Back in the Saddle.

We’re writing this blog two mountains and three hundred miles from the site of our accident. We’re happy to report that we’re in Pagosa Springs now, which is just beyond the continental divide. This means that for the first time of the trip so far, the grade will actually be working with us.

We left La Junta at noon five days ago. The first obstacle we had to overcome was a stretch of 72 miles of absolute nothing. The only evidence of human life between La Junta and Walsenburg, Colorado we encountered was a tall abandoned tower about half way, and a few miles later another abandoned double wide trailer. We camped outside the trailer that night only to discover it was littered with bullet holes after we had pitched our tent. We’ve gotten better sleeps on concrete slabs during the middle of the day than we got that night.

The next day we ran into two more obstacles before Walsenburg. The first of which was that we ran out of water. There were no gas stations or even homes between our campsite and town so we were forced to flag down a few kindly drivers and pilfer their water bottles. Sadly we still had another problem ahead of us.

After getting our bikes repaired in Colorado Springs, it seems that one of the sales reps decided it would be funny to sell us bicycle inter tubes that were far too small for our bikes. The result was whenever we tried to change a blown tire, upon inflating the tube it would last for about a half mile before popping again. Around noon we finally limped into Walsenburg, where we posted at a coffee shop and eventually found a man named Dave, who was on his way to Pueblo, where we knew there would be a bike shop where we could properly restock. This led to another episode of Anthony’s awkward situation corner.

Now, it appeared that Dave doesn’t get much opportunity for conversation, so we suppose he makes up for lost time by sharing his views on every subject that pops into his head with unsuspecting bicyclers when he picks them up in coffee shops. We were privileged enough to hear, in painstaking detail, what he thought about: the institution of marriage, gay rights, insurance companies, republicans, insurance companies, the female anatomy, insurance companies, his dog buddy, and oh yes, insurance companies.

Regretfully we won’t be able to recap much of these conversations online if we were able to keep them to a PG rating, but we’d like to leave you with an image we were stuck with for the better part of 4 hours. A man, who looked surprisingly like the mumbles from office space, driving his Subaru outback, with his wiener dog buddy resting on his shoulders, while he leaves us with a quote which will haunt us forever.

If you want to hear the quote, you’ll have to talk to us personally.

After getting our stuff straightened out we left for La Vida Pass, the first of two 10,000 foot passes. The scenery was fantastic and we’re happy to report that the Rockies’, unlike the Appalachians, are a slow gradual climb which is much more easily traversed than their eastern counterparts. The biggest hurdle was the thin air at 10,000 which made the climb quite a bit harder once you neared the summit.

We hit the second pass about 100 miles later. It was called Wolf Creek, and with the rain, wind, and low temperatures, it proved to be the most difficult physical challenge we have faced on the trip thus far. After 10 miles uphill, and about 3 hours however, we made it to the summit, and enjoyed a freezing 20 mile ride into Pagosa Springs.

Let us backtrack for a second to the day of our accident. While we were in a Laundromat, we had the pleasure of meeting Barbara Pivonka and James Miller. The have been keeping up with our travels and offered to buy us a hotel room when we needed it. We could think of no better opportunity to take them up on their offer than after crossing the continental divide. These two Good Samaritans got us a beautiful room at the Best Western in Pagosa Springs, where we enjoyed our first good meal in what seemed like a very long time, as well as a hot breakfast, and even a hot tub to soak in. We want to take a moment to thank them very much for their hospitality and fond wishes. We would hard pressed to encounter others as generous as they have been before the trip is over.

We plan to be in Flagstaff by Friday the 13^th, and will apparently be staying in a haunted hotel courtesy of Zach’s sister, Jessica. Your timing is impeccable, we’ll be looking forward to it. A few days later we’ll take in the bright lights of Vegas, and then finish up the trip in LA. Keep on readin and we’ll keep on ridin. Take care folks.