Wild West Tour lll: Day 44

Durango CO to Cortez CO

7-3-14

Day 44

The crew had another short mileage day and one coming tomorrow to get through the 4th of July holiday weekend. We not only need places to sleep but seek roads with lighter traffic. Staging the way we are will give us places to sleep and avoid the heavy traffic on the roads through the two national parks. Brice Canyon and Zion.

Hopefully we will continue to move west unlike yesterday’s north diversion that does not get us closer to the finish line.

The day opened with nearly half the days climbing in the first 9 miles! It was a rather ugly climb on a hot busy road. In this part of the country road choices are easy, there is only one road.

We had a decent shoulder but the noise of cars and trucks going by just added to the pain of the climb. A brief 10 to 15 mile warmup would have been nice before getting slapped with that long hot climb. But that is now how it happened. We were all dripping of sweat when we reached the top. The salt burned your eyes so bad at times you would have to stop and wipe them just to see.

Within the first hour the crew bumped into two guys that are WALKING across the country pushing baby carriers full of gear. Talk about hardcore. This trek will take them more than 6 months.The rest of the day was uneventful not boring, but really not much happening other than pedaling the bike.

Tonight we are at Kelly’s Place about 12 miles west of Cortez. It is a B&B way out in the boonies that is also an archeological preserve. Outside on the many acres of land they own are Anasazi Indian ruins and artifacts.

We are sleeping in the same room we did in 2008 when we made our first crossing.