Northern Colorado is different!

Saturday, June 20   Day 14   Winter Park to Walden, CO   75 miles

Our scenery changed today! As we rode north from Winter Park, the horizon opened up. I didn't see any of the familiar snow-capped peaks -- until we had ridden about 13 miles. We did climb to 9683-ft Willow Creek Pass for another crossing of the Continental Divide (our 7th), but then we descended to the road in the photos above...with strong winds. I took the top photo first, and when I reached the farthest point you can see in it, I took the second one. Yes, pretty much straight and desolate.

Where we are tonight, Walden, is very much a small cowboy town in the middle of a wide prairie.

The day actually began with a "ceremonial" moment for me -- throwing away my PowerBar water bottle that I've used for about 10 years. Paul gave everyone new Black Bear water bottles last night, so I needed to throw away one of my existing bottles (no room to carry an empty one). The PowerBar bottle was in bad shape, so it was the one that had to go. But then I got to thinking all that that bottle had been through with me, most importantly when I had my near-death accident in 2007. When I told Janet about this in a morning phone call, I actually got emotional. Anything that gets me thinking about my miracle survival and chance to live again gets me emotional.

Here I am at our 7th crossing of the Continental Divide, at our 42-mile mark. We crossed from the Pacific side to the Atlantic side. On our way up the grade, many miles back on the Pacific side, we crossed the Colorado River just 10 miles from its headwaters. Exciting to think the water we saw would someday be flowing through the turbines at Hoover Dam.

During our rest stop at this pass, I fiddled with my rear derailleur because I kept hearing noise in many of my gears. I had already stopped three times to look for what was causing the noise. Finally I found the reason: My derailleur had been adjusted too far to the right such that the chain was rubbing in many of the middle gears. I tried adjusting back the derailleur, but if I did, then the original problem would return, which was that it would not shift from the small to large chain ring. So as to not rub the chain, I could not use about 7 or 8 of my gears, and they were right in the middle of my gearing range that any bike rider would use most often. This meant that I had to use a much higher gear (or too low a gear, but I tended to use the too-high gear so that I wouldn't be going too slowly) instead of one I would have preferred to have been riding in for much of the day's ride.

Also on the way north prior to this pass, we stopped to say hello to Susan Long's sister and her family at their ranch right there on our route.

The trees thinned out during our descent from the pass, and the roads got straighter. It was an omen of how flat and tree-less it would soon become.

At 62 miles we had our lunch stop, right in the middle of nowhere on the wide-open prairie. Neil and Sue look happy to be resting up for the final 12 miles to Walden.

"The moose-viewing capital of Colorado"!! I've seen dozens of moose here, but so far no live ones. Maybe tomorrow morning.

Here's Main Street. On the far left is our hotel, but also look out beyond. Doesn't it look like the two photos at the top of the posting? That's what tomorrow's ride should continue to look like.

Many of us got to the hotel before the van, so we just hung out in front. If you opened the front door, here's what you saw:

A stairway to our rooms. Straight ahead (to the left, which is not in the photo) was the door to the bar and restaurant. The metal plaque on the wall on the left of the photo states: "It is illegal to smoke marijuana on the premises."

Several of us went straight to the bar for some brews. Dinner in the same room included all 17 of us, and for me, it was their "Saturday Night Feast" - a 12-oz prime rib with all the fixins.

Tomorrow we will leave Colorado and enter Wyoming at mile 22, near the beginning of our 108-mile ride. I hope the forecast for wind direction holds up, because they are supposed to reach 25 to 30 mph! They are supposed to be from the side, but with a little bit of tailwind. By the way, we had strong cross winds in the prairie, and when a big rig would pass going in the opposite direction, it caused a HUGE burst of cross/headwind. We had to be super-ready and steady to avoid getting blown over - literally.