Into the Hills

Monday, August 7. Pueblo, CO to Canon City, CO.

We said our goodbyes to Jim this morning, and headed off toward Canon City. Today's destination is the KOA Kampground on the other side of Canon City, and it's our first day in the hills. Also our first day back on the bikes after a 3-day R&R break in Pueblo. We took a couple of back roads (and a dirt road, too) out of Pueblo to avoid the city traffic on Hwy 50, but then we hopped onto Hwy 50 just outside town. The ACA map puts riders on Hwy 96, which we'd taken into Pueblo, and then onto Hwy 115 into Canon City. Hwy 50 is a straight shot from Pueblo, with 10-ft wide shoulders, so we opted for that road. Turns out that Hwy 115 is closed for repairs to a bridge, so it would have been a really long day had we taken the ACA route.

I'd had a preview of the route when we drove to Canon City to ride the Royal Gorge train, so I was prepared for the long, slow uphills. My legs felt rested and the weather was cool, but as I was rolling along on the back roads of Pueblo, I suddenly thought about being done with the ride. Right now. Today. We've come 4500 miles, and still have 2000 to go. The thought didn't last long enough for me to think about calling Becky for a ride, and in the shower tonight, I was mentally lining up friends to go cycling with me in Ireland.

Look at those mountains! This is the view that inspired the song "America the Beautiful", and they are really incredible.

A few days ago, before we arrived in Pueblo, the Rockies were flat, blue shapes, almost lost in the cloud cover. Today, they're close. Very close. They have depth and features now. The front range is right here, brownish-green hillsides, dotted with dark green trees. Layerd behind them are more mountains, deep purple dotted with dark purple shapes. From the plains, you can see the mountains rise up from foothills to become "The Rockies", and it's worth every pedal stroke.

We stopped at a c-store about 20 miles into the ride, and sat at a picnic table under a tree while we took our break. The breeze was cool; the shade was an unexpected treat. It wasn't long before we arrived in Conon City, just in time for lunch. Since it was only 1:00pm, we decided to stop at the library and try to upload some pix. The library's geek had put too many restrictions on the computer, so after about a half hour I gave up (regular readers will notice one new picture on the blog today)

Across the street from the library is the old post office, now the home of the Fremont County Arts Center. They had a Christo and Jean-Claude exhibit of the temporary work they want to do on the Arkansas River. Since we'd had so much fun at "The Gates" installation in NYC, and we had some time to spare, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look around.

We had the place, and George, the docent, all to ourselves. George grew up in NC, but moved to the west and fell in love with the history out here. We talked about "Over The River", the installation planned for the Arkansa River. Elsie is a volunteer for the Arts Center, collecting admission and visitor's signatures. We also met Ted, a lieutenant in the Colorado Mounted Rangers unit. I think he had responsibilities somewhat like the Park Service--the post office building is on the Colorado Registry of Historic Places. He sat by the front door the entire time (except for the group photo). They all wished us a safe trip as we headed back to our bikes, parked outside the library.

By now it was 4:00pm, and as I wheeled my bike out of the bike rack, my back tire popped. Fortunately, the library has a nice lawn and a big shade tree, nice things for changing a flat tire. Matthew found the culprit--a half-inch long staple had made a small, clean puncture in the tube.

When I returned from washing up inside the library, Matthew greeted me with his "I have a great idea" look. "Since it's already after 4, and the campground is another 8 or 9 miles up hill, why don't we just get a room in town?" Back inside the library, It didn't take long to Google the Comfort Inn, which turned ou to be right around the corner.

Well, you take advantage of what you have. And we have an indoor pool, hot tub, and guest laundry room at the hotel. Just as we were getting ready to leave for dinner, the much-anticipated rainstorm blew into town. In-between squalls, we ran across the street to Big Daddy's, and had dinner while waiting for the whole storm to pass through town.

Tomorrow's ride will be a bigger ascent--over 4,000 feet of climbing, in just over 30 miles. The high temp tomorrow will only be in the low 80's; I'm looking forward to another day in the foothills, maybe getting into the front range, too.