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Thursday 22nd July 2004

California or Oregon?From Lake Pueblo to, we hope, somewhere on the climb up to the Hoosier Pass (a bit over 11000 feet). We haven't seen mountains since Virginia, so we were a bit apprehensive, do our legs work on hills? Set off from Lake Pueblo after a visit to the Marina Store. I suggested to the owner that the boats were a bit big for the lake - they are, too! Huge yachts that would look OK at Marseille or Cannes, but a bit big for a puddle in the semi-desert of Colorado. He said they were really houses - log cabins - for people to live aboard, rather than necessarily actually moving. It's the triumph of over-specification - instead of a screwdriver to do up a screw round here they'd reckon you needed a rechargeable pump action, electric, multi-function tool! I guess selling people more than they need is much more profitable than selling people what they really could do with. Then on to Wetmore where the Western Express bike route separated off from us and headed towards, eventually, San Francisco (the picture shows the junction where you make the choice), we turned north and reached Canon City (pronounced Canyon City) via Florence. Between Wetmore and Florence we met Mickey and his father Steve, doing a very high tech tour - Mickey was carrying a five pound laptop plus a flexible (marine) solar panel and a modem! You can see the very nice results of being able to play with your computer all the time you want when you aren't cycling at Mickey's Web Site. A big prison loomed as we reached Florence - plenty of evidence of the boom in the incarceration business around here (three huge prisons in two days). Florence is very nice - and we had a big lunch at the Mainstreet Grill - $13 but very filling and tasty. Thank goodness the pound is strong against the dollar at the moment. Then we went on to Canon City, where I typed away in the town library - "Got to go now to find the bike shop (can I find a tyre that'll suit?). Once again the public library is a heaven of water fountains, internet access and shade! Think of us as we start doing our 5000 foot climb!". Well, it certainly is one of the biggest climbs on the transAm route.

We decided to do the climb up to around 8500, lured on by a flyer that suggested there was a hostel in Guffy. Well, there wasn't as far as we were concerned. There is a telephone number to ring, but no one was in, a local bar helped out (especially by providing us with a couple of beers - a wheat beer and a beer named 'Avalanche' - both very good, and real micro brewery stuff I think) by directing us to the hostel owner's house. It had a skull with glowing red lights stuck in the eye sockets. It was dark by now. There was a sound of music coming from within, but no amount of knocking did any good. The bar fed us very well and we reeled out into the cold and dark wondering what to do. Well, we pitched our tent outside the community school (it's the school holidays so can't be any problem with that). A very mediocre night's sleep followed and a very early start today. Oh - by the way - we noticed that one of the prisons we cycled past recently had a riot on Tuesday of this week - Olney Springs. The news was on the front of the Denver Times, or suchlike. Perhaps the inmates rioted seeing the freedom of the open road? There is nothing in the world that gives a greater sense of freedom than being on a bike on the open road with a tent. Colorado, a state with horizons big as you could wish, specialises, paradoxically, in providing imprisonment services to the rest of the USA!

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