Our Saturday night hotel was perfect in a few ways: comfortable bed, near a good grocery store (with our favorite European -brand chocolate almond milk), exceptional breakfast, and kind staff. However, the location wasn’t the ideal place to spend a Sunday. The surroundings had the feeling of an abandoned strip mall and there was enough noise during the night to make sleep difficult for Natalie, so we decided to shift our accommodations to the south by a little under 20 miles. We found a nice room in a secluded area (beautiful renovated castle, golf-course grounds, and outbuildings) and were allowed to check in early. They allowed us to store our bike in the pro shop in a storage room for golf carts.

We’ve been resting, reading, and talking – and trying really hard not to fall asleep (we need to shift to our new timezone). Luckily, we had purchased a little bit of quinoa salad in pouches last night and brought it with us. Where we are staying today has very few food options that would meet our dietary preferences and we are out of range to go pick something up. So our Sunday meal plan is quinoa packets and trail food. Gratefully we had a huge breakfast this morning at the other hotel.

Today’s ride took just a couple hours and was split between a hard pack trail and paved trail. We tried to just take it easy and not push ourselves.

Today for church, we will watch our home ward via Zoom, because there wasn’t an option for us to attend a local congregation of any denomination here.