Saturday, July 31, 2010

Goin' down to South Park

Tonight we are sleeping one block away from South Park City, Colorado. Yes, the 1880’s mining town that the television show South Park is based on.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Gold miner ghost town

Why hello there Guffey, Colorado! You do not disappoint, you outlandish, freakish, hell of a good time little town! This town is one part gold miner ghost town, two parts installation art, with a dash of 50‘s country western, peppered with the skulls, skins, and antlers of every animal imaginable. Guffey was on our list of places we set out to see at any cost, and it might be my favorite place so far.

The ride to Guffey is a bit of work. We started in Canon City at 5,332 feet and ended at 8,600 feet in Guffey. But, experiencing Guffey was worth the thinning air causing my nose to bleed, and my lungs to shrivel up and die on me. And, it was even worth dealing with the bipolar weather. Being in Guffey was even worth compromising my usual negative feelings about cow skulls and mystery antlers and skins as decorations.

We raced a storm to get to there, which was scary for me, since this storm continued looming closer and closer and I was averaging a speed of 5 MPH. In the end, we beat it out, and it was awesome to lay in the cabin listening to the low rumble of thunder which lasted for hours. In the mountains, the weather goes like this. The morning clouds appear to hang out seemingly cordial and pleasant perched above the mountain tops. But all the while, they are just fooling us. What they are doing off in the distance is gathering strength. Come about 1p.m. they turn sinister and menacing and they start hurling lightening bolts.

If you are a biker, when you get to Guffey the first thing you do is look up Bill. Bill is a collector of sorts, and he is mostly responsible for the ambiance of Guffey. Beyond that, he did the same trip Brooke and I are doing (the Trans-American Bicycle Trail) in 1976 for the Bikecentenial. So, in Guffey, they take care of the bikers. Brooke and I heard that Bill rents cabins at a cheap price to bikers, so we headed to the “cabin rental office”. Please see below for a picture of aforementioned cabin rental office.
Arriving at what I thought may be where I rented the cabin, I pulled up behind a slumped over like a sack of potatoes, unmoving body of a man I presumed might be Bill. He was sitting alone in a golf cart, looking like a piece of installation art himself. I pulled up along side him, and asked if he was Bill. He wasn’t; he was Charlie, Bill was out of town. Charlie was in charge. I asked about the cabin, and Charlie lead us through some tall grass towards a tiny 8x6 “cabin” that contained a sole bed. But, mid stride, he changed his mind, and gave us a WAY better one, for half the price! The cabin we stayed in was built in the 1880s and it was really awesome. Check it out.

We handed Charlie the cash, and we went off to explore. I was barely two steps out of the cabin, and Charlie handed me a beer. Then he handed me the keys to city hall. See below for some pics from inside Guffey’s City Hall. After the tour of city hall, I took some pics of the old rusted out cars parked haphazardly around town, and the bizzaro but alluring “sculpture”... maybe you’d call it a sculpture.
We ended the night hanging out in the shed with Charlie drinking beer, watching an old Elvis movie, and talking about bear encounters, one of my obsessions and greatest fears.

Melissa

The official ballot for the major of Guffey. Monster the cat won. His campaign manager, Junior, a black cat, was out campaigning while we drank beers with Charlie.










Thursday, July 29, 2010

A great day in the canyon

Today was another easy day of riding. We got to Canon City, Colorado early and found a monastery that allowed us to sleep in one of their dorm rooms. We went to a wine tasting and met Aidan (the same trans-am’er that we rode with in Kentucky) and Amanda (another east to west rider that we met our first night in Colorado) at a local brewery. All-in-all, it was a great day.

Brooke


Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Pueblo CO, 81009

I wanted to avoid Pueblo at all costs. Whatever I knew about the town stemmed from those freaky early 90’s commercials for government information (don’t you remember the one where the guy runs to his fridge to write an address on his kitchen floor in mustard because he can’t find a pen or pencil? Well, you can see it here. Weird. I know.). Needless to say, Pueblo is the source for government booklets and pamphlets.

Pueblo is also the source of two really great people. When we got into town, we immediately went to Walmart to get some lunch. I went to do the shopping, and Melissa stayed outside with our bikes. I came out of the store, bag in hand, to the sound of her laughing. She was sitting against the side of the building, talking with two employees.

We ate our lunch right there, talking with them about the bike tour and they informed us where we should go and the sites we shouldn’t miss over the next couple of days. When their break was over, we started to get on our bikes.

“Wait! Don’t go yet!” we hear one of them shout. And she ran out, with a card in her hand.

They had written us a card with words of encouragement: Go for it! The Sky’s the Limit! and Good Luck.

Now what I’ll think about when I think of Pueblo, CO is this:


Some of the sites of eastern Colorado...
While riding towards Pueblo, we also got our first glimpse of the upcoming mountains. To the north we could barely make out Pikes Peak, and the south, the Spanish Peaks.

Brooke

Monday, July 26, 2010

Pot-pie and tall tales

We took a clobbering today, but it felt so great. The self-reliance, and the sheer effort of riding such a far distance had me amped. Even coming in to Ordway, I was on an adrenaline high, and my legs felt no pain, but upon arrival, and two steps off the bike I was in a world of hurt. But, it was that type of exhaustion that feels marvelous. We hammered out a 90 mile ride, 58 miles of which were along a stretch of road that had absolutely nothing. No houses, no gas stations, nothing. I saw a tumbleweed cross the road in front of me, lots of dead snakes . . . and that was about it during that stretch.

