Day 20, 100 miles to Pueblo Co- Royal Gorge

The day had it’s up and downs, as most do. Load time was posted as 5:30, so we were up at 5:00, but for the first time on our trip, Andy, Michelle, Chirstine and Gerard were not cheery and peppy. There were trying to get a handle on the norovirus situation. A quick count of bicycles on top of the sag wagon told the story. Ten. Ten of us were too sick to ride. They’d be shuttled directly to Pueblo, we’d go to breakfast at the Patio Pancake Palace. It didn’t open until 6. There was some talk about just going to McD’s but Michelle insisted that PPP was worth the wait. PPP had its act together. They’ set up another one of those “table for 30” and one waitress worked the table better than Bill Clinton worked the rope line. Erica got all our drink orders right, kept the cafs and the decaf straight when she refilled, and brought every order to the right rider as it came out of the kitchen. ABB picks up the 15% tip on all our meals, but we each kicked in an extra dollar to give her and extra $30. And a big round of applause. It’s always a pleasure to watch people who are good at what they do. I had scrambled eggs and coconut buckwheat pancakes. They were so good.

There’s a special quality to riding out early in the morning. Wispy clouds scampered above the snow on the verdant mountain and cast clouds that dropped ground temperature by ten degrees. It’s been so long that I’d been that in touch; to feel clouds chill my glistening brow. On the left, the sky was cloudless, and the rising sun turned the snow on the mountain tops turned pink. We dropped into the Arkansas River Canyon and rode along its rushing waters and shear cliffs for more than an hour. The river was never more than 40 feet away. Even at the headwaters, this was clearly a mighty river. They say it takes the river one hundred years to cut through one inch of rock. The canyon was 200-300 feet deep at this point. It took a long time for the river to do its work. But when water hits rock, water always wins. There was a chunk of mountain (it’s too big to call it a rock) in the middle of the river. My first thought was, “I’m glad that I wasn’t around when that happened.” My second thought was that the rock cliff was more than 50 yards away, it must have been quite a fall. But maybe the cliff had been closer, and maybe that piece of mountain fell millions of years ago. Maybe there was no human to marvel at the fall. A humbling thought.

Gerard “strongly urged” us to go off route to see Royal Gorge, saying that there were but a few short hills on the way. We hiss sat Gerard now (good naturedly). It was four miles of uphill 11-16% grade, too high a price for what would have been a nice excursion if we’d driven. The Gorge had a 1950’s amusement park air to it. There was a little animal safari with deer, antelope, and a bored buffalo. There were merry go rounds, and vomit inducing rides for the more adventurous. Hot dogs, cotton candy, and ice cream. Oh yes, and the worlds highest wooden plank suspension bridge. It had been built as a tourist attraction and has remained such to this day. Between the planks, I could see 1.000 feet to the now oh so small Arkansas River.. Looking down over the side made my head spin, so I just kept my eyes front and waited until I was back on real ground to take a look.

The climb to Royal Gorge just took it our of me. There were 50 more miles to go. It was slow and hard, head winds and hills. I didn’t even stop for the prison museum. I finally got the hotel at 5:30 p.m.- twelve hours after load time. We had dinner at the Golden Corral. It was a good place to refuel.

Chris is coming up from Denver to see me tomorrow. I’m looking forward to that.

We’ve now ridden 20 days and over 1400 mile, we’re more than a third of the way there.

(Tomorrow is a rest day, there will probably not be a post.) Sunday will be the longest ride of the trip; 127 miles.