Day 53: Arapaho to Riverside, Wyoming

July 2, 2006

Cold, cold morning where the negotiation between 'it's too cold to get out of the sleeping bag' and 'I really gotta go' eventually resulted in me getting up and on the road, thankful for an uphill to warm me up. Downhills on cold mornings can be really uncomfortable-think massive windchill factors. But the uphill scenery along 125 up to Willow Creek Pass was stunning, and with the sun just beginning to penetrate the valleys, I kept my eyes out for moose and such but didn't see anything.

national forrest campground on a chilly, chilly morning

Reminded me of scenery from brokeback mountain--absolutely gorgeous

All too soon, the downhill side of the pass spit me out onto a flat stretch of rough pavement toward Rand and the northernmost stretches of Colorado. Winds blew from about every direction on the trip through the Arapaho Wildlife Refuge on the way to Walden, where I had to make another decision about camping. It was barely lunch time, but the next known camping was just over 50 miles away. I had to go for it if I wanted any chance of catching the group by the 4th. 9 miles of tailwind brought me to Cowdrey, where I apprehensively looked toward some darkening clouds but decided to go on.

Out of the mountains and onto the windy plains

Bad choice. Just a few miles down the road, I started to get wet. No problemo. Pull on the jacket, check bags, get back on bike and ride. Except this rain started to hurt. And look amazingly like hail. Shoot! It is hail!!! So I dip into a driveway that has a big round post I can lean on, whip out the tarp, determine that it's too windy to get it over both me and the bike before I get soaked, and just huddle down with the tarp over me, apologizing to Kert and keeping my helmet on in the process. I make myself a little seat and get comfortable until all hell breaks loose and a river comes right where my butt was. So much for any modicum of comfort. Now I'm chanting, 'I'm not miserable. I'm not miserable.'

Not again! Actually, this was worse than rain. I ended up huddling under my tarp for an hour as I got pelted with hail from this system.

I hear a vehicle very nearby and poke my head out of the tarp to see a distinctive Chevy truck with the woman who waved at me about 10 miles and an hour ago. She looks down on my plight disdainfully, pretends not to see this big moving lump of tyvek with a head sticking out of it attempting to smile innocently at her, uses her electrical opener on the gate, and LEAVES ME OUT IN THE RAIN AND HAIL!!! No checking to see if I'm ok, no invitation to the shed about 100 yards beyond the gate, nothin'. So much for waving at me in town earlier . . .

I pack up as soon as it's safe, rolling my now dirty and soaked tarp into some shape to strap it to the bike and hit the road. Almost as soon as I pull out, I pull back off to talk to the recumbent coming my way. It's fellow crazyguy Dan Browning! He'd been huddled by a rock for over an hour just up the road a ways. I'm sure we would have talked longer, but we were both needing to head on to keep warm. My earlier tailwind had turned into a fairly strong headwind that would power him to Walden in less than an hour. I still had close to 40 miles to go.

The Colorado wind and rain buffeted me and my wet socks almost all the way to the Wyoming border where the rain finally stopped. Wet wool socks may keep you warm, but they're still wet and for the first time, I was wishing I had more than one pair of socks (sent home the waterproof ones in Guffey to save weight). But I hung wet stuff off various parts of the bike and let the wind start working on them.

I managed a fake smile for this picture. You can't see how cold and wet I am, but I dried off fairly quickly after getting onto the windy plateaus just after this.

The 28 miles to Riverside were long and desolate, but beautiful in a stark sort of way. I could still look back and see the mountains (when the rain clouds weren't in the way), but the road had flattened significantly and even gave me a downhill ride part of the way to the completion of a 94 mile day, the last miles into an awful headwind through dark clouds that made it feel much later than it was.

Somehow managed to miss this one--it brought me a cold headwind, but the rain just passed by me.

On pulling into the campground, I met bike Jan Witt, on an adventure with her husband and son, and as I went to check in, I asked if they had a room available in their little 4 room hotel. I didn't even ask the price I just handed over my credit card and dreamed of a warm, dry bed and dry towels. Even better, the place had a little Laundromat, so I got almost everything clean and dry while talking to an annoying RV couple who were talking about how light they had to travel to fit in their little RV (I'm sorry, but the dude had 6 pairs of boxers coming out of the dryer and I was not sympathetic to their 'light' camping woes).

I walked around town while my clothes were drying, knowing that if I went back to the room I'd probably fall asleep. Dinner was something out of a freezer bag I'd mixed up earlier even though I wasn't that hungry. Talked to Alvin to find out how the group was doing, turned up the heat really high in the room to speed the drying process of the tarp and other things that weren't dry yet, and took the best bath of the entire trip in the aging yellow tub. My grand plans of unpacking and reorganizing my stuff while I had the space to do it went by the wayside and I dumped everything onto the floor and dragged myself to bed, a worn out puppy looking at another long day tomorrow.

Today's ride: 94 miles (151 km)
Total: 2,666 miles (4,291 km)

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