Day 39 Wednesday June 29, 2005, 25 miles (40 km) – Total so far: 2,391 miles (3,847 km)
25.1 Miles and 2:30 Pedal Time
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I woke up at 7; I can’t sleep late after waking up so early every day. When I was lying in the tent I noticed I had a tick on my lower back. I was so tired I didn’t even care. I just added ‘remove tick’ to my list of things to do.
I rode my bike to find a bathroom and a cup of coffee. I ended up getting lost and rode a good 2 miles before I found one. I sat at the gas station drinking coffee people watching.
Eventually I went back to the campsite ate some oatmeal, reorganized all my crap and chit-chatted with Paul, Anne, Sid and Linda for a while. Then I head over to the bike shop so I could get a tune up. On the way to the bike shop I got my first flat tire. I ran over a large piece of glass. It was pretty deep I had to pull the son of a bitch out with my Leatherman.
When I got to the bike shop I gave the mechanic a very detailed laundry list of things to do to the bike. The bike shop was also a camping store so I was able to refuel on white gas and I bought a mirror that attaches to my sunglasses so I can see these big trucks coming up from behind, I should have had this earlier.
While they were working on my bike I got a Mexican omelet. It was absolutely delicious. I chatted with a local priest while I ate my breakfast. After breakfast I stopped into a cowboy country western store to see if they had any taxidermy armadillo’s as a souvenir from this trip. They told me I have to go to Texas for that one. Dammit.
When they gave me my bike back it didn’t feel like my bike. The mechanic got my drive train running smoother than it ever has. I was having issues with my front derailleur since Kentucky and he seemed to resolve that. All my bicycle stuff was a lot cheaper than I expected it to be.
After the bike shop I head over to the library. I saw Linda getting ready to leave; I sat in the library for about 2.5 hours writing all my journal entries. I had fallen behind a few days with getting my journal written and it’s always a drag mentally to write those past days. So much happens in a day and it’s really hard trying to think back 2 days ago. My relationship to time and space is totally warped at this point. Crazyguyonabike had also crashed, so I never got to upload my entries after I finished writing.
I was filthy so I decided to go back to the park and go for a swim and a shower. There were thousands of kids running wild in the pool so I didn’t swim for very long. I spent an hour in the shower scrubbing my skin. I had a thick layer of sunscreen, bug repellent and dirt on me that I couldn’t get off. I scrubbed and scrubbed and I’m still not clean. I need a billow pad or something. I don’t know about this new aerosol sunscreen. I think its leaving a layer of filth on my skin, that isn’t coming off in the shower. I’m going to go back to the lotion.
Everyone was back at the camp site; we sat around talking for quite a while. I met another westbound rider name Valentine. He was also from the Netherlands. I cooked up some spaghetti and head back to the library so I could upload my journal entries. After I got my entries up I felt great. I took some cool night pictures of the library. Then went for a bike ride around Pueblo. I stopped at the river walk because someone was playing this great Italian music. I talked on the phone for a while then I rode around Pueblo some more. I was going to go to Walmart but I was having too much fun riding around Pueblo. Eventually I went back to the campsite and was sleeping by 11:30.
Any day that I don’t put on cycling shorts makes for a great day off!
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Click Here to Visit Previous Page: Day 38: Haswell CO to Pueblo CO
Click Here to Visit The Next Page: Day 40: Pueblo CO to Royal Gorge CO