Sunday June 18, 2006 20 miles - Total so far: 728 miles

We awoke before sunrise and packed up our tents and gear and polished off the last of the scrumptious oatmeal-nut cookies baked especially for us by Dyan. As we were rolling our bikes back to the highway a pickup truck stopped and the driver, Paul, offered water, which we gladly accepted. Paul is a surveyor and was heading out into the desert with his dog for the day.

The ascent of today's mountain pass turned out to be the most difficult for us since the Sierras. Clearly we would have lacked the energy to make this climb at the end of the day yesterday. We stopped at the summit to observe the ruins of an important mining town, Frisco, from which by 1885 over 60 million in gold, silver, and other metals were mined. We then descended the remaining 10 miles into Milford, a ranch and railroad community on the main Union Pacific line between Salt Lake and Las Vegas. Fortunately for us we got a room in a nice motel with an adjacent "Boomers" diner. Penny's Diner was perfect...playing 50's and 60's music, decorated in retro style, and serving delicious malts and milkshakes.

This was an unplanned partial rest day which proved be helpful given the unexpected difficulties we faced the next day.