Fresh Donuts Daily

Everything on the mountain was wet that morning except for me and my gear. I was set up between two close growing juniper trees, in a tent and under two tarps. I had a fire pit at the edge of the outer tarp where I'd been able to sit warm and dry by the fire during the rain the night before. I woke to live coals and blew my fire to life. The coals in the sky were lit too, and I let the sun dry the outer side of my tarps while I dunked ginger cookies in hot coffee.

Mornings had been long of late. Even with a good fire, I wasn't inclined to get up before the sun. It'd been too cold. There was one morning that I was packed and rolling by 7:30, but the norm was more like ten. Anyway, I rolled on, down the dirt track and back to the highway by eleven. Then I climbed to the pass. This was the highest of the four I'd climbed in three days, but in no way difficult. I stopped at the pass expecting to finally have a grand view into the Great Basin, but all I saw were more mountains. In fact my descent would be into a large desert and it would be more than a hundred miles to the next range.

I rolled down into Minersville and from there could see the top of the long valley that fed the desert. The upper reaches were all irrigated and glowing green with the first growth of the spring. The trees were just flushing, eager to bud and leaf, but still bare. I joked with the clerk at a store in town that I was pulling spring north, that it was coming right behind me.

As I sat on a bench out front of the store drinking a cup of coffee, a rancher pulled in. I asked him, "Are you a rancher?" He nodded and I added, "How many acres?"

He replied, "I have cows and hay."

I asked him again on how many acres and he said that his cows grazed fifteen square miles. Of course they do. It's arid there and vegetation is sparse. Then I complimented him on his hay figuring that I must have seen it as I rode down from the pass. He smiled and assured me that I had. I reckon we became friends in that.

Then he asked me about the road, pointing out that it didn't have a shoulder. He asked if I felt safe with just the legal three feet. I replied that most drivers were courteous and that it didn't make any sense to get mad when they weren't. He nodded at that and I elaborated telling him about a day that I got so mad at a driver that I missed all the beauty for the next hour. I learned not to give my power away that day. I said that there was a place for anger though, righteous anger, and told him another story about rescuing an old man from a gang of disrespectful teens when I was in Nicaragua.

We were real warmed up to each other by then and it turned into a moment of witnessing. We were talking about how we're not perfect, but in faith can have a valid conception of ourselves as perfected. I was leading the conversation towards the idea that it wasn't just an idea, that if all it was were ideations, it was plain and simple idolatry. So where were the practical applications?

We talked about the nations then because I pointed out that Jesus didn't ask the Samarian woman what religion she was, he simply offered to share some of the living water that he was drinking (and pouring). I also pointed out that natives have the concept of the "sacred fire" which is very similar to what Christians call the Holy Spirit.

The rancher then told me about his dad doing missionary work in the Dine nation. They knocked on a hogan door and a 99-year-old woman answered with words on her tongue. She said, "I've been waiting for you to get here," and she said that she had a vision when she was just a girl that two men in suits would come to her door. Eighty years later they finally arrived. They visited several times and she finally said that her traditions had most all of the same qualities, but not quite all. I brought the conversation back around then and supposed that one of the additional ideas was likely the concept of grace.

We parted on that. He was exceptionally open-minded, but it was a heck of a deep conversation for a rancher. I was going to roll right out of town but there was a sign at the next corner, "Fresh donuts daily." If you want to catch me, bait that trap with donuts, and they had so I turned for some gustatory pleasure.

The donuts were indeed fresh and I picked out a chocolate cake donut frosted with mini M&Ms and a risen one topped with butterscotch frosting. When I turned to take them to the counter, I was stopped by a beautifully smiling face bejeweled with perfectly clear blue eyes. It was an older man and he wanted to know about my journey. When I told him about riding through Mexico and Central America, he wanted to know if I'd felt safe. I replied asking, "Did you ever hear of the verse Psalm 23?"

He knew that scripture and quoted from the middle of it, "Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil."

I said, "Yes, that one. It's a promise and the truth." He reappraised me at that and I excused myself to pay for and go outside to enjoy the donuts. As I sat there, a large darker skinned man came out and loaded his groceries in his Suburban. He was really well built so I asked him, "How did you get so built?"

He replied that he was half Polynesian, referring to his general build, then added that he had played football for Southern Utah State. I kidded him about the fact that once athletic, one always has the potential to be athletic again even if they spend a couple decades as a couch potato. He was looking a bit flabby. We laughed. I'd been a couch potato.

When the blue eyed man came out, he had money in his hand. I knew it was for me but we talked a bit first, the former athlete listening and smiling. I felt really loved there, that I was being appreciated for being me. That's worth more than any amount of money. In parting though, the older man put a twenty dollar bill in my hand. I said, "Thank you. This will be very helpful."

I rode on towards Milford which was a slightly larger town built up with old hotels that were now padlocked. I bought a strong beer at the liquor store and went to the closed library where I was able to drink it while charging my devices and using their wifi. I had some interactions on the way there but nothing to write about. I was just there to recharge and get water for the next seventy-five mile stretch of no services. I rode on when the weather changed. A cold wind had come up along with some dark clouds and before I even reached the edge of town, raindrops were falling.

The wind was strong against me, holding the storm over the town and I quickly outran it. I rode past a huge renewable energy installation that went on for fourteen miles. There was a geothermal plant, thousands of solar panels, and hundreds of windmills. Just past that an antelope crossed the road ahead of me and started to graze the fresh green grasses beside the highway. It was faced away from me and I was still riding into the wind so it didn't smell me coming. I'd never been so close to an antelope and thought that I would come right up on it, but then a couple of cars drove up behind me and, noticing them, it bounded away.

I camped near a railroad siding. The tracks there had a single row of mesquite growing on either side of them. That firewood for fuel and warmth which I would dearly need in the morning. I didn't realize until I stopped that it was a songbird paradise and I made camp enraptured by the beauty of their songs.