Ice Cream with Raspberries

We took a photo with Greg just outside the motel room and started West again. More quiet Colorado landscape. Our first stop was in Haswell where Jeremy and Jordan enjoyed breakfast burritos being sold to fund Christmas lights for the town. Then it was through Sugar City and on to Ordway for a stop at the grocery store. Most of the day passed under tire uneventfully – rotating pulls, flat terrain, and an occasional stop.

Our destination for the day was Fowler, CO and just outside the town we encountered a bit of interest. Off in the distance was a solid blue wall of cloud. There was some anxiety in the group. Definitely a threatening quality to the air and the sky around us. Lightning strikes off in the distance. We were about two miles out when we felt the first few drops. It was intermittent, only a couple here and then a couple more. It made no sense to put on any rain gear being so close so we decided to sprint into town. We lay a Louie on the 167 and screamed down a mild downhill. We arrived at a flat straightaway and were blazing by at 30. Some of us were running out of high gears. Throwing everything we had out there, putting it all on the line. The town came into view and the speed dropped down to 24 and 25 for the final stretch in. It was smiles all around as we had beaten the storm.

There hasn't been any occasion to sprint like that on the tour and it was actually pretty fun for the weather to have provided the excuse. We did the usual speculating about how fast we would have gone if we weren't loaded down and made it over to the library. A local kid tried to sell us a dubious MP3 player but none of us were in the market. I got a post up and the rest of the crew browsed the information superhighway. The Unforgettable Journey crew was about to set us up again. They had stayed at the Lutheran church while in Fowler and suggested we could contact them as well. Jeremy made a few phone calls and we were let into the church by a fine guy named Tom. We got the lay of the land and arranged our bikes and belongings and cooked dinner. There was some discussion about going to the grocery store to get some kind of dessert. Good thing we don't move that fast. If the initial hospitality wasn't enough, Cindy, the pastor's wife, arrived with ice cream and raspberries. And if that wasn't enough, we were invited to a pancake breakfast the next morning. It's difficult to find the words to adequately thank people in these kinds of situations. You're just so blown away by the generosity extended to you that “thank you” seems inadequate. Later in the evening we met the pastor Wayne and tried to express our gratitude for the evening's stay. We replaced the several thousand calories we had blown in that sprint and blew up the Big Agnes' with dreams of pancake batter dancing in our heads.

Greg and the crew. Kendall, Rachel, and Amelia were still sleepy.

Where would you rather be?

Haswell, CO.

Seduction.

I spilled all my macaroni on the floor. I still ate them though.