Slept in a little this morning….hit the road at 7:20am. Things get light early on Mountain Time. A cool 58 degrees this morning, but it felt good—we’re over 4,000 feet in elevation now so the air feels great…glad to be done with the humidity for a while—maybe for the rest of the trip.
Stopped in Haswell at 22 miles at a little country gas station for Gatorade and a snack. It’s a gas station where the owner comes out and pumps the gas for people like we had back in the day. Head wind today but not too strong yet.
Coming out of Arlington saw a guy in his pickup truck shooting prairie dogs out the window with his rifle. I know they carry some pretty bad diseases so understand the need to keep them under control, but doesn’t seem very sporting shooting them from the air conditioned comfort of your truck.
In Ordway at 1:45. Stopped at JR’s Country Store and had two slices of pizza, two diet cokes and a V8 juice…staying here tonight for a short day. It was either that or do another 50 Miles to Pueblo and don’t feel like fighting the wind for that far today—been fighting a pretty strong headwind for the past three hours.
Camping in the City Park here in Ordway. Had to go to the Court House in town to get a permit to camp. There is a cool breeze and it’s a nice park with a grocery store and cafe just across the street….already visited the store for some Arnold Palmer Ice Tea/lemonade, nectarines, and water. Calling for another afternoon storm, but there are a couple covered pavilions so should be fine—plenty of places to take cover in if need be.
The only thing that has changed about the terrain in CO vs KS thus far, is now instead of corn and wheat fields there are vast spaces of sage and cacti — everything is brown. The road has parallel the railroad tracks for two days now—seeing a lot more animals now, deer, hawks, antelope, owls….
Been thinking about how to describe the ride since entering KS the best way I can describe it is like this: Take a treadmill, point it West, and set the incline at about 2-3%. Then get 4 or 5 large oscillating fans and surround the treadmill with them pointing toward it….just randomly turn one on favoring the ones coming from the west, south-west, and north-west. Get 3-4 heat lamps and mount them above the treadmill pointing toward it and turn them on full blast. Make sure the treadmill is sitting on brown shag carpet—think 70s. Then turn it on, get on and start walking—you will have created the perfect KS southern CO environment. 🙂
My left knee and shin was a little sore today, so treating this short day like a half day off. Tomorrow I’ll ride to Pueblo—about 50 miles and see how I feel. If I’m feeling good then I have a couple options—continue on to Florence for 90 miles or to Canon City for about 100. If I’m still a little sore then I may stop in Pueblo and take another half day off. I need to be feeling good and recovered when I leave Pueblo because some serious climbing is going to start again. I posted a picture of the elevation profile below and after Pueblo I’ll start the climb toward Hoosier Pass at 11,542 feet….going to be fun 🙂
In fact, once I hit Pueblo and turn north heading to Montana before turning back West, South-West, I’ll be crossing The Continental Divide 12 times going over several passes. The general direction of travel for the next few weeks is going to be North and Up! 🙂
Feeling strong and looking forward to the challenge of the Rockies 🙂
By the way, according to my Garmin, on yesterday’s ride I burned 6,940 calories…a new personal record 🙂
