The Trip - Day1:

The night before we leave I can't sleep; one part afraid I'll over sleep our 5am meeting time and five parts shear excitement for an adventure. Typically this pattern is called 'fishing sleep' and is reserved for epic fly fishing trips (a month in Wyoming, Montana & Idaho; exploring a new river or set of rivers for a week; 10 days in Alaska) but it does tend to pop-up now and again for an expected powder day or expedition style trip (adventure racing, 24 hours or Moab, canyoneering).
After waking at 1.30, 2.15, 3.45 and finally at 4.49am it's time to get up. My clothes are laid out and I'm trying to be like a church mouse but my stumbling wakes up the house (Chelsea). Since she's up anyway I open the garage and turn on the light so Colin can find the house and Shane knows I'm not asleep. 2 minutes to Five Shane pulls up and sets out his gear. I grab a bowl of granola and sit with him in the car waiting for Colin who shows up just a few minutes later. By 5.30a we are loaded and driving West.
Road trips with new people always expose new opportunities, the first one we found was a secret stopping point in Silverthorne (turns out there is also one in BC). Next up was bakery/breakfast stop in Avon - finally a cup of coffee. Turns out I'm the only one on the trip who drinks (craves/functions on) coffee so I limit my requests to stop so that we can make time.
In the spirit of making time we blow past the Fruita exit even though we need gas. It's not that we don't intend to stop but making time on the road causes us to drive right past the exit. Knowing we can't make Moab we pull off in Mack. This turns out to be a not so secret spot and Colin and I get aced out of our position for the bathroom, which leads us both to wonder if it's worth going in...
We make Moab by a little after noon and pick up the BOB trailer, lunch and some final supplies from the grocery store. Arriving at the ranger station we find out that our intended route down Shafer Road is closed for mud, snow and ice. The ranger suggest we either drive around to Potash and continue as planned (with an extra ~20 miles of riding added in) or reverse our route. Either approach leaves us in the position to bum a ride back to the car or face another additional ~50miles of road riding. Since it's late in the day, we opt for reversing our route and figure there will be more people driving from Potash to Moab that are likely to give a bunch of dirty mtn bikers a ride than park goers who pull of the highway for a scenic drive.
Starting from the intersection of Mineral Road and U313 we load our gear (http://www.nps.gov/cany/planyourvisit/upload/island.pdf). As it turns out, there was a misunderstanding about the Washpark cruiser - Shane thought he was going to bring it for me to use and I thought he was pulling it. Fortunately we figure that out before leaving CO so we didn't lug the extra gear but it left us with the following configuration - Colin pulling the BOB, Shane with a mix of gear on his bike and in a backpack and I had everything in my backpack.
When we picked up the BOB, the mechanics at the shop seemed less than sure of how it all worked and only upon assembling at the trail did we figure out which pieces were missing; the cotter pins to keep the trailer connected to the over sized axle. A few items from each of our survival kits later (two zip ties and some bailing wire); snap a pre-trip picture and we are off.
It's not long before Colin figures out the (un)balance caused by the BOB trailer. There seem to be two problems. The first is due to the trailing hinge point when ever he'd stand to ride hard the trailer would pivot counter to his weight and try to pull him over; also despite the suspension on the trailer and the weight in it, the small wheel in the rear cause the trailer to jump when it hit much for a rock or rut in the road. From Shane and my perspective, this made riding behind him a bit of a comic relief from any exhaustion or pain in our ride.
We make good time across the road and descend into the canyon that parallels the Green river. Riding for another hour we encounter the first sand and the BOB pulls Colin to the ground. The landing is soft but the sand kept him from being able to remove his left shoe from the clipless pedal catching him imitating captain crash. After getting the trailer reassembled (the bailing wire holding one side of the trailer didn't survive the crash) we ride for a bit, have a snack and then press on knowing there are 36 miles to cover before we get to our camp and the light is limited.
The sun sets and we are still not to camp, after a quick suggestion to break out our headlamps now we push on another five minute and hit camp about 7p. Setup and dinner go quickly as we are all a touch cold. A little conversation, maybe a pull or two from the vodka and we eager to lay down in our warm bags for the night. Each of us plug in to our iPods and listen to a few songs while catching the unobstructed view of the stars. As Son Volt plays I catch a few shooting stars shut off the music and retire for the night.