Day 56 - July 29, 2013 - Hartsel, CO to Fairplay, CO

Miles - about 20

Total mileage - 1,579

We intended to begin the day in Guffey, CO, but we arrived on a Monday, when all of Guffey's restaurants are closed, and I desperately needed lunch before taking off to get some miles in today, so we drove on to the next town of Hartsel, CO.  The altitude is proving to be too much for Mel and her asthma, so it's a good thing my mom has a car and a bike rack that we can take advantage of!

After lunch at a small diner place in Hartsel, I set off on my own, with an unloaded bicycle.  It takes a bunch of getting used to, this whole riding without 70lbs of crap strapped to my bike frame.  It feels completely out of control, and I'm having to relearn how to balance, and what happens when you get going to fast and try to stop using your front brakes without a weighed down back end.  Fun stuff...

It takes me so long to bike any miles in these mountains, because I constantly want to get off the bike and take photos!  We are at about 9,000 feet in the Rockies, but in these beautiful valleys with 360 degree granite mountain views.  Best cycling ever, even despite the altitude messing with your breathing and making you tire more easily.

For the first part of my ride, Mel and my mom leap-frogged me in the car, making sure I wasn't ready to give up and put my bike on the car yet, but I was having a great time taking in the views and pedaling relatively quickly without any crap on my bike.  Then I turned into a full-on headwind...that's the thing about these mountains, storms seem to roll in every afternoon.  I was headed, yet again, right into an oncoming rainstorm, and the wind was coming directly at me at about 15mph.  It was all I could do to go probably 4mph, so I decided to call it a day and have them come rescue me.

I stopped at a driveway to a ranch, and was watching the road for my mom and Mel to drive up to get me.  All of the sudden, I hear an angry animal noise behind me, and turn around only to find that the bull I pedaled past a bit ago had come right up to the barb-wire fence to check me out, and apparently wasn't happy about my presence in his yard.  He was pacing, and bleating at me...it's nice that he was behind a barb-wire fence, but he could get out if he really got angry enough.  I was glad when I was rescued!

Fairplay has a restored 1800's town, and is actually the inspiration for the comedic cartoon "South Park".  It was a cute town, with gift shops, antiques, art galleries, and you could pay to walk through the restored 1800's town.  We passed on the paying, and just glanced down the street over the fence. Worked for us!

Once we were all loaded up in the car, we drove onward to Breckenridge, up over Hoosier Pass, the highest point on the TransAmerica trail at 11,500 feet.  This is our first crossing of the Continental Divide - one of about 9 on this trip!  I planned to come back the next day and pedal up to the pass.

We got to Breckenridge and went on a search for Chinese food - we have been craving it, and haven't had any since Virginia!  The Chinese place had apparently turned into an upscale "comfort food fusion" place (Breckenridge is 100% tourist town), so we ended up dining on appetizers from a bar and grill down the street instead.  While on the hunt for Chinese, we saw a fox trapped inside someone's backyard fence, and another one across the street.  He was gone by the time we walked by again - poor little guy was scared!

Day 55 - July 28, 2013 - Florence, CO Rest Day

Miles - 0

We slept soundly in our garden room (which used to be the summer kitchen) at The Florence Rose B&B, and didn't wake up until my mom came to knock on our door at almost 8:30, which is when breakfast is served.  We enjoyed a delicious breakfast, and good conversation with the other guests and the owners of the B&B about cycling and the house.  There was another family staying there, and the father and son were doing day bike rides to different destinations while mom acted as their sag wagon - pretty cool!

Charlette had arranged for us to go zip lining at 3, with lunch at the zip lining place prior to that - we were so excited for a fun day off!  Prior to that, we wanted to drive some of the route and see what the next day would be like, since it would really be our first day of climbing in the Rockies, so we took off with the small and quirky town of Guffey as our destination.

The drive to Guffey was beautiful!  The mountain scenery is amazing, and more and more pretty little valleys kept opening up along the way!  Guffey itself is an interesting town - the mayor is a black cat, there is a guy who builds little shacks and rents them to cyclists - it's just unlike any other place we have been.

It was time to head back for zipping, and we enjoyed a huge lunch with the awesome group of people Charlette brought with her, most of whom we had met the previous night.  After lunch, we geared up for zip lining, and took a van ride over to the course.

After an awesome couple of hours on the zip line course with the beautiful Rocky Mountains as a backdrop, we headed back to the bar and restaurant, and decided we all wanted to hang out a while longer, so we had a few drinks, and spent the next 4 or 5 hours just hanging out shooting the breeze and having a blast.  

These people are so awesome, and we had such a great time getting to know everyone!  Thanks to all of them for making us feel at home and like we've all been friends forever!  This was by far our best day off, and this great group of people and Florence, CO will always hold a special place in our hearts!

Day 54 - July 27, 2013 - Pueblo, CO to Florence, CO

Miles - 26 by bike, 14 by car

Total mileage - 1,559

Par for the course - we got a later start than we wanted to from Pueblo this morning.  After a breakfast of cold pizza leftover from last night, we took off sometime after 9, and discovered that Pueblo isn't as flat as the rest of Eastern Colorado!  The route took us through the burbs, and the city park and zoo, which was nice.

