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Wednesday 21st July 2004

From Ordway Hostel/Hotel to Lake Pueblo State Park RV area. Had an excellent and cheap breakfast at 'Spurs and Bits' - a cafe on Main Street, Ordway. Pancakes, Maple Syrup and a (!can this be real) a vegetarian breakfast. Don't see many of them in these parts. Off at 8.15am, and fast - we averaged over 15mph to Boone, where we arrived for a mid morning stop. Boone is tiny, but the store owner pointed out the various mountain ranges that were coming into view. He's a very friendly and helpful character - we refilled our water bottles at the store. The big mountain was Pike's Peak, over 14000 feet, visible to the right, while to the left a long, lower, range of very arid looking hills were the Spanish Hills. Got to Pueblo, found bike shop, rejected their tyres as not sufficiently reinforced for touring (well, Guy bought one, I didn't), but bought more spares (this is getting a bit obsessive - but we're worried about getting stranded in one of these long 30 - 40 miles stretches with no shops, no towns, etc!). Found El Pueblo museum. Interesting - though a big building for such a relatively small collection (at least, on display). Indian artefacts, lots about the history of the town - it's a melting pot of various cultures. El Peublo museum is built on the site, more or less, of the intial El Peublo trading post. Then heading out rather later than we wished to Lake Pueblo - later because we had got lost getting into Peublo - there's a profusion of cycle route signs as you come into Pueblo but some of them are nothing to do with our route, as we discovered!

Lake Pueblo Sunset Lake Pueblo heaved in to view, just as a storm arrived and almost blew us off our bikes. The picture is of the calm sunset after the storm. We pitched tent behind two sturdy bushes, expecting a night storm. All went quiet though - apart from thunder and lightning all around in the clouds - lighting them up spectacularly. The landscape has become extremely arid - mesas (tables) of rock, with scrubby semi desert. But as usual powerboats by the dozen.