Here we are at the fifth instalment of my quest to cycle across the USA. In this section, I struggle through the harsh American west, following the Colorado River on its meandering journey to the Grand Canyon.
Day 109 – Sunday 28th August
I ride out of Lander towards the uninhabited wilderness of Wyoming’s Red Desert. Like a lunar explorer, I move through the spectacle of emptiness, mesmerised by the vast, open country, purple hills occasionally appearing on the horizon. Against this backdrop, my bike is humbled and yet also exalted, a pinprick of life sailing across a barren sea.
60 miles into the crossing, I reach the refuge of Jeffrey City. A once bustling uranium boom town, its population has dwindled to scarcely 50 souls. It is the quintessential ghost town, complete with boarded up liquor stores, abandoned vehicles and a reclusive artist, known in these parts as the “mad potter.”
Invited to spend the night in the local church, I swing open the rear door and enter alone into a cavernous hall. I grope in the gloom for a light switch, and the hall is flooded with light. The walls are festooned with inscriptions, images, maps, all hand drawn in every shape, colour and style imaginable. My eye is drawn to a single sentence of blocky black letters:
“If this were easy, the wall would be full.”
Day 115 – Saturday 3rd September
I find myself in Breckenridge, Colorado on the Labour Day weekend, the occasion of the Great Annual Rubber Duck Race. At a ticket tent, I am able to enter a single duck for the modest sum of $5. Walking along the bank, I reach a concrete pipe funnelling the town’s river in time to see the floodgates open.
A couple of flashes of yellow shoot out of the pipe, then a steady stream, then a torrent, then a deluge, until the river is buried beneath thousands upon thousands of rubber ducks. There are people in orange life vests sitting on the sidelines with rakes to gather up any stragglers. In shallower sections, children delightedly join in the chaos by picking up and hurling any ducks that cross their path.
Alas, my mallard is not among the fastest 50 prize winners, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. Or a wilful disregard of the laws of probability. In the evening, I have a few drinks with a girl named Shay and discover that she was staying in a hotel on the Gulf Coast when it was struck by Hurricane Katrina.
Day 130 – Sunday 18th September
Morning light filters into my tent, transforming the grey outline of my dry bags into crisp rectangles of colour. I’m in the middle of a desert in south-eastern Utah, and I have a hundred miles of riding to reach civilisation.
I begin by heading three miles in the wrong direction to the Natural Bridges visitor centre. It’s too early for the centre to be open, but the fountain outside is the only place I can refill my water bottles. Armed with five litres of pure water and another two of electrolytes, I ride forth into the unknown.
Returning to the highway, I’m pleased to find a long stretch of downhill. After 10 miles, I’m enjoying myself, after 20, I’m starting to worry about going back up, and after 30, I wonder if I’ve taken a wrong turn onto the Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Afternoon brings me labouring back to the reality of positive gradients as I haul my panniers up the western bank of the Colorado River.
Day 136 – Saturday 24th September
It’s the day of the college homecoming parade in Cedar City, Utah and, though I had intended to continue south, I decide that I can’t miss this uniquely American occasion. My host, Luke, and I first pay a visit to the morning farmer’s market. Being America, it is not merely raw fruit and veg on display, but also caramel apples, the eye-catchingly named “trash candy”, and even spud-nuts (doughnuts made with potato, coated in sugar and chopped nuts).
Luke informs me that the city is home of the Utah Shakespeare festival, and I’m surprised to discover a replica Globe theatre with faux-Tudor panelling right in the heart of downtown. Outside, there are bronze statues, including a proud Henry V, graceful Juliet and even a benevolent likeness of the great bard himself.
I’m joined by Eli, a fellow touring cyclist, for the homecoming parade. Spectators line the streets, with eager children pressing forward to scoop up the candy thrown from the various “floats” that make up the procession. There’s a car covered in cut-outs of former presidents (the politics society), a group of walkers with snakes around their necks (the biology society), heavily made-up girls shaking pom-poms (dancers, who Eli informs me are normally even prettier than cheerleaders), and a group of Native Americans riding in a long bus with a fearsome dragon banner draped over the side.
Day 141 – Thursday 29th September
The Navajo nation was hit hard by the pandemic. Here, on their reservation, a masked elder sits with a bottle of hand sanitiser, spraying visitors before they enter the gift shop and restaurant complex. I’ve already eaten pancakes with maple syrup that morning, but it’s a long climb up to the rim of the Grand Canyon, so I put away a large bowl of yogurt with pineapple and granola for good measure.
At first, the gradient is gentle, but it soon kicks up and I crawl along the parched scrubland. To my right, the valley floor falls away, and, from time to time, I get a tantalising glimpse of a deep fissure running through the landscape.
I flash my annual parks pass at the attendant manning the entrance kiosk, then race toward the rim of the canyon. There is a crowd of people clustering at a fence that guards the precipice, but I’m scarcely aware they are there. It feels like a square punch to the jaw as the ground abruptly disappears into an overwhelming maze of side canyons, stretching from horizon to horizon. Far, far below, I can make out the grey-blue outline of the Colorado River, looking like a paltry stream against the great chasm it has sculpted on the canvas of geological time.