After basically sleeping next to the Dove Creek Sheriff's house in the city park we were quick to wake up and get out of there and get on the road.
Two guys riding New York to Los Angeles, heading west. Dude on left is on a bamboo bike.
We stopped at the open 24-hour convenience store for breakfast. Thankfully, Seth and I are both avid cereal eaters. Our breakfast will usually consist of a full box of cereal and a half gallon of milk and we're ready to start the day.
With Seth limping along with more back wheel issues, we needed to get to a bike shop, and fast. We had a 35 mile morning ride to a cool little hippie town called Dolores, CO. While there, we stopped in Lizardhead Cycle and got to meet two pretty unique people, Nicholas and Joey. Nicholas is the owner of the bike shop and an ex-sponsored triathlete who road in sponsored bike races and even competed in worldwide cycling competitions in Germany. Super knowledgeable about bikes, Nicholas had a lot to share and was really helpful with getting both of our bikes back to peak working condition.
Joey, was a little guy going into fifth grade in the fall and is completely Nicholas's shadow. Just a kid from the town who enjoys spending his summer days around the bike shop and helping wherever he can. Kind of like Nicholas' assistant. We spent 3-4 hours at the bike shop because it was so busy but got to know both Nicholas and Joey well. To be honest, after spending all my working time with children all school year, I have looked forward to spending some time away from kids. But Joey was eager as ever and a fun guy to be around. He tried to help wherever possible and just wanted some good attention paid towards him.
Lesson #48: Children are the future. Listen to them, don't tune them out. You might just get a better outlook on life.
Thanks Nicholas and Joey for a good afternoon.
It was hot as can be once we left Dolores and the temperature was hovering around 100 degrees. Also, we had an intimidating climb ahead of us, our first one in Colorado. Neither of us were real sure what to expect.
Luckily we had great cloud cover most of the way up and the grade was super gradual. For those of you following along at home, it's much easier to do 30 miles of climbing at 6-8 percent grade than 5 miles of climbing at 15 percent grade. After such steep grades in and out of the rock canyons through Utah, it was nice to get an easier grade. Crossing our fingers this continues through Colorado.
Sunset in the smokey haze in the mountains in Rico, CO.
It took 17 days but we got our first rain of the trip. It was nice to cool us down and didn't impede us too much.
By about 7 pm we arrived in this cool little mountain town of Rico, CO. We hit a bar to grab some grub and I heard that the Pirates WERE TIED FOR THE BEST RECORD IN BASEBALL. I honestly couldn't believe this so had to confirm with some telephone calls to make sure this was true. I could go on forever about how proud I am of my Pirates for blog post after blog post, but I will cease by saying it's pretty good to be 18 over .500 before the All-Star Break considering the Pirates haven't had a winning season since I was 2 years old...
You are a scholar, gentleman, and inspiration TJ. Thank you.
We got directions from a local named TJ to where there where great hot springs right outside of town. This guy outside of the bar had ridden cross country three times and across Australia as well.
Probably our most memorable evening, we soaked ourselves in these 104 degree natural hot springs and had the Avett Brothers in the background serenading us as we reflected on our trip so far.
Super awesome hot springs an a great place to tent. Hope the pictures do it justice, it was just what our aching muscles had ordered.
Colorado is awesome so far. The greenery is such a stark contrast to the dust and sand of Utah. It's hard to say which is better because the scenery is so different, but I certainly love the river following along our roue and the tall pines creating a tunnel as we ride.
Big day tomorrow, we're going to continue climbing to get to 10,200 and Lizrad's Pass where we'll see 14,000 foot peaks. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
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