(Oh by the way my camera got fixed about a week ago! YAY!! Joe somehow convinced the Best Buy people to exchange my lens for free!) 

November 3, 2015
Las Vegas -> Jean: 30 miles

The 4 of us left on Tuesday morning, stopped by the Las Vegas sign that we hadn't seen yet, and made our way towards Jean, NV. There was a headwind all day and considering we didn't start biking until after lunch we didn't make it too far. Jean is only 30 miles outside of Las Vegas and thats where we stayed for the night. Before we set up camp we stopped by the gas station in town. People were insanely nice and asked us all about our trip. One guy handed Becky money out of nowhere. We met a sheriff at the gas station that said we could camp anywhere in town. We went down a dirt road and found a spot. We could see a casino from camp :P

saying bye to Wyatt

the dogs didn't want us to leave :)

view from our campsite

November 4, 2015

Still in Jean, NV

Woke up in a panic. It was super windy so I woke joe up and asked him to check the radar. There was a huge storm coming and we all started packing up as fast as we could.  Denny's in the distance sounds way better than waiting in the tent in a storm. Becky and Chris packed up faster than us and started heading towards Denny's. Chris realized he had a flat tire as he was leaving! With his new tires. All of us rushed to Denny's and somehow made it without getting wet. We've been at Denny's waiting out the storm, but we're about to start biking in about 30 minutes. I would love some warm weather already!! 

Denny's is in the casino haha

we're not in a rush...no reason to bike in that

October 30, 2015
Mesquite, NV -> LAS VEGAS: 86 miles

 Long day for us, but we wanted to make it into Las Vegas! Joe's cousin Wyatt lives in Vegas and said we could stay with him so we just wanted to book it into town even if it was dark. It was a beautiful ride into the city! We arrived just as it was getting dark & the four of us were biking in the city lights in the middle of Las Vegas. It was pretty awesome. We went straight to Wyatt's work, Vdara Hotel. We had a couple drinks, walked around, saw the Bellagio lights, and waited a couple hours for Wyatt to get off work. Once Wyatt got off we got some craft beers and stayed up all night at Wyatt's house.

The next few days we stayed in Vegas. Halloween was awesome, but we didn't see as many crazy costumes as we thought. Chris, Becky, Joe, and I all walked along the strip, got some free shots and drinks! On November 1st we went out to a nice dinner at Honey Salt...it was so good! We were going to go out downtown, but we were pretty tired so we just went back to Wyatt's.

Monday = Monday night football and sports betting. We went to a showroom and watched the Colts vs. Panthers. Wyatt and his friends are pretty into sports betting so we just tagged along with them. Once you place a bet you get free drink tickets for the showroom. One of Wyatt's friends, Nate, was loved by one of the ladies that hands out drink tickets...we had enough free drinks for a party of 30 people...and there were 8 of us. Joe and I left the game early and went to a Cirque du Soleil show called LOVE. It was the Beatles show and it was awesome!! I love it so much, my mom has been to Las Vegas several times and told me that I needed to go to a Cirque du Soleil show.

Joe and I have a relaxed schedule for the rest of the month. We have an event in Glamis to get to on November 15th and it is only a few days away on a bike. The 2 of us have been trying to figure out what we want to do with our time and where we want to go. Becky and Chris were going to leave Las Vegas on Monday, but were waiting for Chris' new tires to come in the mail. He's had lots of flats and upgraded to Shwalbe tires. The average life span is 10,000 miles and Shwalbe tires are super thick, they rarely go flat. With all of this waiting around we all decided that the 4 of us should bike towards Los Angeles together. Joe and I are going to bike almost to the coast with them, then turn around and head towards Glamis. Tuesday morning we are heading out!

Vegas on the horizon! 

the beautiful lights! 

Wyatt's bottle cap collection

Becky is a chef and wanted to check out a nice restaurant in town :)

the most expensive bottles we've seen

Becky helping Wyatt with a paper

so many free drink tickets! this was maybe 1/4 of them

October 29, 2015
St. George -> Mesquite: 55 miles

I will let the pictures do most of the talking. I do want to add that we love biking with Chris & Becky! We had a little bit of headwinds at the beginning of the day but the winds turned around towards the end of the day. This was the first time any of us had trouble finding a place to camp. The city of Mesquite does not allow camping...anywhere. Not even at the RV parks where there are usually tent spots. A fire station gave us some tips and just outside of town is BLM and free to camp anywhere. We started heading that way and found a closer spot in some sand piles. It was a pretty cool spot. That night some of us had a hard time sleeping it was so windy!

we camped on the moon!

October 27, 2015
Kanab -> Zion National Park: 42 miles

Kanab is a really cool town...I would suggest visiting and having a car with you. It's in the middle of 3 awesome parks: the Grand Canyon, Zion, & Bryce. Joe and I would have definitely visited Bryce if we had a car, because most people that we met said they LOVE Bryce and Zion. 

I can't get over how beautiful Zion is!! If you asked me, I would pick Zion over the Grand  Canyon by far! As soon as we got into the park we probably stopped every 500ft to take a picture. Gigantic cliffs on either side of us with green, tall trees spread out everywhere...it was so beautiful!! There are 2 tunnels you have to drive through when going through the park and one of the tunnels doesn't allow bicycles. So you have to hitch a ride through the tunnel. We waited and another touring couple (from West Virginia), Chris & Becky, pulled up also waiting for a ride. I told them about camping and how the campgrounds were booked in Zion, but if joe and I found a spot that we would save room for them. Eventually a super nice family with a sprinter van took us through to the other side. & The other side of the tunnel was even more beautiful! It was just more grande with bigger cliffs surrounding you :) I was very sad I didn't have my camera. 

The campgrounds were full, but I think there was a designated spot for walk-ins because they gave us the only one open. Chris & Becky pulled up not too long after and all of us shared a campsite. Talk about an awesome campsite! It was right next to the river and just an amazing view :) 

We love Becky & Chris they are really cool people. We made dinner, talked quite a bit, & decided to do Angels Landing hike together super early in the morning!

biking through Zion!

Campsite in Zion (before Becky & Chris got there)

October 28, 2015

Zion -> St. George, UT: 41.5 miles

We woke up early-ish and headed to angels landing. It was overcast so the sun never really came up. All of us were so excited to do the Angels Landing hike. We've had tons of people tell us that it is a must & do it either early in the morning or late in the evening, because it's so crowded otherwise! It was an awesome hike & Joe made a rock pile at the top. There are parts where there is a chain to hold on to because on either side of you is 1,000 foot drop...scary! After the hike all four of us did 40 miles to St. George where Becky found us a place to stay via Couch Surfing. We stayed with Kate & Caiden and it was Kate's birthday!! They were having a birthday party for her with cake, ice cream and all! We played a crazy card game that ended up being really fun even though we didn't know ANY of the rules when we started. 

taking it all in :)

Chris & Becky

They are huge Harry Potter fans :) as you can see