Day 40 – Happy Travelers

Ordway, CO to Pueblo West, CO – 63 miles

Yesterday I woke up at 545 in the trailer outside of Gillian’s place, determined to get on the road early.  I made some oatmeal with bananas and coffee and packed up.  By the time I was about ready to leave, Jong Hyeok and Gillian were up as well.  We all ended up chatting for a while and I watched as my early start disappeared.  That’s what’s nice about traveling solo and self-contained though.  If the conversation is good there is no reason for me to force myself to leave being mindful of others that I am traveling with.

We talked about everything.  I gave Jong some pointers on what to expect throughout his ride east and he gave me some tips on where to stay near Las Vegas and Death Valley.  Gillian told us about some of her adventures past.  She told us a story about a guy who had died in the area a couple of days ago cutting down a large limb from a tree with a chainsaw when it fell on him.  Turns out he was 92 and a multi-millionaire!  He could have just as easily hired someone to cut that limb down while he watched, but he was determined to do it himself up until the end.  I like that and hope that I am like him as a grow old, sweating it out until the day I die.

Eventually, I said good-bye to Jong and Gillian and got on the road.

Note Jong’s smile, it captures his personality perfectly!  You could really tell he was thoroughly enjoying every minute of his time here.  A truly happy and inspirational guy for his courage to go to a foreign country with nothing but a bicycle and an idea.  Good luck on the rest of your journey Jong Hyeok!!

The ride to Pueblo was fairly mundane.  Not nearly as isolated as the previous 100-200 miles, but still very limited services.  It was a bit cooler with some decent cloud coverage, so I didn’t get punished too bad for not setting out until 8.  The route went by two prisons, I guess Gillian used to work at one of them for something like 12 years.

I made it to Pueblo West at around 3 or 4.  Don had touched base with someone there with MS, so the plan was to take a rest day and do another service project.  I was super excited because I had so much fun hanging out with and helping Joan in Carbondale.  As I rolled into town huge rain clouds started to form, and I thought I was going to get dumped on at any minute.  Luckily, I was able to make it to Cathy and Rod’s place before the storm let loose.  As soon as we pulled my bike into the garage the rain started to come down.  It seems that I have constantly been blessed with excellent timing with respect to weather throughout this trip.  I hope it continues.

Cathy and Rod also live with Cathy’s mom.  They were all incredibly nice and welcoming.  We talked for a while and instead of putting me to work right away they let me use their shower and then treated me to a meal at a local pizza place!  Her daughter, Shanna, and boyfriend, Sean also met us there.  They have a spare bedroom at their place, so after dinner I went there for the night.  On the way, we stopped at the Pueblo Reservoir.  We missed the sunset by a couple of minutes, but the views were still spectacular and awe-inspiring.

Once back at Shanna and Sean’s we hung out for awhile.  Both awesome people.  Shanna works at Colorado State University connecting groups from the community with graduate students to work on community based graduate projects, and Sean is a Law Clerk at a local office.  He works long hard hours and you can tell he is smart, driven individual.

Shortly after getting there we all called it a night and I went to sleep in a lovely bed.  Today I look forward to helping Cathy and Rod out with whatever they might need me to do.  Also, it sounds like we may have some opportunities to get some publicity on my tour with some local news outlets.  We will see!  All I know is I’m pretty happy to be off the bike for a day spending it with some wonderful people!