Yep, I think we'd both do the ride again. It's about 85 miles from SLC to Wellsville, much of it posted between 65 or 75 MPH, so it only took about 1 and 1/2 hours at most (at least from Hotel MIL). Petunia and I were armed with all kinds of maps but as soon as we got on the freeway, 5 cars loaded with women and bikes got on and we all kind of caravanned up together. We just followed the bikes in front of us! We got really terrific reports on the MS150 in the same area. We talked with a lot of women who'd down the ride before.

We shipped our bikes, out via UPS and back via Fed-Ex. Depending on the value of your bike and whether you do the packing or have a shop do it, budget between $40-70 each way for shipping. For the return we had to take our boxed bikes to a box store so we may have been charged a premium. Now that I know better, we may have been able to print labels at home ahead of time. Some bike shops will ship for you and some won't. First time out, we learned a lot.

Bicycling Mag recently printed an article on packing your own bike. The shops will charge $20-25 for this but I'm going to take a photo of my packed bike when it returns for future reference. From reading I've done, Fed-Ex and UPS are less likely to damage bikes than the airlines and have better insurance.

Yellow, what should we read into your statement about next year? Good news for you and not for us? Unless it means you can be the SLC TE Slumber Party HQ. . . .

I know there are a couple of other TE members who live in the SLC area? Were you there??