Texas.. New Mexico.....COLORADO!!

Hi Everyone from Trinidad, CO!

Before I talk about our ride yesterday, which was amazing. I am going to give you some refreshers about what has happened since the last time I had internet access :--D After a beautiful ride yesterday, we arrived in Colorado.

6/24:
We left Watonga, OK for Arnette, OK (4:30 wakeup): a town with a population of 492 people. It was an 87 mile ride. It was actually a really cute little town. We stayed at a Methodist Church that provided us dinner and breakfast, and we had a bike safety clinic for the community in the park the night we were there. We even watched Shawshank Redemption on a big screen in the church! PS: Oklahoma is not flat, and we saw, if we were lucky, about 1 gas station a day.

6/25:
After Arnette, OK we crossed into Spearman, Texas (4:30 wakeup). Aside from the border, we saw lots of cattle, crops, and an occasional person throughout the day. The ride was 94 miles, and it was hot. VERY hot. We were hitting the high 90's

6/26:
We left Spearman, TX for Dalhart, TX (4:30 wakeup): a 88 mile journey. We went through 2 towns in thie 88 miles: Sunray (a nice quaint town where we ate lunch) and Cactus (they had a really nice gas station!). We arrived to a nice homecooked meal of pasta, veggies, and salad. Delicious!

6/27:

Dalhart, TX to Des Moines, NM (4:30 wakeup)

Unfortunately, I had to ride in the van due to being sick again, but it was still an enjoyable day. This was a 95 mile ride, and the wind was really bad. There have been several days where the wind causes us to not be able to go faster than 8 miles an hour. This was one of them. It was also slightly chilly. Des Moines, NM is a VERY small town, but New Mexico actually had a lot of character to it. We all agreed we preferred it to Texas and Oklahoma because the scenery was just really neat. It was all flat but we would see an occasional mountain off in the distance. OH AND PS! We saw a tumbleweed!

6/28
Des Moines, NM to Trinidad, CO!( 5 am wakeup... we slept in!!!!)
This was by far the best ride we have had yet. In the morning, we went through a mountain pass that was gorgeous and for the first time in a few days we had the wind on our sides. We coasted at above 20 mph without really putting in effort, causing us to be at lunch (over 40 miles in) in about 2 and a half hours (including border pictures when we entered Colorado). Colorado is really beautiful and the ride was just incredibly enjoyable. The ride was a total of 74 miles, and it was fairly easy except for the last 10 to 15 miles where the wind was no longer on our side. We pedaled as hard as we could only to look down and see speeds of 6-8 mph. If we reached 10 mph this was an accomplishment. In fact, going downhill, everyone had to pedal as hard as they could to go about 15 mph. This is usually a normal speed for flat land. We estimated that we were fighting winds of 20 mph, but since we had had such an amazing day there were no complaints. We arrived around 1:30, and we went off to find the showers at the nearby community center. We ate in the city at a delicious pizza place, and we had a very classy desert: a McFlurry.

6/29:

Today is a day off in Trinidad. Some of our group went horse back riding (I decided I would rather give my bum a break), and others have enjoyed some time at a coffee shop. We are hoping to take a free trolly tour at 11. Other than that, we will be relaxing on our day off before a 3 day stretch of biking to get to Colorado Springs: the location of our Blitz Build!! We will be off the bike for 9 days, which everyone is incredibly excited about.

I hope all is well! I cannot upload pictures here, but I will as soon as I can!