Ain’t no mountain high enough
Today we left Cedar City and headed out to Tropic, Utah, making our first ascent to almost 10,000 feet. We had barely had time to warm up when our the “hill” started. 4,000 feet, 17 miles, 8% grade (check this out if you’re interested to know what this means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_%28slope%29). Suffice to say, it was steep. Snow and icicles lined the road starting at about 7,000 feet, and by 9,000 feet I was having trouble catching my breath as the air thinned. It’s pretty obvious though judging by how well we all did that we are all getting stronger daily on this trip. While some people zipped up in a pace line, others spent the time talking in pairs, and others rocking it out to their iPods, I was pretty sure that I was the only one grinding it up the hill to the BeeGees. Now although I do admire the musical stylings of Barry Gibb, the inspiration and drive to push up the hill had little to do with him. Two days before I left, my mom and I had spent the evening playing cards and having an impromptu BeeGees singalong. Listening to them reminded me of how supportive my mom has been throughout this trip, and how her confidence in me has inspired me to work that much harder on this ride. I then started to think about what a wonderful group of people we have on this trip and how there must be many special mothers out there to have raised such interesting, inspiring and caring people. So, I guess what this entry really is is an early Happy Mother’s Day and thank you to all the mothers out there who helped get us here, up the mountain, to Tropic, Utah today.