Hello again! Day 34, going from Boone to Eads, was our first day with less than 1000 feet of elevation gain, our third day over 90 miles long, and our last full day in Colorado. While the ride was incredibly flat, the day was far less so (although there were no flat tires to spice things up further).
It’s still crazy to me how much happens every single day. After we had a hearty breakfast at Tubb’s grandparents’ house and drove back to Boone, we biked to Olney Springs and visited a veterans art museum. The museum curator, who also created the paintings, told us that the paintings all share the same horse who is going on different adventures. Just like us with Spokes!
Then, with a thunderstorm approaching, we approached Sugar City. I must say, intentionally biking towards a thunderstorm was a fascinating experience. The outflow from the thunderstorm turned into the strongest headwind I’ve experienced thus far, and even pushing the pedals twice as hard I was slowing down quickly. Thankfully, we arrived at Sugar City before the thunderstorm and had a few hearty (and reasonably priced!) homemade burgers at the Sugar City Café.
Homemade burger :)
After the thunderstorm passed and the rain reached a comfortable level, we set out again. These miles between Sugar City and Haswell were beautiful but probably the most desolate miles we have biked thus far on this trip. While the miles in Nevada were even more remote, there were mountains and other features by which we could mark progress. Here, the most fascinating geographical feature was a draw. We came across a sign indicating a “Draw” and were baffled. According to Wikipedia, a draw is like a valley but formed by two spurs of a ridge, sloping downwards from the ridge’s crest. The ridge where this draw occurred was hardly fifty feet tall, but I suppose it still qualifies as a draw. If you have not stopped reading this post by this point, I hope this discussion draws out for you what those miles were like. (OK, I’ll stop with the puns.)
Right after the thunderstorm (still raining a tad)
Later and hazier, but equally flat
In Haswell, which is also the namesake of Intel’s Haswell chips that powered almost any computer you might’ve had ten years ago, we visited the nation’s smallest jail. I invite you to check out the picture below to judge for yourself whether this is indeed the nation’s smallest jail.
The nation’s smallest jail!
In any case, we also had a lot of fun at the playground in Haswell.
After Haswell, we blew out the last 21 miles in just over an hour. I don’t know what got into us at that point, maybe it was a desperation to finish or just the wonderful temperatures and tailwind, but I think we all set speed records. Then, we drove to the Sheridan Lake Bible Church, had a delicious dinner thanks to food provided by our hosts Jim and Pam, and settled down for the night.
And as is becoming tradition by this point, here is a sunset from those last few miles. See you next time!
Hunter