I guess it was because of Labor Day weekend that the supply and demand were out of balance in Estes Park  The two restaurants the hotel lady recommended to me had 45 minute wait so I decided to make do with my banana and yogurt and almonds and go to Starbucks .

I met a wonderful woman there and we had a great conversation. Her husband and child were also perfect. I hugged her when she left; that’s how much I liked her. She was an inspiration!

Whenever I meet people on the trip there are always shocked that I’m doing this alone. But in so many ways I don’t feel like I did it alone. First of all I have my bike who became like a very good friend. But mostly I had the kindness of strangers everywhere I went. People are so kind really most people are very very kind.

What I experienced everywhere was even though in many ways certain people seemed completely different from me, they actually were not different from me at all.

But this woman in Starbucks wasn’t superficially different from me. We were of the same tribe.

    

I hung out in Starbucks for a while trying to get the blog up-to-date. There are a lot of things bad about Starbucks but when you are on the road, you gotta love it for the outlets and the Internet.

I stayed outside with my bike once I got my coffee and I watched this older woman go in with someone who looked like her son. The woman had never been in Starbucks before and she asked the man “Do they have regular coffee here?”.

Again the supply and demand was out of balance. Starbucks was like a jam packed party! You had to nudge your way through the place to get to the bathroom. I’ve never seen a more crowded Starbucks. It opened at five in the morning and closed at 10 in the night time. The line in front of me was about 20 people. It moved quickly. I enjoyed the whole scene. Lots of families on vacation.

I enjoyed watching these kids playing rock paper scissors. They were outside also. The littlest one asked me what my number was. I didn’t understand so I said nine. And then her sister said “she means how old you are, she asks everyone what their number is”. Reluctantly, I was going to answer truthfully but she beat me to it and said she her number was three. I replied with “Great number!”

I thought it was going to be all the way downhill to Boulder and was surprised when I started the ride with 4 miles uphill at about a 6% grade. I knew this could not go on for long. I knew the elevation of Boulder was less than Estes Park by more than 2000 feet. I also knew that it was 15° hotter in Boulder.

When I got to the top it was then downhill for quite a while. That was marvelous. Then it was up-and-down but mostly down. I was leaving the mountains for good and that felt a little sad. They were majestic just like the song says.

  

It doesn’t look like it so much in this picture below but these rocks were huge and there was no cement between them.

I thought after coming out of the Rockies in Estes Park that the area between Estes Park and Boulder would be significantly populated with things to get on the road like food. I was surprised to find it wasn’t.

I only passed one place where I could get food and it was the restaurant that specialized in homemade pies. It was packed and I could see that it was going to take me half an hour before I could even give them my order to go and I don’t even like pies so I left. I might have stayed had they had Internet. However, between Estes Park and Boulder I didn’t even have cell phone reception. That was the first stretch of land in my entire trip that didn’t have cell phone reception. Go figure.

15 miles outside of Boulder I found the small town of Lyons. It was an oasis of consciousness. It had many rock sculptures that were Andy Goldsworthy copies.

Here’s a picture I took coming into the town

I stopped and took a seat on the outside patio of a bar and Grill. Everything is a bar and grill out here. I had live music with my meal. It was a one-man band he had a computer and an iPad with him where he could loop himself and play with himself. He was really quite good. I phone recorded him a bit and sent the songs to my kids so they could know what I was listening to when I was listening to it. Some tech things like that are marvelous.

    

I got some wind and I got some rain but mostly it was a wonderful, easy ride. Especially compared to what I did the day before. You can tell in the pictures it’s raining especially in the north where there was some lightning.

      

Finally I made it to Boulder. The first place I made it to and stopped was Pearl Street. It’s the upscale shopping district. It’s very hip. Almost too hip.