A mile or two out of town though, we were tossed right back into the desert.  And into the biggest climb we had seen in weeks.  It was quickly apparent that we had not acclimated to the altitude, and we had to take several breaks to power up that thing.  But...we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the Rockies when we got to the summit.

It was getting hot pretty darn fast, and we were going through water like champs - another side effect of the high altitude, in addition to it being harder to breathe (especially for Mel with asthma), getting tired more quickly, and occasionally feeling a little lightheaded.  Luckily we had some extra Gatorade and a bottle of water, but it was all hot, and drinking hot liquid when you are already overheated is pretty nasty!

We had planned for my (Erica's) mom to come up from Southern California to meet us today earlier in the week, so we knew she wasn't far from Pueblo now.  She is going to act as our chase car in the Rockies, and entertain us for an indefinite period of time (until my dad gets too jealous of all the fun we are having, or she gets sick of us!).

After struggling uphill against a 10-15 mile headwind for hours, while only making it 26 miles, and after making a turn only to be faced with another climb up something called "Hardscrabble Pass", we decided to call it quits on a gravel side road.  We waited for my mom to arrive with a bike rack, loaded up all of our crap, and cranked up the air conditioning as we drove the remaining 14 miles or so to Florence, CO.  Oh, and just our luck, another storm was rolling in!

We had a quick dinner in a cafe in Florence called 2 Sisters, then I emailed Charlette - she and I had been in contact for a few months about her organizing a fundraiser for the Looking Out Foundation through Looking Out Across America, and we were going to meet up with her to hang out and get to know Florence a bit.

Turns out Charlette had gotten worried about us when the storm rolled in, and was driving up and down highway 50 to find us and rescue us from the rain - how sweet!  We met her over at the brand new bar she manages - Creative's Cork - and had a few beers and met some of the awesome people that Charlette knows before she showed us to the bed and breakfast she had lined up for us to stay in - seriously, we are not used to being spoiled like this!

We cleaned up at the B&B, then headed back down to the bar - Charlette had also lined up live music for the evening to keep the fundraising going, and entertain us and many of the locals - the place was pretty busy that night!  We enjoyed second dinner and some drinks at Creative's Cork while being entertained by the musical stylings of Chauncey Crandall.  We were taken over to another new bar in town, The Hamlet, who had also been raising money for LOAA!  We met some great people there too.  We actually ended our night there with a lot of the Creative's Cork crew, since they close earlier than The Hamlet.  Chauncey entertained us with some karaoke music, and many laughs were had by all!

We had decided by this time that we were having so much fun with this crew that we needed another day to enjoy this place and these people, so we made some rough plans to go zip lining near the Royal Gorge the next day, and would figure out the specifics in the morning.  The Creative's Cork crew graciously decided to just close the bar the next day to hang out with us!  We were exhausted - this was later than we had been up in weeks, so we passed out soon after getting back to the B&B.  

We had so much fun in Florence this evening - thanks again to everyone who donated to our cause, came out to support us, and made our night so much fun!

Day 53 - July 26, 2013 - Pueblo Rest Day

Miles - 0

We needed a rest day to heal Erica's knee pain, and Mel's shoulder pain, and various other typical cycling pains (mostly in the ass, hah!)

We slept in a bit, grabbed hotel breakfast, moved to another hotel across the street, then decided we were ready for lunch and to try and find some sweats to wear since we knew we were going to get cold in the upcoming mountains!

We hopped on the city bus, tried Kmart unsuccessfully for sweats (turns out that no one gets cold in the desert in the middle of July - go figure!).  We grabbed Chipotle for lunch, and headed back to the hotel.  

We were lazy for a good long while, then decided to check out Pueblo's river walk, which was only a few blocks from our hotel.

Pueblo's riverwalk reminded us a lot of the canal in Indianapolis.  It isn't on the actual river, they created this water feature I think, but it's a nice park to walk through on a summer evening.  We found a pizza place and ate overlooking the riverwalk, sat for a bit and enjoyed the fountain, then went back to crash.

Day 52 - July 25, 2013 - Ordway, CO to Pueblo, CO

Mileage - 52

Total mileage - 1,533

We headed to the grocery store to pick up some water before we headed out, and noticed that the "Bits and Spurs" cafe was open for breakfast, so we sauntered over to have a quick bite before getting on the road.  This place was definitely a small place for locals - we stood out like a sore thumb!  There were mostly older cowboys/farmers in this place, the decor was wooden planks with all of the local cattle brands burned into them, the floor hasn't been vacuumed in weeks, and there was a communal fly swatter to kill those pesky biting annoyances right on your table.  

Since absolutely nothing in these small towns is done quickly, it took over an hour for our small breakfast to be cooked, eaten, and paid for.  We knew we had a fairly flat ride into Pueblo today, but wanted to make sure we arrived before the weird afternoon thunderstorms could possibly arrive.

The terrain really changed dramatically today.  There was actual topography to look at!  And we finally got our glimpse of the Rockies (can you see their blue outline in the photo above?)!  We love these mountains, so it was a big morale boost to finally spot them...even though we were going to have to tackle them by bike in the coming days!

