Day 13 Salt Lake City to Provo.

Today was always going to be an 'ify' day as getting out of a major city is never easy and the Cue Sheet was pages long with many many turns and resulted in slow progress. You may recall that Gary did his big toe in and had to cut his road shoe, well that worked well and when we started at around 8.00am it was a glorious morning and fairly quiet. His adapted shoe was OK, but as we wound our way slowly out of Salt Lake to the south-east he was struggling and progress was becoming painfully slow. After 15 miles and getting worse with each pedal stroke he stopped the van that was passing, (to stop the van you put your hand on your head !!) and got on. He later went to a hospital in Provo and they found that he has bacterial pneumonia and has probably had it since before the ride started in San Francisco, no wonder he was struggling. After that the three of us were now last on the road by a long way and started to speed up a lot.
If it wasn't for the amazing backdrop of the mountains that surround Salt Lake City then the ride could have been described as tedious. The SAG after 29 miles was a short stop and then we were off again for a long slog uphill through roadworks, but were rewarded with a great view of Lake Utah. Dropping down from there we entered a big area of new development and the road layout did not correspond to the instructions and we got lost, but carried on in the general direction and when we went into The local version of 'Kwik Fit' for directions the staff could not believe what we were doing, but they gave us good directions and soon we were back on track.
Started catching other groups who had also got lost and then went through Brigham Young University which is vast and has some of the most amazing facilities I've seen on a campus, their football stadium would rival Wembley. Temperatures were nicely in the mid 80's. Finally found the hotel which was very nice and then went out for lunch. Later found that the hotel had a computer that worked properly and I was able to download loads of photos.
On a general note, the road kill over here is far more interesting than I'm used to (I avoid the diners that advertise 'You kill, we grill'), with dead racoons, chipmonks and even rattle snakes. Not seen a live rattler yet, hoping to.
Today's distance was 66.5 miles.