nice day off but no rain...

The rain called for yesterday never came, I did manage to stay off the bike though, and I enjoyed a low key laundry day. I'm at the Best Western, well one of them. This town has a lot of hotels/motels, and just in this very small area of town I've seen 3 Best Western. I'm quiet enjoying my stay here, good price and nice new furniture. I can back my truck basically up to the door which is a bonus when you have a lot of junk. What they don't have though is laundry, but as a guest you can also use any of the other Best Western facilities, so I drove one block down with my dirties and spend a couple of hours by the pool with my coffee and paper while waiting.
In the afternoon I walked next door to a massage school and got a student massage, after consulting with a friend of my who is a massage therapist I felt ok about asking for an experienced sports masseuse. It felt pretty good, but today my legs were shot!! Probably not to be blamed on the massage, rather little time to rest.
So after a nice massage I started getting hungry and did a drive around St. George and up toward an nice area we rode through the day before. I saw this Italian pizza place, looked great! and all the Italian flags and words like baked pizza just drew me right to it! When done placing my order the girl behind the counter said something like "ok great, that'll be a minute" and me thinking.. "hmm yeah right a minute!"... and not much more than a minute later they call my name... so now I've learned the hard way there are places to buy home made pizza, NOT cooked!! in front of me is this super good looking (probably tasty when cooked) pizza!! What?? you don't cook it?? so I left with a salad and croutons in a bag! :(
So with some rest at the pool, clean cloths, ok massage and not so great dinner behind me I woke up today thinking I'm ready to ride again!!
I meet Steve and Karen at the coffee shop, which today I learned from Karen, that there are only 2 coffeshops and 3 Startbucks in town! Apparently coffee is a no no for many in Utah. Anyway, ride plan was similar to our ride two days ago, The Barrel Loop, Stucki and then a different way back to town. And from the first pedal stroke to the last my legs kept fighting me, just not agreeing or wanting to cooperate. Any gradient up was a killer, but weather was jut too good to take another day off. 55 km and just over 3 hr. ride time later we were back at hotel! Thanks for Brents couple of flats on the way (it was a good break for me, I was gona pull a Dre trick and let my air out if he didn't get a flat!!). But as always, all the pain going up was rewarded with some big smile down!! And now after a ice bath and a great visit to a Thai place down the road I feel like I could climb another mountain!! :) But not gona let the feeling trick me, tomorrow is another lay low key with a road ride with Steve in the morning and then rest!!
The one McMurray crew is now in Lethbridge including the dogs; the other with no dogs has an ETA of 6am in Fruita! with a home on wheels I guess that is no biggy! My self, I might get another night here, they might have a cancellation at the hotel, if not I'll be heading to Park City to play with the dogs Saturday while the rest is skiing. Weather looks good in Moab for Sunday :)

Happy Riding!

kate