Granby, CO

Hello from Colorado!

Last night Michael and I camped right on the state border with Wyoming. I'm glad to be out of there. Our goal was to get to Walden, CO, but an afternoon thunderstorm delayed us a bit. Pretty much the goal was to be OUT OF WYOMING!!!

Thursday, June 12th - Rawlins WY to Wyoming/Colorado state border - 90 miles
See yesterday's entry. Not much happened, except we fought a headwind most of the afternoon, and it sprinkled on us. We saw one cool storm that got a little too close, and I think it hailed a good bit. Michael got a good picture.
Friday, June 13th - Wyoming/Colorado State border to somewhere in Rocky Mountain National Park - 75 miles completed by 3pm, hopefully doing around 30 more

This morning started off really, really, cold. It must have been below 40 degrees, but not quite freezing--there wasn't frost anywhere. Yet, I wore the following:

two pairs of socks
leg warmers
arm warmers
bib shorts
underlayer shirt
jersey
wind vest
raincoat

I could have worn a fleece, but that would have been too much. The problem with this is that I got really sweaty too fast, and if I took off any layers I would be too cold (because of the sweat). It was about 22 miles to Walden, and we got there at about 9am. After a good breakfast of biscuits and gravy, we headed back down the road, our midday goal being here in Granby. It warmed up a lot, and its really pleasant to ride.

Interesting thing to note today:

Rand, CO has no running water. At least the guy in the one store that was there wouldn't give us any, only giving us the choice to buy some bottled water. We passed, and the post office lady graciously gave us some. They also have a closed down yacht club restaurant, though I'm sure there aren't any lakes for miles around. Go figure.

Colorado's scenery is getting better and better. I think its because we're further away from Wyoming. From here, we're going to head into Rocky Mountain National Park, where we'll ride along Train Ridge Road, which reaches a peak elevation of 12183 feet. It's the highest continuous paved road in the continental US. The only thing that is bad about that is that right now I'm at 8000 feet, and it was cold at night. Tonight we're gonna freeze! And 4000 more feet is a lot of climbing. I don't think I'll get altitude sickness, because I've been acclimated to this fairly high elevation for a while now. The air sure will be thin though.

Tomorrow we get to Boulder, which is about 100 miles from here, with an unknown amount of climbing--but it's probably a lot. Boulder is at around 5000 ft elevation though, so all afternoon will be descending. After that, I'm headed to Colorado Springs, CO where Dad has a friend, hopefully I can crash there. From Colorado Springs, its down to Pueblo, which is about 60 miles away.

Hopefully the next time I'll update I'll be on Boulder! Maybe at Rob's mom's place if all goes well. I plan on taking a rest day there too, after tomorrow.