I put my bike outside the Häagen-Dazs place and had a chocolate milkshake. I don’t have a lock now so I always take my bike close to wherever I am and just watch it. For brief moments I can’t watch it but no one has ever attempted to take it. I think it’s obvious my whole life is on that bike and I just don’t think someone would be that mean and up to now no one has been.

The bike itself weighs 32 pounds and then add another 30 for all of my gear. That’s one thing I don’t like about the Ortleib panniers; their heavy. If I had to do it again I’d buy the Banjo brand. But the Ortliebs are never going to need to be replaced; there are so good. Looking on the bright side Banjo doesn’t come in colors.

Having my milkshake I’m on the phone trying to get a bike shop near a hotel I can afford. Additionally I’m trying to get a bike shop to box my bike and ship it the way I want it to be shipped. I ship through ship bikes.com which is infinitely cheaper than any other way to ship. Bike stores here want to charge$100 to box the bike and then another $200 to ship it. That’s crazy.

Here’s some pictures of the guys I met in Boulder.

One of them worked in the recreational weed shop and the other one obviously is a cop. I had great conversations with both.

Finally performance bicycles which is a chain I have benefited from in Berkeley is willing to ship the bike with weship bikes.com for $60 and to box it for another $60. A wonderful guy there named Steven was super helpful to me. Cute too.

I felt sad leaving my bike (Who has been my best friend these last 10 days) but it had to be done.

Then I walked the mile and a half back to my hotel mostly through the University of Colorado and the student housing apartments. It was dark by then but I felt safe. My hotel is the cheapest in Boulder thank goodness. Most hotels here are $200 a night. Here some pictures of my hotel.

Pretty cool place. Rodeway Inn took it over but it used to be called Broker Inn and it has all this old-fashioned looking stuff so it seems like it’s really old and authentic but actually it was built in the 70s.

It’s funny in that there are two Renoir paintings they have hung in every room and on every blank space of every wall: the same two Renoir paintings. I never realized before how much they look like. In fact it wasn’t until the third time I walk down the hall that I realized they were different paintings.

In a little while I walk 1.2miles to where the shuttle will pick me up. They won’t pick me up from this hotel. In a few hours I fly out of Denver airport to home. My kids will meet me at the subway stop near our house and we will go to our favorite Mexican restaurant.

This adventure will have ended and my regular life will resume but something will remain forever different because of these last 10 days.

Thank you for reading this blog.

Love, Dana

Here’s a few parting shots of Kremmling. It was a wonderful tiny town. Highway 40 changes its name to Park Avenue there. I loved that.

  

   I breakfast at a restaurant that was packed. I sat at the counter and met two bikers. What they do is drive to Steamboat Springs and  take the ski lift up Rabbitt Ears and then buy down.

The scenery on the ride was beautiful, as usual.

                          

On the road I met a fellow biker going the other way. He was one of those mega-muscle men with an expensive bike in a biking outfit. He had a handlebar bag and another tiny little bag hanging from the main bar. He was traveling from Telluride to someplace I’ve never heard of. He had no panniers. He was only staying in hotels and his bike clothes we’re the only clothes he had. I envied that.

Biker man told me how freezing it was at the top of Trailridge Road which he had recently come down. He had gloves on but he said his hands were so cold that he could hardly stand it. He said he thought there was something wrong with his bike because it was shaking all over the place and wouldn’t stay on the road straight so we stopped and looked at his bike and then he realized it was himself that was shaking from the cold and his bike was fine.

I traveled along the Colorado River all day. I found myself loving it more and more. It was such a gigantic source of life. And it has such a beautiful sound. Also for the first time ever, I saw a tributary entering a river! that was so cool! I hope you can see it in the picture.

  

Biker Man also told me about this gorgeous canyon that was coming up and how much I would enjoy the gorgeous canyon. Well, the gorgeous canyon to me was very scary. There was no shoulder at all and rocks that could fall down were high on either side. I could hardly wait for that stretch of land to be over.. To each her  own. I prefer the river.

