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Friday 23rd July 2004

Vik Choudhuri Going to ArgentinaAfter an early start so as not to disturb anyone, we were off on the road by 7.30am. Our experience says - do not rely on Guffy Hostel, you must phone well in advance and even then, will the owner be in? Answer the call? We can't recommend it anyway. We cycled off to Hartsel where we met Vik Choudhuri doing Alaska to Tierra del Fuego via off road transAm going North to South. He's a remarkable character - it's going to take a year for him to do his ride, including Peru, Chile, etc. Then, after pancakes and a omlette we headed to Fairplay, skirting some very very large rainstorms. There's a good deal of snow on the mountains and the sky is quite cloudy. The mountains run in ridges above a plain, on which we cycle, that's at about 8 - 9000 feet. Very wide open country - we can see the storms coming miles and miles away. We reached Fairplay, where I'm now typing this. An nice little library in Hartsel, and another larger library in Fairplay. Hartsel's modem was destroyed by a lightning strike. There's a great deal of thunder and lightning about just a the moment. In Fairplay we witnessed the following sequence of odd events. First of all a dog was hit by a car and, only slightly injured, rescued by a troop of small girls. Saved! Then we reached the excellent bakery - where we met a lovely man that was driving a flower power VW van. Photos to come of Steve at the wheel - this is the acceptable face of Recreational Vehicles (RVs)! Alot of the RVs we've seen are huge things towing a car or a boat, I think in one instance both! Then I got asked about folk clubs in Leeds! A cowboy singer (Smokey Ritter the singing cowboy!) wants to do a tour. I think he hopes he could finance a trip out of doing the folk clubs of the UK - given their weak state this may not be so easy. Then we witnessed an arrest and a caution (something to do with a car - a car is now immobilised at the side of the street). At present we are building up our strength with a large Cinnamon and Apple Loaf - in order to cycle over a very stormy looking Hoosier pass. We're at almost 10000 feet already, so it may not be such a climb to 11500-ish feet.

Steve at the Hoosier Pass our highest point...Later... finally got over the Hoosier in rain, but a brief bit of sun at the top of the pass (11,500 feet). Excellent downhill, though freezing on the hands, stayed in the rather expensive hostel - Fireside Inn (50 dollars + tax for the two of us - not English Youth Hostel prices! but this is Breckenridge, which caters for the fast spend rates of the skiing crowd, not the slow spend rates of the long distance cycle tourist!). Breckenridge is clearly in the middle of a second home boom - which means that for a small town it has s ludicrous number of 'realtors' - estate agents. Is this the cause of the amazing levels of debt run up by US consumers?! It also makes Breckenridge feel a little 'fake' - not many people walking around the street actually live here - most are sort of living here, but really making their money, etc, someplace else.

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