Soft Serve.

It was time to ride again. We loaded the bikes in the truck and the gear in the Subaru and said goodbye to Helen and drove south to Pueblo. Unloaded all the junk and strapped it to our momentarily light bicycles. We said goodbye to George, Adam, and Leslie and took off into downtown Pueblo.

We were stiff. We were soft. We had eaten too much ice cream. But what cure is there but more bicycling? The scenery changed dramatically as soon as we exited the developed core of the city. We traded high desert grasses for arroyos and rock walls in the Pueblo reservoir. Oh, and we were soft. We didn't pay enough attention to how much we had ridden on our first stretch and ended up doing 27 straight out of the gate. Our minds got mushy as well, it seems. And: we were only three miles out from the first stop with services for the day. So we stopped again in three miles and filled up our bottles at the Wetmore Community building where we met some people in the kitchen who were preparing for a family reunion of forty.

The scenery out here is outstanding. We're in the mountains now, undoubtedly. Snow-capped peaks off in the distance, peaks closer in the foreground, and peaks under tire. We did about ten miles of sustained climbing before a junction with another road and a break. The roads are much more gradual in pitch but the climbs are much longer. Thank goodness for the lack of steepness – if the roads kicked hard we would've been sunk. Then it was another six miles of much more gradual climbs to our peak for the day at 9,000 feet. We descended into Westcliffe, our destination, and met a pair of touring cyclists who we chatted with for a bit. They're doing 120 mile days unloaded, and are on their way to RAGBRAI. Then it was another opportunity to prove our foolishness. We rode two miles out of town to the RV campground. Greed, thy name is the Grape Creek RV Park. $17.50 to pitch one tent. That put a real damper on our moods. We fished out the map and called the local motels to see if we'd do better splitting a room, but those were expensive as well. We had already gone off route and down a dirt road to get there so we angrily coughed up the bills.

We resolved not to get taken again and do better research before being fleeced at a private campground. Our money entitled us to a patch of crabgrass without a picnic table, or a spigot, or nearby bathrooms. It was lousy. The scenery was beautiful though, and we might have even appreciated it, if we weren't still mad at being skunked. Jordan was not feeling well today, didn't seem to get acclimated too quickly. He made a recovery toward the end of the evening though, good news. Today was a short day at around 57 miles and boy did we need it.

The view from the deck.

Weird to see the gear this way.

Thank you George and Helen. It was a great time.

Here goes nothing...

In the thick of it.

From the campground, looking West.