I rode along for a while longer.

to hot sulfur Springs Colorado. That place is amazing. Again the Ute Indians felt that these waters were sacred as they were medicine waters. Even though the place is gigantic and has 28 pools I just stayed in one. It was superhigh in all kinds of minerals especially magnesium and lithium. I was thinking this is a good way to reward my body after Rabbit Ears and to prepare it for Trailridge Road.

As I said I spent the whole time in one tub. The only other person in that tub was a girl who is a sophomore at Brown. She was a Navajo Indian and her mother wanted her to do something that would make tons of money. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. She had never had a boyfriend or girlfriend. We talked for an hour.

She was extremely stressed out about what  to declare as her major. She wanted to know what it means to be successful. I said happiness. If you’re happy you are successful.

Here’s another guy I met after I left the Hot Springs. He is from Texas and he was elated that he had caught a brown  trout. He could hardly believe his good luck. It was his first brown trout! (maybe they don’t have brown trout in Texas?)

And a few parting shots of  Hot Sulfur Springs, Colorado.

 After Hot Sulpher Springs I passed by Windygap. It’s sort of like a damn or something. They had to stop construction when they were building it because they found household items from Indians living there from 5500 BC to 500 A.D. It was a very important find because until then they believed that all the Indians were nomadic. But they found evidence there that this was not the case perhaps. They think the Indians lived there year long but they don’t know how they survived the winters.

      

It came time to say goodbye to Highway 40 which was a little sad because I had grown quite fond of Highway 40 but it was time to take a left onto Highway 34 which is famous in its own right. The Indians used this route to traversed what is now the Rocky Mountain National Park for thousands of years.

  After all the land beauty I came across a gigantic lake. Because I am  from Oakland when I hear the words “Grand Lake” I think of a theater and I think of Lake Merritt which is very small. I wasn’t prepared for a Lake Tahoe kind of situation which is what Grandlake is and it’s the smallest of the three lakes. These are the water heads where the Colorado River starts. The lake itself is gorgeous of course and commanding but all the commercial activity around it is less appealing

   Finally I got to The town of Grand Lake, Colorado which I hated. Perhaps I would’ve liked it if it wasn’t Labor Day weekend but the way it happened was I came from wilderness and beauty and space into traffic jams and people waiting in long lines for ice cream and I just wasn’t prepared for that.

I left the hubbub of Grandlake after getting some food and went to my campsite which was a mile or two  off Highway 34.

There’s no way I can describe what happened to me today but I will try.

This is where I stayed last night. I didn’t get much sleep because on one side of me I had again about 12 at the site next to me partying loudly until 1 o’clock. On the other side of me was a rock band live that played until about 2 o’clock ! I found out later it was a wedding party at a ranch nearby.

Still I managed to get some sleep. When I woke up Iwas so cold. I could even see my breath. I had on every piece of clothing I had with me. My tent fly and ground cloth were soaked. Since water has weight, I hung them up to dry.

The camp site was huge and full of all kinds of tents and adoreable children like this one

  And lots of horses

 

 I went to the office and got coffee and work gloves to keep my hands warm on the way down. I hung out in the office while my stuff was drying because it was warm.

When I was in there a little girl asked your dad what “maybe” meant. He said “not for sure yes and not for sure no”.

I am not in a super hurry to set out because everyone tells me it’s 30° colder at the top and I’m already freezing. Then the lady in the office tells me it’s good to start early because the winds pick up later. Oh.

I head out at 9:45. I couldn’t really have gotten out earlier because my stuff took forever to dry because it was so cold.

I’ve got a heavy load. The steel bike plus all my camping equipment and all my clothes; my rain clothes my toiletries and food and water to last me the 53 miles I need to ride to get to the next town.

      The National Park Service has an elevation map of Trailridge Road so that’s what I’m expecting. it’s wrong.

It starts out quite gradually and I think oh this is the curve on the map ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha it wasn’t.

