Here are a few Fruita pics that Mandi took and I scanned to post! We ended up suckering in a good crew to ride with out there. It ended up being Slappy, Karl, Mandi, Tim & me; it was a blast. Campfires, food, fun!!! Margaritas, Horsethief Bench, double sleeping bag. Life was good. Day one we rode the Kokepelli side: Rustlers' with the dogs, then Mary's to Horsethief, then almost decided to hit Steve's Loop but our stomachs started asking for food and margs so skipped that and just looped back to the car and hit the road.
Rolled into Fiesta Guadalajara almost hangry (hungry + angry) but were soon satiated by the best margaritas ever and tasty veggie enchiladas. I made the unfortunate mistake of eating some random pepper off of Mark's plate and thought that I was going to implode. Hot does not even touch what this pepper was. I was dipping my tongue in sour cream for a bit of relief. Bad idea. Oh well. A few drinks later we were back at our campsite (which we had to ourselves, by the way) for a few more Mandi-made Margaritas which were hard to beat. I did have to try riding some stupid trick involving a parking block and Crocs and ended up eating dirt. Landed on Echo who was less than pleased with my awkward dismount. Other than that, pain-free day. Laughed a lot and enjoyed the cool but nice evening.
Next day, packed up camp, leisurely breakfast and then off to the 18 road side by the Bookcliffs. Gorgeous day, once again. Due to the late night before we decided to make it a fairly short day. Started off with Frontside with the dogs to wear them out and then hit Prime Cut down and Kessel's Run up. Which is not the preferred way to ride that trail. If you ride it down, it's just fast slalomy fun but uphill, it's not my cup-o-tea. So, after we rode it up, I convinced Mandi to ride it back down with me, the fun way to redeem the trail to her. We hung out at the vehicles for a while rehydrating, or I guess further dehydrating, since the beverage of choice was barley pop. Then it was time to go and Mandi & I rode Kessel's the way it was meant to be ridden; boy did we feel fast!! I don't know if it was the beers or the lack of boys or the sheer joy of the day but it was super fun that way. The boys packed up the trucks and met us at the bottom. Good way to do that!
Overall, perfect weather...a little warm and i got a bit burnt, decided to wear the stripedy socks on day 2 (mostly b/c i was too tired to look for actual cycling socks, in the pit of despair that the Landcruiser becomes on trips like that, but also to fend off the sun)! My legs were burnt from the first day of riding. Weird. You'll also notice that my hair got pretty nappy those 3 days sans shower or brush and it ended up taking 43 minutes to rip through on the way home. Hats were my friends.
Thanks to you fools that hung out with us out there. Let's do it again sometime!!!
