June 16, 2014
Day 7: Blow me down, Matey
If I've said it once Ive said it a thousand times, you never know WHAT is going to happen on a bike trip...
We set off from Eads in a block headwind, slogging along on flat, or up-grade roads to Haswell, which was only 20 plus miles away but took us over 2 and a half hours. From there we slogged on towards Sugar City and took a break in Arlington, Colorado, which is nothing more than two farm houses and, across the street, a picnic table and an outhouse.
We sat in the shade for a while, wondering how in the world we were going to make it to Sugar City in the increasingly strong headwinds?
"Why don't we just stay here, get up early and ride on in the morning, when the winds will likely be lighter," Leo said.
I was reluctant because it was only about 2pm, but we didn't have much choice.
So we set up our tents, worked on our journals (offline), read books and not much else.
"Have you camped in winds this strong?" i asked Leo.
"Oh yes, one time I camped in on the top of a Col in the Pyrenees and it was much worse than this. My tent can handle it."
I bummed some sodas from a couple in a camper who had stopped to use the outhouse, which was nice. And then, around 3pm a man drove up in a van with bike strapped to the front. He stopped, got out with his camera and reluctantly came over when I waved. Jean-Peirre had ridden the trans am route the year before and was driving it with his wife.
"Where are you from?" i asked, noticing his accent.
"Montreal"
"Oh!" I said, picking up on it even before Leo. "You two can talk to each other in French!" And they did, and the Canadian seemed thrilled to be speaking It in the middle of nowhere USA. By the time he left we had two cold beers which he had given us. We had food and something for dinner and two beers. Things could have been worse...
...and they got worse around 6pm. The wind had been very strong and we both sat in our tents biding out time, when within about 10 minutes the wind shifted from the south to the north and became a gale.
My tent poles started bending to the point of breaking, and I sat inside trying to keep a cool head, bracing myself against the tent walls trying to keep them upright. When I managed to look I saw Leo's bikehad been blown over onto one of the tie downs of his tent.
Have you ever see a picture of a snake eating an animal that was too large for the size of its body? That was what Leo looked like in his tent. I Saw the outline of his head shoulders with the tent stretched around his body.
I got out of my tent best as I could, with the wind blowing everything to kingdom come, and someone managed to get the tent poles down and the tent collapsed, and threw my bike on top to weigh the whole thing down.
"We've got to find shelter!" Leo yelled over the howling wind, and we got his tent collapsed with bike on top as well. Then we ran across the street to the house of a woman who had given Leo water earlier in the day. We left in such a rush that Leo didn't even have shoes on, and I only had a T-shirt, and the winds were colder.
No one was home and we sat on the down wind side of the house. The winds were at least 80 miles an hour.
"Have you ever seen any winds this strong?" I asked
"No, I have never seen ANYthing like this."
Leo noticed the door to the garage was open and went in. I was horrified, thinking someone would show up with a 22 gage shotgun, but it was really bad, and Leo had talked to the woman, I though she would understand.
Eventually the woman's son, who looked about 20, showed up and I asked if we could sleep in the garage, which was fine, and he helped us move all of our stuff. He drove his pickup truck over, picked up my whole tent assembly with all my crap inside and threw it on the bed. Then we piled my bike on top of the tent, and with me lying on top of all that we drove across the street to his house. T
Later the woman showed up, after driving from La Junta 30 miles away, and said that of course we could sleep there and that it was even bad by their standards and they get wind all of the time. The only one who didn't seem to take notice of any of it was their horse, who calmly stood munching his dinner while all this was going on.
The garage was pretty filthy actually. And I saw a scorpion, and a spider that looked menicying. Leo didn't care but I set up my tent, to keep out unwelcome visitors, and all was well.
This morning the wind had died to nothing and we left with the sun. After leaving a note of thanks, we were off to Sugar City, none the worse for wear, but with a harrowing story to tell.
PS. I have video of the winds before they got really bad but cant get them on youtube, at least not yet. Maybe later? Working on it...
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Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 488 miles (785 km)
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