Bikers coming down in the opposite direction are dressed like they’re going skiing.

    And once again, here’s the sign I like the least

 I can hear an ambulance way off in the distance. It finally passes me. I’m glad I’m not the one it’s coming for.

I stop frequently. My lungs hurt a little bit from the altitude. I am careful not to over extend myself and I’m always in my lowest gear.

Just like everyone said, there’s no shoulder. But the cars are quite kind and give me a lot of space, usually.

 

  At about this point I think I might die from the elevation. I’ve lived my entire life at sea level

I lay down on the ground and put my feet up on a rock and rest for about a half an hour. Revived, I carry-on.

 At 10,488 feet it starts to rain. Soon after that I crossed the continental divide again. But this is not the summit for today. Far from it.

  There is snow here and there!

  Suddenly all the cars in front of me are stopped; a long line of them.  There is a big male elk in the middle of the road stopping all the traffic so that his herd can cross.

At some point I can see the road ahead of me and I think I can see the top. Part of it looks and impossibly steep. The road in the distance aspect I’ve tried to get several times in the photo but it doesn’t really show up in the photo unfortunately.

          I am above the tree line. It’s other-worldly. The steepest part is called “Medicine Curve”.  There’s NO shoulder and the wind is incredible. There’s no way I can describe the wind. I have never ever ever ever have been in such strong wind. It’s coming from every direction and nothing to break out for miles. The long grass is entirely flattened by the wind

Here is a picture of the lack of shoulder.

Just when I think I won’t make it I get to what I think is the top. It’s where the store and the café and all the people are. Tons of tourists. I hang out there from 330 to 430. I ate a bowl of chili which is really good.

I asked the park ranger about the real top because I know we’re not at 12,183 feet yet and he tells me it’s about a mile further. I think this is no big deal. That’s where I was wrong. Very wrong.

I ask about the summit sign and the park ranger says the wind is way too strong for any sign to be able to stay there so there is no sign but “You will know for sure when you are at the top”, he assures me.

So I head out of the visitor center tourist place feeling fairly confident.

The grade on the road is not difficult I could have biked that easily but the wind is so strong it’s blowing my bicycle into the cars. There is no way I can describe how strong the wind is at the top. I tried to Google it so I could know exactly how many miles per hour that wind is but I couldn’t find it. All I could find was a quote about how the wind is so “harsh” nothing can survive up there but very tiny little very short grassy things (tundra).

I had to get off and walk my bike. I wasn’t sure I was going to survive it. It was the most intense experience I’ve ever had. I felt like I was in a National Geographic movie or something.

Heres a line of cars stopped for elk. This happened alot.

     I think I must’ve looked like I was dying on the road. A couple offered to give me a lift to the top but I could actually see the top by then so I thanked them for the offer but I wanted to do it on my owm steam since I was so close.

At one point I stopped by a mountain stream. I was mesmerized by it. It was like being at the source of all life. It was the freshest water gets and the sound of it running down the hill over the rocks was magical. It felt so very special to hang out there with the stream. It happened by accident. I originally had to stop to rest and then I noticed the stream. And then I saw what it was. It was quite humbling in a way. To see something so pure gave me great hope.

 It was odd in that the top wasn’t really the victory point because the wind was still so crazy that I wasn’t safe. There was no shoulder it was the white line and then there was a big drop off the mountain so it took everything I had to stay focused to stay alive up there in the tundra with the wind.

     It wasn’t until I got back down to the tree level where the wind was no longer that I had the victory point where I knew I had done it.

It seems like it should’ve been just marvelous at that point going downhill but it was still challenging for number of reasons. The first reason being that it’s hard to stay in that position for so long. Also, you have to break intelligently or else your brakes will give out on you.

The whole way down I thank everything I thank my legs and thank my hands I thank the earth I thank everything and was so very very grateful to be able to do this.

