Day 78: Cedar City to Milford, UT

Elevation Gain: 1309

Distance: 57 mi.

Yesterday’s visit to the bike shop directed us to Three Peaks Recreation Area, supposedly a free campsite; accessing the campground is a nine mile ride out of town, plus a few miles snaking around on dirt roads. Having arrived near nightfall we cooked a pound of the dehydrated beans I picked up at Cedar City’s health food store and turned them into bean burritos.

Sunset

Sleep postponed until near midnight due to prankster jocularity near campsite entrance: hear a car spin donuts in the dirt paths; oversized figures swing in the children’s playground, visible in moonlight; loud yelling atop a nearly boulder. What a crank I’ve become; what impossible expectations I’ve developed, I muse to myself; as if teenagers should care about my attempts to sleep early and bike at 6. It’s Saturday night and I shouldn’t find error in their night frollicking.

Sunrise

Off by 7:30AM and coasting into Minersville by 10:30. Run into David on an upward stretch, he’s heading West to East on the Express into Colorado; warns us to blow through Minsersville as nothing will be open, best to blast straight ahead to Milford.

True to expectations, there is nothing going on in Minserville town beyond a gas station and shuttered hillside mines. The heat arrives quick as we move towards route 129 for Milford; however, I fudge the directions out of town and take us on a roundabout through bleached yellow hayfields, requires a dirt road pass to correct the mistake, Lizzie none to pleased as sun chokes the life out of everything: “We should’ve checked the map.”

Field of solar panels near Milford. Stared for a while but could not discern if the panels turn to track sun’s position.

Art on a shuttered pub in Milford. If my brother drew pub art, it would look like this.

Our warm showers host resides in a 7000 sqft hotel built for miners in the 1880's; now a single family residency sadly deprived of the vibrancy it once knew; Renee is the last of a long heritage of dwellers in the home, ehr husband having just passed away in January and her son a few months later. It’s a sobering visit though one of the most peaceful, and relaxing.

Renee’s pets: a turtle, a large lizard, and “Ruby” the pet tarantula. I declined the offer to hold Ruby.

Shower time, scrub vigorously in effort to remove the grime, dirt, sweat and sunscreen accumulated up and down the 5,000 feet of elevation climbed and descended; once sanitized we flip-flop into a cafe we saw in town, just before 3PM therefore eligible for free scones made fresh in the cafe. In truth, it was friend dough — deep fried — and came with cinnamon sugar butter. We ate four and grinned at the cook. I ordered a cobb salad and a chocolate shake; shakes arrive as a very tardy dessert as the high schooler working the place “doesn’t like making them, frankly”: it takes several pleadings to get him grinding beneath the electric blender. When they finally come they are masterfully prepared: tufted whim cream on top, veins of hot chocolate sauce spilling into the icey abyss below. Yum!

…

We take our penultimate rest day in Milford before beelining for Reno; spend the day laying low in the mansion and staying out of the heat.

Renee shows us a beautiful ledger for Milford’s mining operations, years 1898 — 1914, found in an old cabinet on the ground floor of her residence. I matched the dates between the collapse of a semi-famous mine of the same name, and a $10 fee for “lawyers fees”! Sounds as if many were hurt and nobody sued.

Renee’s recently deceased husband Scott came from a family of sheriffs and rangers; had collected thousands of unique hunting knives, and tens of thousands of arrowheads and native american insignia.

Lizzie was over the moon about her omelet.

Took refuge in Milford Public Library during a rainstorm. Image from a survival guide strategizes how to cross a river in strong current without drowning.

Milford, after the rain subsided.