We slept in a little late this morning because it was raining/thundering/storming and generally pretty yucky outside. We parked the RV in a boat trailer storage lot near the top of Blue Mesa lake. I hunted around the inside of the RV and found my Columbia rain gear. I put it on and started out towards Gunnison. Of course, 5 minutes into the ride the rain stopped and the sun came out. It didn't take long for me to overheat so I had to stop and remove the rain gear. 20 minutes later another thunderstorm would pass over and I basically had to repeat this process of donning and removing my rain gear all day. I made pretty good time through Gunnison. About 8 miles beyond the edge of town Deb and Kayla took a long detour that would keep them from climbing and descending the steep grades of Monarch pass. Their loop was 104 miles while my ascent & descent was around 53 miles. I traded my tri bike for the mt. bike and started my longest and highest climb so far (11,312'). There was quite a bit of traffic and some places had no guardrails... just a white line and then a several hundred foot drop to the bottom of a ravine. It was a bit nerve wracking at times but I finally made it to the top. I met Deb & Kayla in the town of Poncho Springs. We decided to try to make it to Cannon City before dark. The good thing was that I had a tailwind and 60 of the 65 miles was downhill! I ended up riding over 152 miles for the day. Tomorrow we are hoping to get into Kansas!!
Hey Wayne-Good to get the updates on the trip and to hear that things are going okay. I am curious-how close are you to being where you expected to be at this time?
ReplyDeleteI was hoping to make it to Kansas today (13th). I'm only 31 miles short and hopefully I'll be able to make up the miles in the next few days.
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