Provo Utah to Price Utah - 75.2 miles 1015 miles cum

Today started out cloudy and got worse. The weather forecasts were for sunny with possible afternoon thunderstorms. Instead we got overcast skies, severe headwinds out of the southeast, exactly the direction we were going. Not good! We were riding into a headwind that kept getting stronger and stronger. As we got closer we could see windmills. The windmills were in the mouth of a canyon we had to ride into. The wind just howls all the time at 30 to 40 mph. All the windmills I have seen up to now are on montain ridges or on the ocean shore, this is the first time I have seen them in the mouth of a wind tunnel. We had to pedal hard to go downhill. Then to make it worse it started to just pour rain! We struggled up Soldier's summit in a light rain and when we got up to the top, 7,477', It started to pour. We ducked into a gas station convienence store to wait it out. The owner said back in 1922 there were over 2,200 people who lived on the summit. He said his family was the last to leave and they left in 1951. He said the snow would get as high as his sign, around 20'. Even in the rain, the scenery was spectacular. The canyons and hillsides were just beautiful. Price is coal mining territory. We could see 3 and 4 foot coal seams in the cliffs. I have seen traces of coal at home but never the thick seams we saw today. I would like to be able to see this sometime without all the rain. Eventually the rain slowed down and we made our way in.

At our evening rap, we discussed tomorrow's activities. We should get in early so I signed up to go see the Arch's National Monument. It should be wonderful. I will post pictures tomorrow.