Day 44

We had a slow start out of Vernal, Utah because we had to take a couple of trips to the grocery store for oatmeal and the necessary brown sugar that goes along with that. The ride dedication was for Eugene from yesterday's portrait. See Day 43 for his story. We started off the day with coffee because we were really in no rush to get to the campground.We rode 63 miles today, and once again the afternoon heat oppressively smothered us, robbing energy we thought we had. The highlight of the ride was definitely our stop at mile 44, where a lake invited us to swim and cool off. Other visitors to the lake had two dogs, one of which was a corgi like our team mascot Alex Massey. He was so playful and nice, and even put up with our crazy forehead selfie antics.We arrived at Starvation State Park early enough to play in the gorgeous lake. This is a luxury campground, including individual showers, outlets, and beautiful grassy areas for our tents. Josh reserved an awesome blob and giant floaty trampoline for just $2 per rider. We hung out on lake for an hour, and it was probably the best $2 spent on this whole trip! We did not starve at Starvation State Park because we had pasta and even parmesan tonight. Tyler and Ellen bought s'mores supplies and Connor got hotdogs for all. We watched the sunset and went to bed early because we will wake up an hour early in the morning to avoid the heat and traffic on US-40.