Day 13

Check out form our camp site and Angel and I are first on the road to Gunnison. Good start to our ride no real hills or mountains. We see early morning hot air balloons just as we leave. They must have a great view of the country side from up there. One is landing not too far way. The morning is cold in the shade and warm as you hit the sunshine, so we are biking cold and hot! Felipe and Andriy are ready to go as we get to the van, and off they go. They are the team for speed, I’m not sure why as I like to see the views! Jack’s up and off he goes. Andriy is bugging me to buy a grill with propane gas, and we see a Home Depot in Melrose which looks like a town that was just built yesterday, so new and spike and span, and traffic light too!! We call in hoping to be out before Jack passes us, but we debate what to buy and by the time we are out Jack has gone by. We drive on and come to Route 50 East – yes the loneliest road in America, our friend is back! It’s right in Melrose Main Street, but we are not sure if Jack has turned. We turn right and go about 3 miles and no Jack. So we go back and drive North to see if this is where Jack went. No sign, so just as we go back into Melrose we get a call from Jack saying where are we!! He’d gone the right way and was over his 10 miles. We catch up and Angel and I take over 3 miles later the 4 mile mountain! We make it to the top and the run downhill was worth the effort. It’s definitely getting more mountainous, and we can still see the Rockies, they seem to never leave us! Fun stuff by the side of the road, an old stagecoach, metal Mexican man playing the guitar, and other interesting things.

We hit the Blue Mesa which is a huge lake which stretches for miles, really beautiful, with quite a few people enjoying the sun, boating, sailing, fishing and just hanging out, looks great. Then the Gunnison River Valley which really confuses me as it’s flowing into the Blue Mesa, but the valley is easy biking, but the ride has taken its toll on Felipe’s bike – a buckled back wheel, so now out of action. Ray has been biking and is going well. We cycle into Gunnison and look for a bike repair shop. We find one but it’s too late today to get anything fixed and all our bikes need servicing, so the decision is made that we have three bikes and tomorrow that’s it for the ride to Pueblo. Monday is a day’s rest and we are about 2 hours from Denver, so we intend to take the van there and get the bikes repaired, while looking around Denver. Also Charlie is leaving us and is flying out of Denver so we are all going to see him off, we will miss him, his pics, his fun, and keeping Jack in order!!

BP