Day 17 - Hanksville to Blanding - Where Forest Gump stopped running and went home

I'm pretty tired so this will be short.

I had been dreading this section for months.  When I saw this section when examining the route I was very concerned.  It didn't help that we are currently having record temperatures in Utah right now.

I studied the route and came up with a plan. Based on previous days I had a pretty good sense of how much water I'd need if all went well.  I froze my 2 liter bladder and 1 liter bottle.  I purchased 1 gallon and asked the store guy to try to send a second gallon with someone going east.  I also had my two water bottle ... they are great for getting hot water for coffee.  I started with 3 liters of ice and a gallon of water on my back.  For food I went to Stan's Burger Shack and got a burger and nuggets for 4am breakfast; and 3 double cheeseburgers for every 3 hours throughout the day.

I figured that if I could start at 4am and make the first 100km by 9am I would be in gret shape and it would just be a long slog in the heat for the rest of the day.

Long story short ... it pretty much went to plan.  I had too many burgers ... two were enough.  I finished with about half a liter of hot water and two untouched burgers.  I hit the 100km mark at 9:05am.  Got to the gas station before Blanding at 3pm.  It was a grind after 11am though.  

The highlights of the day were starting at 4:30am in the dark following the white line with my little light.  At the 10 mile mark I saw some blinking lights ahead and soon caught up to Kaitlan and shortly after that Steve and Karen.  Brief chats while riding and I pressed on.  They were only going to Hite at about the 80km mark.

The first car came about after the sun was up at the 30km mark.  I was surprised this section was so pretty.  A couple of places looked like the place where Forest Gump decides he is done running and goes home.

I stopped for pictures less and less frequently the hotter it got.  I think I got some good video in the first 100km.

Here is just a bunch of pictures ...