Into Colorado

We decided to make it another long day today in order to get into Steamboat Springs a day earlier than planned. After several days in the desolate Great Divide Basin, it was nice to start off the ride by passing through Aspen Alley in the Sierra Madre Mountains. The beautiful scenery continued as we rode through Medicine Bow National Forest into Colorado and rode into Columbine, CO (not to be confused with Columbine HS) just north of Steamboat Lake. Luckily the timing of our trip perfectly conincides with the changing leaves in the Rockies so we should continue to enjoy some amazing views. Our last stop before Steamboat was Clark Store, essentially an entire town contained in a single building – convenience store, deli, bakery, ice cream parlor, library, post office, video store, liquor store, general store, pharmacy, etc.

Despite the many miles we’ve covered, the world seems to be a small place after all as we continue to randomly encounter people.  Before leaving our campground in the morning, a man came over to talk. After explaining the trip, he mentioned that he had seen some other bikers about a week ago leaving Pinedale, WY (about 200 miles away). It started to hail and they ducked into the airport terminal. It turns out that he had actually seen us.

We had called one of the bike shops in Steamboat earlier in the week to make a reservation for tune-ups, but knew that we were going to get into town after the shop was closed for the night. As we pulled onto the main street in town, a fellow cyclist stopped and asked us about our trip. We quickly learned that he worked at the exact shop we had called and was just taking a dinner break. Thanks to our good timing, we were able to drop them off that night to get them ready in time to ride.

Upon arriving in Steamboat Springs, we checked into the Alpiner Lodge, dropped our bikes off, and went out with Daniel, Ben, Deborah, and Ralph for a huge Mexican dinner.