Day 31 - eventful but slow

By Mark Heggestad
Grueling.  It actually wasn’t that bad, but that’s the first word that comes to mind.  Today we biked to Rand, CO.  It took us a long time to get there: over five hours of biking to go 57.2 miles.  Our slowest pace so far.  The day consisted of a slight climb compounded by a head wind.  During the day we had to stop once for a cattle drive, and twice for thunderstorms.

We saw the first thunderstorm coming at us from our right.  It was dark and ominous.  We were four miles from the town of Cowdry, CO and we pedaled as fast as we could.  When we arrived we found that the town consisted of a half dozen houses and a very small post office.  With less than a minute to spare we dashed to the shelter of the post office.  There we spent over a half hour waiting out the storm.  Extremely high wind, thunder, driving rain, and hail.  So glad we didn't get caught on the road in that.  We were lucky, and happy.  The local postmaster was most hospitable as we waited it out in her tiny post office.  Can’t thank her enough.

About fifteen miles further down the road we saw very similar clouds ahead of us. We stopped on the road for about a half hour and watched the storm pass from right to left in front of us.  We escaped a second unpleasant experience.

All and all, an eventful day, but a slow day.  We had hoped to climb Willow Creek Pass today but thanks to the wind and interruptions we stopped about nine miles short.  So that will be the start of our day tomorrow.  Willow Creek Pass, at an elevation of 9,621 feet, is the third highest pass on our route.

We did have one other highlight today.  We passed from Wyoming into Colorado, thus completing our 4th state.  We will continue to ride south toward Pueblo, CO and then we will turn our bikes east for the rest of the trip.  

 Not a great picture because I took the picture as I was riding by.
The cowboys had just moved the cattle off the road for me to pass so I figured they
wouldn't be happy if I stopped to take a photo.

The storm that almost got us.

Comments

  1. ChelsJune 1, 2017 at 6:10 AM

    Way to make it to Colorado! What a journey.

    Chelsea Manke

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJune 1, 2017 at 9:15 AM

    Way to dodge the storms! Congrats on another state too.

    ReplyDelete

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