Part Three: Meadows

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

The sky was grey over my morning meadow. If I hadn't seen the weather prediction, I'd have said it looked like rain. I packed up and was rolling along the empty gravel road when it did start to rain. I suited up under a tree and then got back to rolling. Soon it was a drizzle and then it faded away. The sky opened up to bright blue and herds of puffy clouds. Exactly the kind of day when one might like to lay in a bright green meadow.

Since I had fewer miles to go than I had time to ride them, I did just that. In fact, I was a bit of a serial meadow layer. I would lay in a meadow for a little while. Then move down the road to another meadow. Then another.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

I followed a porcupine that waddled across one meadow into a willow thicket where it disappeared. Deer came grazing past and didn't know what I was. I stalked to the edge of a small pond, sneaking up on a croaking frog, a little nubbin of an amphibian with a very fat lip. And in the pond water were a myriad of tiny swimming and crawling creatures. Bird cries, breezes, passing clouds, flowers. A heck of a way to spend a day.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

The hot part of the afternoon burned away while I was laying amid wild iris blossoms. It was time to move on. I popped out onto a paved highway, spun down a long grade, passed through a one-store town, and turned off onto a rough dirt road. Back in the desert. Juniper, pinyon, greasewood, sage. Fields of orange globe mallow blossoms.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

I'd skirted around the southern end of the mountains and was cutting across dry canyons on my way to... Work?

Ten years ago I'd ridden my bike into Moab from another route and that trip had marked something like the start of a "career" (that, actually, had nothing to do with Moab). Now, I'm just finished with that career and moving on to other things. With the first bit of business being in Moab.

So yes. All this exploring and pedaling and camping and laying about in meadows was actually a commute.

In the early evening I came to the rim edge of a mesa. Far ahead and below I could see the town. I'd planned on one more night on the trail, but now, I was so close. As I stared down at town, a cloud of gnats gathered around me and most of them settled upon my ears. I shooed them away and looked back at town. The gnats settled on my ears again.

Ah, the choices I have to make in life. One more night of camping and to have my ears chewed off by gnats? Or...

I dropped onto the road that poured off the edge of the mesa and pedaled as hard as I could for town, leaving the gnats behind, across the dry flats and into the irrigated oasis of the desert town.

From 2010 Summer

I arrived at work early.

--Greg