I rolled into town and I couldn’t find my hotel. Luckily I had reserved one because it’s Labor Day and everything was booked.

I got all lost and talked to the woman at the desk several times on the phone. When I finally got there she was so nice. She and her husband and her daughters working in the hotel. Today her 11th grandchild was born!

The amazing thing is that this woman looks like she could still be in college. She doesn’t look that much older than her youngest daughter.

 We chatted about this and that and my ride. Long story short we bonded and she upgraded me for no reason and gave me a room that was a suite with the Jacuzzi bath! My body loved that.

I had paid for the most minimal room and that’s what she charged me for but that’s not what she gave me. I felt like it was a gift from her and something unknown.

I feel like a different person.

The breakfast in the hotel was amazing! An array of pastries fresh from the bakery ditto on the bagels. Fresh fruit lots of watermelon good coffee with real milk. Peanut butter hard boiled eggs and more.

I ate some with plenty of salt and stocked up for the ride. 52 miles up and over the continental divide with not so much as a gas station in between so I was carrying a lot of weight with all my food and water in addition to everything else.

The climb starts right out of steamboat.

  

I started out at eight when the health food store opened and bought another tube of Arnica

Quickly it turns into a pretty tough grade of about 7% and it goes on for 8 miles. With my steel bike and all the gear it was relentless.

    

I stopped a lot to eat and take photographs and stretch.

There are many turnouts for exhausted vehicles and for people to look at the views or take photographs. At one of them I met a couple and they took a photo of me.

So  here is me looking like a complete bike nerd covered in my white zinc  sunscreen.

7% isn’t bad when I’m at home doing  the Tunnel Road climb in Oakland hills on my aluminum bike with nothing on it but this is a different story.

I started to wonder if I would make it. I told myself that the mountain would still be there and I could camp on the way up if I wanted to.

Behind me 
Before me

The views are amazing. Despite the advertisements for the iPhone 6 not even that will do these views justice. One just can’t really get it on the camera but I try.

I get texts from people on my way up and read them at my breaks and that’s encouraging.

By 11 o’clock the wind is in my face and there’s a thunderstorm to the North. The sky is getting darker and my legs are very tired.

On my way up two bikers pass me. They’re like the bikers who pass me on Tunnel; the skinny guys in fancy tight colorful outfits on $10,000 bikes. These guys  just whizz pass me.

After a little while they come down the other way. I am amazed. This is like their daily ride. Utah and Colorado are full of mega athletes. People move here for the sports.

Near the top I am starting to wonder whether or not I will survive. I laid my bike down on the road and I put my legs on top of the panniers to get them elevated and I take a 10 minute break just lying there.

Lo and behold I’m almost at the top. I thought the top was supposed to be 11,000 feet so when I was at 9000 feet and saw this sign I was completely bummed.

Why I was bummed was because I thought I’d have to climb up again and My spirits revived when I saw the next sign!

WoooHooooo! I was at the top. I did it! I could hardly believe it. There’s no way I can explain how I felt. It’s like doing something you thought you’d never be able to do.

I reach the top at noon. The sky was so dark that the cars had their lights on and so did I. At the top it started to rain and it rained all the rest of the day. I had my rain suit on so it wasn’t so bad. In a way it was soothing.

You’d think after a climb like that which in total was 20 miles that the next 32 miles would be downhill but not so.

        

The hills weren’t terribly big but there were hills all the way into Kremmling. I got there around four to find that it was a nice little very little town.

When I wake up and I’m close to leaving after having packed up my tent and clothes the guy in the RV closest to me comes out and asks me if I want oatmeal before I set out.

I thank him but say I’m looking forward to breakfast in Hayden. The park ranger told me there was a breakfast place in Hayden that opened at six and I am looking forward to this because I didn’t really have a real dinner and I’m hungry. He looks at me like I’m crazy and he looks sort of offended. “OK’,he says and walks back into his trailer.

