Day 53, Cedar City to Milton, 58 miles

The curse of the motel; that comfortable bed and conveniently placed-bathroom dictates a late start. And so it was that we only hit the road after kick-out time of 11am. From there we made it as far as the supermarket to top-up the rather inadequate 'Complimentary Continental breakfast' (or to put it another way; a plastic-wrapped dohnut and cupcake each; with expiry dates in 2014). From the supermarket we hit the highway proper. Thanks to it being Monday of Labour day weekend, we encountered very little traffic. Our route passed through rugged looking agriculture (for tough cows); landfill and desert expanses.

After two hours of fairly unchanging landscape, we happened upon a cyclist sat in the ditch to our right. While we never caught his name, we learned that 'old mate' was likewise San-Francisco bound and was suffering a blown-out tyre from overuse. Matt was happy to offer the spare tyre he's been lugging on the trailer, which Old Mate happily accepted. We cycled on, feeling like Matt was that guys' Fairy God Mother.

We progressively gained elevation, but the incline was gradual and the wind fairly considerate... As such we were able to easily eat up the same mileage as yesterday and felt compelled to press-on. That said, Matt's inclination to stay near a stocked grocery store won over my ambition to soldier onwards into an 84 mile stretch 'sans' services. So we pulled up at Milfords' city park. This was a dedicated caravan camping area with water and sanitation dump, intended for RV's (camping-Americana) not 'primitives' like us. We cased the joint and made our way over to the covered bbq area, hoping to bunk out under the shelter and thereby save ourselves on camp-dismantling in the morning. Sadly the Sheriff took time out from his third lap of the block to inform us that only 'The City', not himself, has the authority to permit camping outside the designated area. We thanked the not-long-enough arm of the law and retreated to the designated area.

Given the lack of other entertainment, we languidly shopped for tomorrows' groceries, when we will ride onwards into Nevada. The next few days mileage feature very limited services as we will be cycling the famed "loneliest road in America.' Nothing but desert, made up of basin-fault,-range, basin-fault-range and so on all the way across to California. We don't want to sound ungrateful; the ranges have a wild, rugged beauty of distinctly different vegetation coverage and exposed mountain rock (says Matt.) Welcome to the romance of the desert, looking forward to the bright starry nights and wild campfires a long way from any RVs...