Day 16 Sea 2 Shining

How do you leave a place where you are royalty? You leave with a tear in your eye and roll down hill fast to start a day that will bring you 115 miles away from paradise. Really after 115 miles we couldn't be much farther from paradise.

We had a great day on the road but now we are in a one horse town where the horse wishes he could get lost. We are staying at the polar opposite of where we were last night. We ate at a tasteless mexican diner where even the water had more taste than the food. Sad but true.

But the ride... that was fun. We were so happy to have Jill start the ride with us for the first 15 miles. Everybody loved her and are very sad she was not able to ride all the way to Denver with us. We all hope she can meet us soon again along our trip.

After Jill said good bye, we started a very tough 20 mile climb up to 9,485 feet. Our new high point so far for the trip. The last 8 miles of the climb really kicked both Larry and my butts. We even had to stop on the climb to check if the tires were going flat. They were not, we just went flat. But the rewards.... oh the rewards... a twisty, turny, 61 mph, descent thru the most beautiful canyon that lasted for almost 40 miles. Yes, 40 miles. For most of it we even had a tailwind. When we got on route 40 the fun part became work. We had to deal with a tough headwind and really bad traffic. Traffic usually is not a problem but these folks just did not want us on their roads. We've had great reception every where else before we meet these folks. I'm trying to be nice. It is hard. Anyway, we rode over 115 miles but my Garmin battery died with a few miles to go. It is charging right now.