Day 31: Fowler to Eads

July 3, 2010

Hi Folks,

Well, today was a much better ride than yesterday. First, my rim stayed together! That is a BIG improvement on yesterday. :-)

I was on the road a little after 6:00am to beat the heat and made it to Eads. Along the way I met some really interesting people

In Ordway I had a long chat with the owner of the service station who had a bunch of questions about my SPOT (GPS locator). He had been thinking of getting one himself

There was the woman in Arlington, which is not really a town so much as 3 houses in the middle of nowhere. But she offers water and a friendly face to touring cyclist. This woman, named Cathryn Anderson has three degrees (nursing, public health and mid-wifery) and worked in, among other places, San Francisco and Atlanta for the World Health Organization.

And speaking of meeting people... I have been experiencing a drought touring cyclist meetings. Partly because I've been off the ACA route for a while, but I had not seen any ON route in the last couple of days. Well, tonight it's been a flood. I pulled into Eads and a city park (for camping) that is overflowing with them! It's like a little tent city. It's been fun chatting with people about their adventures.

Before that though, when I rolled into town I saw a little pool. Turns out the pool is the town public pool. WOOO-WOOOO!

So I dumped my stuff at the city park and went back for a swim. It was the smallest public pool I have ever seen but who cares, it was wet! The 16-year old girl lifeguards were nice too...

Me: "I'd like to go for a swim, how much is it?"
16-year old lifeguard 1: "It's free for cyclists"
Me: "Great! Thanks!"
16-year old lifeguard 2: "Except for there is a break right now so you have to wait a little while."
16-year old lifeguard 1: (addressing other 16-year old lifeguard 2) "I thought if you were old you could swim during the break?"

So, it's official, I'm old. I told them I don't mind waiting a bit.

Another thing that happened...

There was a 5-mile stretch between Sugar City and Arlington that had an abundance of grasshoppers. This meant grasshoppers were bouncing off of me all that time. No, they weren't being squashed on my but they were bouncing all over. I guess it's kind of gross but what can you do? They WERE smashed all over the road though but I think that was from the cars.

Other than that it was HOT in the afternoon but I carried extra water and was fine. I enjoyed the stretch nearing Eads the best. The wheat is ripening and golden brown. That, set against the blue sky was beautiful!

I will likely do short rides the next couple of days until Doug and his crew reach me. Then we will be a group of 5.

Oh, and FYI, I have a feeling wifi will be extra spotty in the next few days. If I miss a post or two don't worry. I'll load them when I can.

This is for you Roy, in honor of all firefighters!

I saw a lot of this today. I stocked up on food for the next couple of days just in case.

This house was weird...it looked completely out of place where all of the houses are little farm houses. This would have looked more "normal" in San Diego.

Today's ride: 82 miles (132 km)
Total: 2,226 miles (3,582 km)

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