Salida Colorado

IN THE VISITOR'S CENTER.

So right now we are checking out all the cool things to do in Colorado. We stopped by the visitor's center because we started feeling symptoms of altitude sickness. We climbed 9,000 feet yesterday, but now we're around 7,000. Today we will cross over Monarch Pass (11,000 feet), so we need to get pumped up.

That won't be a problem though because we just bought a 1980's portable radio, so we tune in and rock out to fuzzy mountain stations.

So we have a lot to catch up on:

KANSAS
IT was FLAT, hot, and mostly enjoyable because we were riding with Joe, Will, Siemen, and Jon. They were cool guys.
We met up with 3 of them in Larned KS, then cycled with them against an epic HEADWIND to Rush Center. Rush Center only had a gas station and a bar. The bar was no good because they wouldn't let us eat our raisens with the coffees we ordered (we ate them anyways). Siemen was there at the bar after having completed the Katy Trail like us (stange we didn't see him).

Then the whole team of boys arrived and we biked to the sky scraper of the Prairie. It was 4 stories tall. REALLY TALL. We pretty much felt like we were in NYC.

Then this big RV with Total cereal decorated all over the sides rolled in. This San Fran lady armed with raisen bran and ciff Shot blocks popped out of the RV. She was super chipper and heaved shot blocks on us like candy on a 4th of July parade.

We headed to Dighton and went immediately to the pool. SHOWERS!
We camped in the city park with the boys.


We found a dead great horned owl on the highway and collected feathers and a wing (getting it off the body took two people tugging....gross)
The boys stood by and watched.
Joe put a wing on his helmet.

We stayed at a little tiny dinky town called Sheradon lake, graduating class:4. It was tiny! They opened their church to us and we made a 3 pound pasta meal and ate it ALL. (thanks, especially to Siemen and Daniela for devouring the last 1 lb.). For breakfast we ate 18 eggs. raw.


We took an off day at Ordway Colorado. We just needed to, there were too may amazing things to do! We stayed with a woman named Gillian, from New Zealand. She greated us, wearing her swim suit, towering above us. She has been opening her house for bikers for years! She lived in a tent on the beach for a year and lived on a boat for 10! And spent a long time working in prisons. She was SOOOO tough. We painted her deck in exchange for sailing lessons. We had to lean so far over the edge of the boat to keep it from capcizing, clinging on by our toes, throwing our arms out of the boat, our hair brushing the water, looking at the beautiful shore speed by upsidedown. Gillian was yelling "get your arms out, throw your arms out!".
Henry, the sweetest man in the world bought the whole gang of bikers (17 in total that night) cake and ice cream. We stayed up late playing a dice game in the 'bungalow'.

We biked along side miles and miles and miles of abandoned train! There was at least 17 miles of it. You kept thinking that the end would come but then it just kept on going. It would have been the perfect place to stealth camp. We climbed on the top of one of the cars with Joe one morning and waved to a biker lady as she sped on.

Here is Daniela on top of the train:

We went to a wonderful church in Boone, Colorado. Lots of singing and just the most friendly people. The sermon felt like it was written just for us. Pastor Tammy was so nice and a great speaker!

The next day we finally got out of flat colorado and into the strange hills approaching the mountains. Everything was so dry, and hills so extreme, it looked like a Dr. Seuss book. We hiked to the top of one and took some tricky timer shots. Daniela and Joe did some crazy climbing that was pretty scary to watch. Jon said to me "it would be a shame to cut the trip short...". Of course they were fine.

We made a bon fire, and were joined by 4 other bikers, 3 girls from st. louis and Daniel, a man from Chicago. It was a great 'party'- we even stayed up till 11!!!

Next day we parted from our boys :(
it was sad.
But not before putting a sweeeet tat on Siemens back: