Day 67: Into a wilderness Thurs 31st July

(Uncle Thomas thanks so much for the support. Your words of support have been a source of comfort to me in the tough moments on this journey. Truly those good wishes have given me strength when I've had to dig in through the hard yards. I wish you a fair wind to your back in California. Hopefully I will see you before you go. Thanks so much for your good wishes.)

After a sleep-in this morning it was after 10am when I got on the road. I hoped to get to Delta 90 or so miles away on the edge of the Sevier desert. But, as events would play out I wouldn't get that far.

Spanish Fork was a pleasant town with the spectacular background of the Wasatch mountains dominating the skyline to the east. The first 25 miles would bring through the colourful sounding towns of Salem, Payson, Santaquin, and Goshen. I was tipping away happily admiring the views, passing a hindu temple for good measure!! Then, on the edge of Payson, I got a double puncture. THis delayed me for a while but I was very grateful to a family acrosss the road who allowed me to use their air compressor to inflate the tyres. My hand pump can never get the required pressure into the tyres for the weight of the panniers and the strength I need to gain speed on the road.

I moved onto Santaquin which sits alongside Interstate 85. this town is nestled beautifully beneath mountains of pink rocks and dark green vegetation. I thought it was gorgeous. I stopped, briefly, for drinks and a snack. there were a lot of hispanics here, the first time since Boston that I'd seen so many. America seems to be a chequerboard of different ethnic groupings. Certainly on this trip that is how it appears. I suppose looking at the pattern of Irish emmigration other ethnic groups also follow patterns of concentration based on earlier settlement. to be honest I hadn't seen Latin Americans, or many of any other ethnic group through the mid-west so it was a novelty to see Spanish speaking people concentrated here.

It was hitting 100f again today, it felt hot on the road. 5 miles beyond Santaquin I stopped at Goshen, a small town mid-way across a parched plain splattered with salt pans that look like a bizarre scattering of frost amidst yellow, barren fields. The few buildings that still stood showed a distinct hispanic influence, down to the Spanish idom in the names. I downed a litre of gatorade here but minutes later it felt as if I hadn't drunk anything for hours. I was thirsty again.

From Goshen the road rose directly into a set of mountains which, I'd hoped, would have been skirted around. The pace slowed down as I hit the slopes. A slow climb followed with frequent stops to sip on water. At the top of one climb the road twisted round a bend to reveal another climb. When you get to the top of a climb you feel good but, if the road reveals another, immediate, unexpected, hidden climb then it can hit you. Ironically, these are the days that you hold close in your memory. These can be the days you identify with the trek, the days you subsequently hold dear, the medals that decorate the passage you follow. I dug in and pushed for the top and, slowly got there. I'm certainly no speed merchant on these roads.

at the top of this climb I arrive at a petrol staion which sits on the edge of a town called Eureka. An ice/sludge drink was gulped down with relish. With 50 miles still to go to delta I decided that if there were room available then I would rest the night here before pushing on in the morning. The girl at the petrol station directed me to a motel in the town where I'd get a cheap room. Her response to my question if there was a public library in the town was 'We're not that sophisticated here!'. It was 5pm which really surprised me. The climb into these hills had taken a lot longer than I' realised. To be honest I was glad I'd stopped.

Eureka was a curious place. A town that felt old and had obviously seen better days. Everything looked old fashioned or dilapidated. In the case of the room I was staying in, it was both old and dilapidated. I talked to a couple of people. Eureka was an old mining town. Really, its heart seems to be in the late 19th or early 20th century. It does look like a town that time forgot. It appears that time has passed this town by, like its slowy dying. The town grew rapidly when the mines opened and, obviously, for a time, the town prospered. But now, the mines have long since closed and, with that, Eureka has lost its prosperity and, ultimately, its function. There are 2 schools here but no library. The only diner in town closed down last week. There is a grocery store but it doesn't stock much. Most of the grocery shopping is done down in the valley I passed through today. The grocery store even looks like an old store of 60 yrs ago. Overhearing conversations it feels as if people are struggling here but that is merely an impression I have felt.

The setting of the town is beautiful, remote, in the middle of the mountains. The kind of place you could see being cut off in the Winter snows. Two other villages nearby are faring even worse. Mammoth and Silver City didn't have any kind of services whatsoever. Eureka was a fascinating if, ultimately, sad little town.