Alamosa to Walsenburg, on Monday, September 24. 77 miles, over La Veta Pass. And another glorious tailwind!
Another cool morning, with each of us wearing lots of warm cycling gear. Jody rode from the hotel.
Jody, riding into the sunrise.
We'll have to go back to visit the Dunes.
Not enough hours in the day.
Joe drove me down the road until it warmed up a bit. I was tired after riding 48 miles the day before. I got out, got on the bike, and turned the pedals over with stiff and cold legs. Four miles later, I was wondering why, oh why, was I on the bike. But I kept on. Ten miles of climbing. By the time I got back in the car, at the base of La Veta Pass, I was warm, happy, and had seen fish jumping and a bald eagle soaring down the valley above me. A very good start to the day.
Jody, when the day got warmer.
Definitely fall in the high country.
Jody, flying up La Veta Pass.
It was nothing compared to Wolf Creek!
At the summit of La Veta Pass.
A very steep grade going down.
Jody caught a tailwind going down the hill. Flying down the hill! Joe and I, in The Little Darkness, had to do some chasing to catch up to him. Once the road started to flatten out, there were only 15 miles left in the course. We stopped for lunch, setting up in the lee of the car, avoiding the wind that had blown Jody down the mountain. As we pulled over, there was a herd of about 20 pronghorn antelope grazing in the field on the side of the road. They ignored us until the car stopped - then the heads came up and all eyes were our way. When we got out of the car, they moved away from us, not particularly fearful, but cautious all the same.
Watchful pronghorn antelope in the distance.
Another great lunch - hummus, avocado, grape tomatoes, sliced almonds in wraps. Yum. Then Jody and I both got on the bikes for what turned out to be a very fast run into Walsenburg. Jody hit 50 mph on one slight downhill. I hit 40 mph. On The Fish. Which is, after all, still a hybrid and not a road bike. My lizard brain was sitting up the whole way, this time screaming in glee and not fear! WHOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Joe flagged me down at one point, to tell me Jody was warning of dust ahead. I saw the signs: Mowing Operations. It was going to be grass clipping and dust combined. Not a good thing for me. However . . . with that tailwind, I was doing close to 30 as I approached the cloud. Held my breath. Whizzed by and on into Walsenburg.
We stopped in the Visitors' Center parking lot. Joe threw our bikes on top of The Little Darkness as a train went by. Jody changed his clothes in the bushes by the closed museum. I changed between the open car doors, with Jody cat-calling and wolf-whistling. We hopped in The Little Darkness, and five minutes later were on I-25 headed north through Pueblo and Colorado Springs, on our way to Denver. We stopped for a Coke Slurpee for Jody. Heartbreak! The machine was in defrost cycle, and he had to settle for a straight Coke on the rocks!
Joe drove through the beginning of rush hour traffic - which reminded each of us why we're glad we don't live in the city. Any city. We dropped Joe at his hotel by DIA, where we played Garmin games (no, my fancy-pants new laptop still won't talk to the little Garmins!), then said farewell. Jody and I got back in the car, headed - or so we thought - for our little condo. Well, as it turns out, you can't get there from here. Or here from there. Or something like that. No entry from Tower Road to Pena Blvd southbound. But, taking the wrong turn was so worth it as we saw this little guy, calmly loping along the shoulder of Tower Road, just under busy Pena Blvd. Or at least he was calm until Jody stopped the car so I could take his picture. Much like the pronghorn antelope early in the day, the big horn sheep earlier in the trip (in Zion), horses and prairie dogs, who didn't care about moving cars, but hated bicycles, he didn't care about the car until it stopped.
Wildlife at Tower Road and Pena Boulevard, Denver, CO.
We'll be back on the road again on Friday, picking up Rod at DIA, and returning by car to Walsenburg, where we'll get on the bikes Saturday morning. Peter has worked out the routes for us all the way to Savannah, Georgia. While we're still working out rest days and when we'll be in New Orleans to visit Ari, it looks like we'll be at the Atlantic Ocean in early November. Jody and I had the same reponse to to that thought: we do not want this ride to be over!
Coyotes have the gift of seldom being seen; they keep to the edge of vision and beyond, loping in and out of cover on the plains and highlands. And at night, when the whole world belongs to them, they parley at the river with the dogs, their higher, sharper voices full of authority and rebuke. They are an old council of clowns, and they are listened to.
~N. Scott Momaday, Native American author of Kiowa descent, whose novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969
Puppy! I want one!!
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