If you listen carefully

you might be able hear my dad cursing the day he bought me that new tent. There were some bear sized droppings at the side of the road too :D

Today started out pretty good, but turned bad after 25 miles.

I got out of my tent and on the road much faster than yesterday. Then I had a not-so-bad 1,000' climb followed by the best descent of the trip: wide and clean shoulder, good visibility, not very sharp turns, and no wind.

No wind until I hit Montrose, that is. Once there I faced a 20 mph, right-in-my-face headwind that would last the rest of the day. The rest of the day was a 3,000' climb to Dallas Divide that got very very hard at the end followed by the descent. It was steeper than Monarch Pass, but that part only lasted 4 or 5 miles so it wasn't as bad. The descent sucked too because it wasn't nearly as steep and with the wind, I had to pedal through most of it.

At Montrose, I spent a ton of time trying to figure out where to stay for the night. I really wanted to get over Dallas Divide because otherwise I'd be doing two 40 mile days. Unfortunately, all the campgrounds looked to be closed (disconnected phones when I called). Stealth camping was out because I'm right at two national forests in the mountains and I really don't want to worry about big animals.

It had to be motels... The only lodging is in Telluride... A world-class ski and summer resort town... On July 4th weekend.

As luck would have it, there's a lodge on the trail 12 miles out of town in Placerville that's only costing me $125 for a night. I got it $60 dollars off (originally $185!) and the places in Telluride proper were $250. This is ridiculous.

I wish I was mayor of Telluride because I would immediately order some low income housing and campgrounds to be built just to piss of the whiney rich bastards that can afford this place. They'd be able to fight me though since it's a National Historic District with strict zoning laws. The ironic part is that Telluride started as a mining town filled with saloons and bordellos. Rich People Only now. Don't want them poor folk to enjoy nice things.

The one bright part of the 2nd half was getting a late lunch with an eastbounder at Ridgeway (Hi Monica). She teaches Swedish at a university in Sweden and is getting the summer off. If you're reading this, Monica, I forgot to tell you about "The Route" page to the left as well as "Progress" (Monica's interested in going to NYC instead of Virginia but doesn't have a route).

With the delay in Montrose, the absurd winds, and the lunch, I wasn't able to get to this retardedly expensive lodge until 7:30. I'm in Placerville and did 75 miles.

At least they serve good meatloaf.