks from their RV as we sweated through desert-like heat in Capitol Reef! The two of us babes had been talking about how nice it would be to have a "cold drink fairy" here in Utah, and now for two days straight, Merle and Becky have been our cold drink fairies! Thank you to them!
The third set of angels came as we rolled into Escalante and found the grocery store shut on Sundays, naturally. We had passed the only open convenience store about a mile and a half before and were not looking forward to going back and buying some horrid food such as Kraft mac n cheese or the ever-lovely processed meat. Then, two boys came out of the closed grocery store holding, lo and behold, bags of groceries. It turned out to be the owner's sons, and they let us in to do our shopping--cheers to not having to eat bologna or hot dogs for protein!
We figure that it will take us our whole lifetime to repay all of the kindness that we have been given on this one trip. And that, in the end, is probably the most important thing we will take away from this amazing adventure.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Nice French people? Come on, you must be lying Steph, I'm pretty sure they were Belgian or Swiss! Nice French people have never existed and never will... right?
Post a Comment