Pueblo

It was a short day into Pueblo and we hit the city limits just around noon. Stoplights!? What!? Stores and cars and traffic and commerce galore. We checked out a bike shop where Jeremy bought some new bar tape to combat occasional numbness in his hands. His current tape succeeds more in the decorative category than in squishiness. Soon he'll be riding extra plush. We took a suggestion from one of the employees at the Great Divide Ski, Bike, and Hike and cast off from the teal building and off to the Daily Grind Cafe. Not without using their floor pump to fill the tires, of course. We were all under desirable air pressure.

We ate fine sandwiches and sat in a room decorated with art for sale and other patrons clacking away on their laptops. It was very urban, very hip, and very unlike the last month of existence. It was pretty easy to slip back though – we may as well have been in North Park. It was at that point that a bombshell fell through the ceiling of the establishment, chunks of tile and drywall dust coating the crew. Adam told us that he would not be continuing the tour after Pueblo for lack of funds. He does not yet have a place to live for the fall school semester and has to make those arrangements as well before classes begin again. None of us had much to say.

Adam got in contact with his grandparents who were in Pueblo by this point and we rode over toward City Hall to be picked up and driven to Peyton, CO. Adam's girlfriend Leslie was there as well, as she'll be joining us for the rest break north of Pueblo. We loaded up the enclosed trailer with the bikes and made it about eleven miles before our curse befell George and Helen. They were towing the trailer behind their Ford Ranger as Adam drove us in the borrowed Subaru. Some tire tread blew back toward us, and of course, it belonged to the left tire of the trailer. Luckily, as with so many of our catastrophes, there was a silver lining. We had passed a state trooper just before the tread blew and he pulled over to lend assistance. It was spectacular that he did because the trailer was borrowed and we didn't have the proper tire iron to remove the nuts. The cop did. George and Helen disconnected the trailer, took the wheel, and drove back to Pueblo for a replacement. Leslie, Adam, Jordan, Jeremy, and I stayed behind to watch the trailer and become delirious.

I threw cereal at everyone and we cried out for cold root beer and nearly lost our wits on the side of the road. The trailer was held upright by the jack and shook and shimmied every time a large truck drove by. It stayed aloft. The whole thing really wasn't that surprising considering our earlier dilemmas. “Oh, more stuff is broken... Yeah, so what's new?”

George and Helen arrived with the new tire and cold waters and we rejoiced and headed North to their home. The house is beautiful and the view is extraordinary. It sits atop a ridge and looks down into a valley that stretches for miles and miles. Two buttes or mesas, as you prefer, frame either side of the lowlands. An upper and lower deck afford tremendous views of the land, lush and green with recent rains. We feasted on a spaghetti dinner and generally relaxed.

Thank you Wayne and Cindy.

A maintenance truck outfitted to drive on the rails. We raced for a while.

Downtown Pueblo.

Outside the Daily Grind. So hip.