Sea-to-Sea NA Day 22 We had a large rock outcrop on our right for over half an hour. That is the nice part of riding a bike through this big country; you have time to observe the sights along the route in detail. The downside is that you don’t see many sights off of the route. This outcrop was an interesting change from the same old sagebrush desert we have seen for so long now. There had been other land formations for the last few days, mostly sedimentary rock, glacial deposits and erosion. This one looked like solid rock and the clouds hung nicely behind it. Having the rock at our side gave some relief for the mind which otherwise concentrated on the fact that we were working hard, much harder than we should be, and going nowhere. The contour map had shown an 1100 ft climb up to our overnight stop in the town of Dinosaur, but it was not discernable, many times we thought we were going down hill but could not get up to any appreciable speed. The wind was blowing at my right shoulder now, the worst place for a tandem. Our speed was under 20kph and towards the end of the climb had dropped to12-14 kph. The cloud cover we were to have eluded us and hung over the rock instead. Earlier in the morning the conditions, both physical and mental had been great putting the first 40km and a lot of riders behind us in 1 ¼ hour despite some long gradual hills enroute. We had lunch in a town called Vernal and talked to a local who informed us about all the oil industry activity in the area. This he said also explained why the highway had so many trucks on it. We had a paved shoulder but the ever-present rumble strip meant you had 1 foot to ride on between the white line and the strip or ride on the shoulder side and risk a flat because of all the garbage in this area. We did some of both depending on the conditions. The road consisted of tar and course gravel making for a rough ride until the boarder of Utah/Colorado close to Dinosaur where it got smoother and the rumble strip finally disappeared. Sad to say but the town here has few redeeming qualities on the surface. At one time it appears that they expected great things to happen here based on the finds in the area but there is little activity here, most seems to be in the previous town of Vernal. Ride for the day was 145 km at an average speed of 25.6 kph, with 3625 ft of climbing. Tomorrow we are in for another ride of similar length. I don’t know any more details at this point.