We stopped for "lunch" in Boone at one of those small town grocery stores where someone shops at Walmart in the big city, doubles the prices, and resells it all to the locals.  We ate a bunch of junk food since the selection was pretty sparce.  

We keep seeing these weird cactus-like plants that appear to be growing watermelons.  I'm sure they are not watermelons in the desert, but the look pretty similar!

We got rained on a bit as we got onto highway 50 to head into Pueblo, but nothing major.  It was a total shock to us to be back on a major highway with traffic flying by after being in such isolated places for over a week. 

After a quick drink stop, we finished the last 5 or 6 miles to our hotel in downtown Pueblo.  We experienced our first hills in over a week riding through Pueblo too...just a glimpse of what is to come!  It seems like we are always riding towards storm clouds!!

We had been communicating with a supporter who wanted to put us up in a hotel in Pueblo and meet us for dinner when we arrived - thanks Sue!  We checked in and showered up, then Sue picked us up for dinner.  We had a great time chatting and chowed down on some Olive Garden.  The big rain waited until we were driving to dinner, thank goodness!  We certainly appreciate Sue's kindness!! 

Pueblo marks the halfway point (in miles) for our trip.  Obviously, we are way behind in terms of time!  We will make it up somehow though.  Probably some more "cheating" somewhere...

Day 51 - July 24, 2013 - Eads, CO to Ordway, CO

Miles - 61

Total mileage - 

It was a cool start to our day today, and we were thrilled to check the weather and find that today's high was under 90 degrees!  It was overcast as we hit the pavement, and  stayed that was almost all the way to a small town called Haswell, which we were hoping had a convenience store that we could grab some lunch at, since it was really our only option for the first 56 miles of our ride!  And we thought the wind would be blowing in our favor today, but it was just our luck that it turned into a headwind or crosswind for the entire day - lucky us!!!

We lucked out in one way, and the propane store/gas station/antique store also sold pre-packaged sandwiches, other snacks, and cold drinks.  They also had a sweet Pomeranian to love on, and the most adorable 6 week old Border Collie pup!  Getting to hang out with animals always brightens our day.

The terrain is definitely different here than it was in Kansas - fewer farms, more cacti and scrub brush, more dust, and probably even fewer trees dotting the landscape.  We arrived at the one-house town of Arlington, and they thoughtfully put a pit toilet and picnic table in a little rest area for cyclists.  Some people even camp here, but without water or anything else around, it's a bit too primitive for us!

Sugar City was the next dot on the map - it was only 5 miles from our goal for the day, Ordway, but had a cafe so we stopped in for a quick sandwich and cold drink, and I may have had pie and ice cream too...

The stretch of road between Sugar City and Ordway might be the winner for the smelliest stretch of road on the trip.  Big feed lot full of cows that stretched nearly the entire 5 miles...and we were downwind.  Yuck.

We grabbed snacks at a truck stop in Ordway, and headed toward the hotel since storms were forecast for this evening.  We got settled, and not long after that heard thunder...full on storm rolled into Ordway.  These things follow us...they have been in a drought, and we arrive and bring the downpour!  The gutters were overflowing by the time it stopped raining.  We went out to try and hit up the grocery store (more food, seriously, some days we could eat everything in sight!), but they closed at 7:30.  The restaurant was closed too...I wouldn't survive in a small town!  Someone told us the VFW was having Mexican night, but we decided to pass.  We are some granola bars in our room, and are getting ready to pass out now.  50 miles to Pueblo tomorrow, with the possibility of thunderstorms, lets hope they hold off!!!

Day 50 - July 23, 2013 - Sheridan Lake, CO to Eads, Co

Miles - 28

Total Mileage - 1386.3

So, it took forever to fall asleep last night, but the sunlight pouring in the curtainless windows in the church nursery that we slept in didn't let us sleep past 6:30 this morning.  The group of 3 guys who just graduated high school and had ridden 166 miles to get to Sheridan Lake awoke at 4am to make the 135 miles to Pueblo today.  Crazy kids...  Of course another group of four guys who stayed at the church had ridden 200 miles in one day to get to Sheridan Lake.  Also crazy!  There was a group of 3 girls with the 200 mile guys, and they got up really early to ride out into the sunrise.  We hung around for a bit with the 200 mile guys enjoying some coffee and getting a later start to our day!

After a quick breakfast at the gas station, we took off.  We weren't in a hurry, because we planned a short 28 miles today.  We got a little off on our city timing, and our options were:

1.  A 79 mile day to Ordway, CO, in temps in the high 90's.

2.  A 50 mile day to Haswell, CO - a town where you can camp in the park with no real services.

3.  A 28 mile day to Eads, CO, with all services.

We knew we weren't going to survive 79 miles in that heat, and a town without services or an appropriate toilet in the park didn't sound appealing either, so short day it was.  The ride wasnt difficult, and we pulled into Eads before noon.  After a lunch at the local diner, we grabbed a room at the one motel in town to catch up on the sleep we missed the night before.  Dinner was some sort of camp food and a can of green beans...delish!  Hah...