WEEK 6

Rawlins must be the windiest town on Earth! Don't know how the locals cope with it! Dermot got a haircut there and also had his spoke repaired so it wasn't all bad. We met a girl called Sage who is on a 2000 mile walk alone from Mexico to Canada and really roughing it, just sleeping wherever with a tarpaulin and a net! Lonely existence to say the least. After Rawlins we still had the terrible gusts of wind to contend with and then I got a puncture . As it was too difficult to repair in the wind we had to take a lift the last few miles to Saratoga, our next stop. Next day we were up and away by 6 to try and beat the wind (always less windy at dawn and dusk). I got another puncture a few miles out the road.... all my punctures are from tiny bits of wire from the remains of truck tyres along the road. We are told these fine wires are known as alligators! Bloody nuisance as they are very hard to see and very difficult to remove from the tyre.
We made it to Colorado for lunch on Wednesday and met up with 7 other cyclists at the Welcome to Colorado sign and we all ate our peanut butter sandwiches together. Great camaraderie.We stayed in a small place called Walden in a Motel run single handedly by an 81 year old lady who took it on last year for a 5 year plan. Other cyclists, Russell, Clyde and Joelle were also at the same motel.We had a nice ride on Friday over the pass from Walden to Granby with the railway running alongside us a lot of the way. Its the Union Pacific Train route and very spectacular. Our next town was Kremmeling where , much to Dermot's delight, there was a hotel offering spartan rooms at 25 dollars a night. These rooms were in the basement but were fine. We had free coffee and biscuits on arrival and a free breakfast next morning too, what good value.
We had a long day then to Silverthorne and we had a night in a hostel there. We had a wander around the outlet village beside the hostel which was nice....lots of cool air conditioned shops! Sunday morning early we set off for Hoosier Pass, the highest point of the entire Trans Am at 11,565 feet. It WAS hard!I got a puncture along the way, another alligator. We went through Brecken Ridge on the way to Hoosier and bought myself a new cycling top and we replaced 2 tyres. From Hoosier we zoomed downhill to Alma which is the highest town in the U.S and then to Fairplay where we decided to stay. Another haunted hotel!! But I was too knackered to even listen out for ghosts!!We visited South Park,an old mining town at Fairplay, sort of museum place but really good. Monday was a 75 mile ride in unbearable heat to Canon (pronounced Canyon) City. On the way the wind was sooooo hot that Dermot thought his hat had caught fire and had to take it off to check!!!Yesterday ,Tuesday, we had quite a deserty ride to Pueblo which is the halfway point on the route. We passed many wild sunflowers along the roadside and also cacti. The needles of cacti will be our next challenge!We are now in Pueblo at a motel with a pool, having a well deserved day off, having done 2063 miles and maybe a bit more if you count all the times in the start when we went astray! Off for a swim now!