day 25

our good friends, the sun and heat woke us up nice and early. begrudgingly we started to pack things up. our other cycling friends, will and alex, headed to blondies for some breakfast and we told them we'd meet them there. we gathered all our stuff and packed it back onto our bikes. we are a bit sluggish in the mornings; we like our sleep and we don't like the heat.there were some super annoying bugs there too so we headed over to blondies to grab some pancakes, eggs, and share a giant cinnemon roll! after some chitchatting and downing bunches of water we said our goodbyes to will and alex and wished them well on the rest of their trip. if you are interested in checking out their blog, it is Will & Alex's Blog. they are riding for autism and have raised a bunch of money for them, so that is super awesome! keep up the good work guys! after running around to the grocery store to pick up cereal for the long stretch ahead we finally left the safety and "society" of hanksville and headed into the desert towards lake powell to hite recreation area. we needed to be smart about conserving water since the only place to fill us would be hite which was 50 miles away and the only gas station there was only open from 11-2 and we arrived at almost 3. we passed through some gorgeous canyon/lake areas but for the most part the view was similar to most of utah. we passed over a couple cool bridges before getting to hite and evan loves to take pictures looking down; it scares me so i held onto his backpack in case something happened but he's an adrenline junkie. ha. we were finishing up an intense climb up a hill to get to the turn off to hite when a UPS driver (we previously met at the grocery store in hanksville that morning) stopped and gave evan and i both nice cold water bottles! he is a guardian angel and i thanked God for blessing us with such a nice person to help us out. wherever you are Mr. UPS man, take care and i hope to be as cherishable as you are. we took the 1 mile turnoff to hite where we found the water spicket and downed all of our water bottles, filled them up, and drank them again. we take water for granted, especially cold water; it is nothing but luxury. we found refuge in the shade of the ranger station which had picnic tables, wifi, and shade! we decided to wait out the heat and try and meet up with our friend tricia and her mom who were coming back to idaho from philadelphia but sadly that didn't work out. nonetheless we read, tried to update the blog, and sweated. even in the shade in almost a 100 degrees the shade is cooler, but not by that much. we then decided to start riding past hite to help with the next days and plus we had to bike at least 7 miles our of national park land to get to BLM land to camp for free. we headed out and evan was having a bit of a hard time with his knees but i was just getting into the groove. we saw a wonderful sunset behind some mountains and came up on a pull off where there was a car loading up. we turned in and met up with chris and his girlfriend/wife (not sure) who were climbing the black hole; it's like a super intense canyon/river hike climbing thing. sounded nuts. they shared some water, couzcus, hard boiled eggs, and cherries with us (so so thankful) and enjoyed their company for a bit. the county rescue leader pulled up and chatted with us for a bit (crazy old guy) but he was super great. i guess navy seals, socom, and other special forces do training out at his property and run through the black hole. everyone went their sparate ways and we set out to find a good spot to setup our tent and not get too distrubed by the sun in the morning. we found a nice spot with softer dirt, not rock hard dry dirt where we set up the tent and cracked open our cans of soup and sat in the dark savoring the sun cooked soups. we were bushed and caught some zzzzzzzs.