Day Twenty-Five: Torrey - Hanksville

So remember how I said that we dreamt of the morning’s continental breakfast? Yeah, well, I would like the Days Inn to stop advertising continental “breakfast” because I would not consider a tray full of bread “breakfast.” Seriously, our options were: wheat bread, white bread, multigrain bread, and a selection of spreads. The coffee tasted like dirt and the toaster burnt my “breakfast.” But hey, I guess it was free…

After that ordeal, we did a load of laundry, filled up on snacks at the gas station, and headed out for the day. Once again, we found ourselves riding in the rain. After about 20 miles, we stopped at the Visitors Center for Capitol Reef National Park to dry off and ask the rangers about the road ahead. A few minutes later, we decided to power through the storm, as it didn’t seem to be stopping, so we rode out to the highway. Surprisingly, it did stop nearly the instant we began, and we were able to enjoy one of the most beautiful rides yet. In our opinions, Capitol Reef is way underrated. Unlike the other national parks in Utah, it is much smaller in scale and more intimate: less tourists, off-road areas to explore, and hidden gems along the way. We rode past gushing waterfalls, reef-like rock formations, and winding rivers, and nearly every turn had us wishing we could stay longer to adventure through the trails. It also helped that the ride was slightly downhill, so we pedaled thoughtlessly onward until the exit of the park without much trouble.

While that part was thoroughly enjoyable, the rest of the ride seemed to be endless. We passed through miles of nothing besides free-range cows that loitered casually on the streets (and I’ve never known a cow to charge, but I was sufficiently worried that a few of them were about to). We finally arrived in Hanksville after nearly going out of our minds in boredom, which subsided when we knew that food awaited us. On our way in, we first saw two large horses sulking reluctantly down the street, lead by their owners. We laughed at the sight of horses on the highway, especially when the woman in front told us, “They’re cute until they escape and you have to walk them all the way home.” It seemed so casual, as if their horses break through the fence and trot over to the gas station on a daily basis. They carried on as we passed by and made our way over to the campground on the side of the road.

At the entrance to the campground was a large restaurant that caters mainly to tourists (we tend to meet a lot of Europeans passing through small western towns like this one). We walked inside to grab a table, but first asked the hostess about who we could talk to in order to purchase a campsite. She scrunched her eyebrows and clenched her teeth apologetically, then said, “We’re actually full.” We tried to barter, telling her that our tent was about 6’x5’, and it could even fit in the tiniest patch of grass in the corner of the lot, but she explained that in fact the entire property had been rented out by a film crew. For you film fanatics out there, the tiny little town was hosting the entire crew for a remake of the movie, “Point Break”, and although we had never seen the movie, we were instantly on the edges of our seats in search of any potentially famous people. We spent the dinner hour pondering what our next move was while shooting glances into the back room at the director and his crew, while cracking jokes about all the ways we might be able to sneak our way into the scenes.

After dinner, we moved our way down the road to a convenience store that was located literally inside of a rock wall… it kind of looked like a weird Wild West version of The Shire. We talked to a UPS man about different options for sleeping, and he told us of two motels. One was completely full because the film crew had blocked out all of the rooms, and the other was nearly empty because it had horrible reviews. But if we know anything, it is that horrible reviews mean low prices, so away we went to the janky motel!

We knocked on the office door and were greeted by a, well, interesting man. He had long, sparse, red hair and not many teeth, and the office reeked of cigarette smoke and wet dog. He was very kind in his own quirky way, although we didn’t understand nearly half of what he was saying. As the UPS man guaranteed, there were many empty rooms available, and the owner told us that he would lower the price since he didn’t want us sleeping in the rain. He bumped it down ten dollars to $69, and we told him we needed a minute to chat about it (this technique usually works well). We stepped outside, but he quickly followed us. He approached us confidently, leaned down until his face was a bit too close to ours, and whispered, “You got cash? If you got cash, I’ll give it to ya for $50. Don’t tell the other customers.” Done deal.

The rooms were much nicer than the office, thankfully, and rest was much needed. Slate passed out for an hour-long nap around 6:30, and when he rose from the dead, we lounged around, watching the FIFA Women’s World Cup and talking down the film crew for stealing our campground, though we secretly loved the idea of being inside for the night.