At about 80 miles in, we finally came to a little town called Sugar Grove. I saw a slapped together structure that by all appearances seemed to be the town’s general store. As I went in covered in my usual post ride grime, I saw a sign that said, “pot-pie,” and another that read, “bait shop.” I thought nothing of it, interpreting the phrase “pot-pie” in the most literal of ways, and went on in in search of some desperately needed water.

As I opened the door, the overpowering scent of Marijuana engulfed me. I was so out of it, I still didn’t make the connection. Upon entering, I saw a lone little man sitting behind a counter, and nothing else. I thought, well, they must just keep a low inventory at this general store, so I blurted out, “do you sell water and do you have a public restroom” he replies, “we sell medicinal Marijuana, and that’s all we have here” Crazy. He was a nice guy, and ended up giving us two big ice cold bottles of water courtesy of Pot-Pie, LLC. Crazy. Medicinal marijuana in small town Colorado, who knew!

When we finally pulled in to Ordway, I promptly headed to the local bar. The fashion is definitely taking a turn towards “western”. Everything feels so “cowboys and indians, cattle drives and ranchers”. It’s awesome, almost theme-parkish and it makes me giddy and excited to explore. For men, the look as all about cowboy crossed with rocker. We’re talking leather vests, metal studs, black jeans, leather brimmed hats all a la Kid Rock. For the women, whatever they don, it’s bedazzaled to the max, covered in sequins, and topped off with lace trim and a disco ball for a belt buckle. Needless to say, Brooke and I stick out like sore thumbs here with our biker tans, baggy shorts and t-shirts.

So into the bar I go, feeling tough from the long ride and happy to be in Colorado! I walk in, and sit down next to a bearded guy sipping a shot and drinking a beer. We start to talk-- and I’ll be honest, in the regular daylight, with all of my normal faculties in tact, I wouldn’t have given him much room to woo me with his tall-tales from the plains of Colorado. But, in the glow of the budweiser sign mounted above his head, his eyes looked wise, rather than skittish and unable to focus due to alcohol consumption. They looked like they might hold the answers to the mysteries of Colorado’s wilderness, as opposed to looking half crazy and prone to rampant exaggeration and compulsive tall-tale telling. It was like we were in the 1800s and we were cowboys sitting around a fire exchanging stories of fighting off indians, and wrangling cattle, and killing rattle snakes with our bare hands. Ok, not quite, but you get what I’m going for.

He begins, and I eagerly let him launch into several crazy stories. He begins with “ya all seein’ lots of blood splatter out there on the road, but nuthins there, huh? This stretch of road’s like a fast food joint for the animals better at crossing the road.” Next, we start talking snakes. We’d seen tons of them today, all dead on the road. So, he asks if we’ve seen a snake called a Red Racer. He’s says, “them’s fast...I’ll be driving in my truck, I’ll see one of ‘em, and I’ll get on the gas real good, and think I’ve got him! I wait for the thud, and there isn’t one! You can’t hit ‘em theys so fast!” And, he goes on, he says, “they’ll chase you-- they love to chase, you run, and they follow you for miles.” In his words, “they see ya, they pick their head up, look over sideways-like at ya, and they start after ya...”

We talked about tarantulas, how they’ll be ambling along at a spider pace, and then (again, his words with accompanying hand gesturing) “blammo! they jump up at ya, and they can jump high!” He tries to hit tarantulas too, and he says “ain’t there a one of ‘em that’s ever been hit on the road, they jump right out the way.” Apparently, the migrate in big groups that cover the entire road. Tall tale, or truth, I’m not sure. But, he says they head south for the winter, and we’ll be through Colorado before tarantula migration season. Lucky us.

Melissa

We stopped for breakfast in Eads, CO & shipped 8 lbs home.

15 miles of abandoned rail cars.


Tan lines.















Saturday, July 24, 2010

The monster at the end of this book

Today I woke up with Josh’s warnings about Kansas storms echoing in my head. Specifically, in the 30 minute span I was awake before I walked out the door, a made sure I allowed sufficient time to completely freak myself the F out. By the time we were walking out the door of the hotel, I had myself convinced that today with the day for a tornado in Kansas. “Might as well just get on out there, Mis, out into big scary stormy hot windy dangerous Kansas” I told myself. You’re a bike tourist, what are you gonna do, call up Josh?” You can’t beg strangers for rides everyday!

Needless to say, I didn’t want to leave the hotel and I wasn’t feeling very capable or confident today. But, when I stepped outside, it was beautiful. The sunrise was gorgeous! As we pedaled down the road, we immediately noticed that the there was no wind! No wind! It was so calm and peaceful. The way the sun was coming up, and nobody was outside except us, it was magical. And the moment was all mine to enjoy.

We made our miles so easily today, and we were done riding at 11:30 am. The weather finally cooled off some, and the wind actually switched directions! We had a slight tailwind today, which made riding pleasurable.

After it was all said and done, today was one of those days where I want to kick myself for worrying obsessively about something, when really, there was nothing to worry about all along. This is a problem with me, and today illustrates it perfectly. I feel like I’m Grover in the Little Golden Book entitled “The Monster at the End of This Book”. Maybe some of you know it. If not, well, you are too young, or missed out because of parental neglect. Just kidding. It is my favorite Little Golden Book though.

Anyhow, because we finished riding early, we had time to do our laundry! How exciting. At the laundry mat, I managed to find a decorating magazine from 1989, which honestly provided entertainment for the entire time we were there. The little mail-in order forms for cheap jewelry, decorative plates and figurines cracked me up, and the fabric patterns! So, here are some pics of the sky, and trust me, they don’t do it justice.

Melissa
Please see rules 4 and 5 for our hotel room. Thank you.