Saturday July 19th Willard to Salt lake city - 153km that actually became 165km!

We left the lovely beachfront campsite at Willard very early on Saturday morning. I heard some people move around at 4am already! Breakfast was scheduled one hour earlier to help cyclists get on their way. The first 100km went by quickly, as I rode with Matthew, and we took turns pulling at a sustainable speed, pacing ourselves to conserve energy for the daunting climbs at the end of the day. we rode through small farms and suburban areas. For the first time in my lifei saw "Oreo cattle" - brown on both ends, with a white band around the middle! In the town of "Bountiful" we got lost real good -even Walter with his RV! Did some extra kms... In Salt Lake City we went to see the famous Temple to climb 8 blocks uphill to the site). There were 67 weddings being conducted just on this one day! There is a statue of a hovering eagle with its wings spread wide and a searching all seeing eye above the street that leads to the "Capitol" building. The city in general gave me the impression of some lack of creativity as far as modern architecture is concerned, or maybe excessive control....who knows? The temple reflected beautifully in a mirror-like pond. After snacks at the CRC church, the real chalenge started with an immediate very steep short hil (12% grade I guess) which caught us with cold quads after the break. Joanne lost her balance and keeled over on the sidewalk, but Claire veered off to the left because of loss of momentum and into the traffic lane. The next moment I heard a car braking hard. Thanks to God it managed to stop in time!
The first climb went up a canyon and there were some shady trees. A wonderful couple stood outside their house distributing freezies, which we loved! They do this every Saturday for all the many local bikers that train on those climbs. We got blessed too!
At the top of the long climb the local churches had refreshments - fabulous! Up there was a plague depicting the plight of the Zion people so many years ago, fleeing from religious persecution and going over these mountains with double teams of oxen and push carts. Many got caught in the winter and died or got maimed by frost bite.
Down the Rockies went swift, but not long before we got onto the I-80, with a grade of 6 to 7%, for maybe 6 miles, and NO shade, with many monster trucks bellowing out exhaust gasses and hot air in our nostrils. I felt like a slice of bacon being fried from above and below, as the road was sizzling hot! Halfway up we found a huge sign board and sat in its shade for a while. This climb went slow and tedious....excruciating for some. For me the heat was the worst! At the top we found ice at a gas station - just in time for some! The next downhill was surprizingly steep. I just let my bike roll free and reached 84km/h! When we reached camp late afternoon, very tired, we found that the tent site is on a different hill that the community site, and we have to walk around almost a mile to and fro, as our bikes can't go on the gravel single tracks. People had their doubts, but were amazingly accepting and accommodating of the discomfort despite their fatigue. I just decided to make the best of it, and to think and plan smart to minimize the frequency of trips. To walk through the brush late at night and climb down and up those steep hills was a bit daunting, as well as erecting tents in uncut grassy field, with such hard rocky ground that tent pegs were hard to put in. Consequently my tent collapsed on me again at night during the brief wind storm, and again the next day. Best is to just stoically accept whatever happens and to make the best of it with a smile. I'm also getting used to all the crawly bugs that want to share my tent with me. Sunday we slept in, had a nice breakfast and went into the upmarket Park City ski village to do some shopping and to have Claire Elgersma's bike fixed as her shifter broke. $300 later we returned to camp where I cleaned the bikes and Claire did our laundry. We had a wonderful celebration service after a potluck feast that the local churches blessed us with. It looked like a rainstorm was coming and huge wind flattened many tents again, but the purple clouds moved past us.The speaker shared his life story of how he grew up in very disadvantaged circumstances, and how he accepted Jesus as Lord in his life, and now is helping young people in the same position. The huge Jordanelle reservoir below the camp site is a popular watersport resort.