Thursday, 24Jun10, Salida, CO

Today started off very hectic … because the “wake up call” at the hotel didn’t happen and I woke up about 45 minutes later than usual.  That meant that Adella woke up late and we were running around trying to get breakfast, and load luggage on time.

Adella went to eat breakfast with the other cyclists and I had “hot oatmeal” in our room.  I decided to skip the group breakfast and ride alone … about 5 miles into the trip I realized that we had to do our “call in” to KZST at 7:50 a.m.

Adella called me to remind me,  but she wasn’t able to catch up with me in time … so I talked to Brent at KZST (100.1 FM) in Santa Rosa, Ca., and said “hi” for her … if you visit our website … on the “How to follow the journey page?” you can click on the KZST link to listen to the interviews.

Adella caught up with me a little later and we rode together up the mountain for awhile, until she “kicked it in” and scampered away from me …

Wow!  Adella is getting to be quite a good climber and she really enjoys it!  Even Judy C., one of our co-leaders (who I rode across America with in 2008) said she even noticed how strong Adella is, and has noticed how much stronger she is getting on a daily basis.

I sure noticed it today … as I watched her pedal her way past me and several other cyclists as she pedaled up the 9 mile climb to the summit of Monarch Pass … 11,312 feet!

It took me a long time to climb the 9 miles to the summit.  Yet it was worth it!  Adella was waiting and we took our ceremonial pictures in front of the Monarch Pass sign which says 11,312 feet.  (Just like we did when Aaron and I climbed the Pass in 1996 together.)   Check out the Facebook pictures for today … they are awesome!

Once the picture taking was over … Adella and I took the Tram up to the top of the mountain to 12,000 feet and were able to take some amazing and awesome pictures!  We were able to see 14,000 Foot Peaks in all directions!

Then we bought a shirt and a sweater that says … “I climbed Monarch Pass!”

Then came the most incredible downhill of 20+ miles and then a really nice tailwind … all the way to the hotel … it was awesome!

The best descending day that we’ve had so far …

When we arrived at the hotel … there were some little kids selling lemonade at the hotel … it was really cool so we bought some lemonade and we took our pictures with them.

I thought I would share some excerpts from the journal entry in 1996 as we climbed up over Monarch and then down to Salida, CO.

  • Today we started out from Gunnison and rode 66 miles to Salida, Colorado.  It was a very cold crisp morning to start out with… 36 degrees.  But the wind was either at our backs or no wind at all.  So it was a perfect riding day and then we started climbing up to the summit of Monarch Pass, a 10 mile climb up to 11,312 feet in altitude.  
  •  Finally after our first sag stop we started climbing and we climbed and we climbed and we climbed!  Finally we could see the summit and we made it… we took pictures of us and the bikes. 
  •  The views today were even more tremendous than yesterday.  The more we climbed the better the views. 
  •  The winds at the top were really blowing so we had to dress warm for the downhill. 
  •  Then Aaron and I started on our 20 mile downhill into Salida, it was awesome because we never got below 30 mph and most of the time were traveling about 38 mph even though we had to be careful because of sidewinds. 
  • We arrived at the Days Inn at 1:30 pm.
  •  Today was a great day and probably the high point of this Life Across America ride.

Well, that’s it for today … a day that started out “challenging” and ended up as one of the best cycling days yet!  Whoopee!

Talk to you soon.

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