I get to Hayden and there’s a gas station. Nothing else is open. There’s a pizza parlor and a bar but they don’t open until the afternoon. So I make the best of that and have breakfast at the gas station which basically consists of coffee strong coffee thank you and a premade sandwich which is pretty good.

I figure it’s only 28 miles to Steamboat and Steamboat is going to have everything. Besides I have some almonds and a yogurt and water so I’m fine.

I have a conversation there with a guy who has a completely cool car.

Every now and then on Highway 40 there Is a sign that says point of interest. I usually stop at these. Why not?

I stopped at one that had picnic tables so I ate my yogurt there but there was no trashcan I thought that was a little strange to picnic tables without a trashcan. So I carry my trash. Guess that’s what they want you to do.

The point of interest was a sign telling all about the coal mines that used to be there and the towns that used to be there. These towns had everything. They had theaters and hotels and restaurants and all kinds of stuff.

The sign listed the names of all the guys that had died and all the accidents and it was really quite moving. I was glad I stopped to read the sign.

The Yampa river has been my friend for quite a while now. Highway 40 has been following it. That’s why i haven’t had a lot of big hills lately. Coming into Steamboat however, the road got a little dangerous.

At one point there was a 30 foot cliff on the right of me with no shoulder. The white line is the shoulder with the guard rail, next to the white line, separating the road from a 30 foot cliff down. The road was curvy. It was scary. It didn’t last long however, Thank God.

It’s always in these gnarly passages, when it’s already difficult enough, that you get these signs that say “falling rocks”. I mean what are you supposed to do with a sign like that?

Outside of Steamboat Springs I go to a thrift store and a pawnshop. The pawnshop is like the one on the TV show. It was incredible. When Noah and I biked Highway One, we were going to the thrift stores and pawnshops.

Highway 40 takes on different names in different towns. sometimes it’s Brontosaurus Avenue often it’s Lincoln sometimes it’s Jefferson sometimes it’s Main Street and sometimes it’s Victory Way.

It’s a 2 Lane Highway so when it goes through a town it just becomes the Main Street in the town.

I got to Steamboat Springs early and it’s like an oasis in the desert. It has everything even a real health food store. It used to be a ranch town and now it’s a ski resort also so there’s a mixture of people and a mixture of money.

I am staying at a truly superb hotel which is listed as two star I don’t know why. It’s called Nordic lodge and it’s a run by a guy named Greg and his wife. The breakfast spread was like none I’d ever seen. Greg is helpful and talkative it was a true pleasure staying here. I give it seven stars.

Steamboat Springs has been famous since the time of the American indigenous people for its mineral waters. The indigenous used to call it “Medicine Waters”.

I took advantage of those waters and spent the afternoon in various tubs. I had conversations with hunters. In my hotel guest laundry room, I met another man who is also a hunter. He and his buddy almost got chased down by some bears this afternoon. He showed me a video of it on his phone. You can see the Bears and you can see them coming after him and then you know he drops the phone and the whole thing is chaos really quite amazing.

What’s even more amazing is I can have these wonderfully friendly and perfect conversations with people like hunters.

I don’t think I’ve ever known a hunter before. it’s really quite wonderful to be able to cross over like that and be part of a different culture and watch this guys video and listen to his excitement telling his story.

I had a similar conversation in the mineral water tubs with a guy who shot an elk yesterday. He claimed I t was the best experience of his life and I actually got that.

I’m experiencing a different kind of peace than I usually have. Ha! I usually don’t have any. Just a lot drops away when you do something like this. And part of what drops away is judgment.

I have no idea what it’s like to walk in somebody else’s shoes and everybody’s shoes are different.

Tomorrow I do the big pass RABBITT EARS. It’s a very big deal. I hope I make it.

When I was having lunch I met two German guys who are backpacking the continental divide, from Canada to Mexico.

. They are young and gorgeous and friendly. They hitch hiked over Rabbit Ears!