Day 40, Where the deer and the antelope play

We got up nice and early in order to be at the Clarion Inn for their all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (yessss to make-your-own waffles) since we knew we'd have a long day ahead of us, but I don't think we knew quite how long...

We saw our buddy Aaron camping in the Pueblo City Park as we were leaving in the morning and caught up on all the goss on the TransAm trail. Although I doubt the x-c biker community will get it's own OK! or People magazine story anytime soon, when these are the people you meet along the way, they become quite fascinating. We heard the updates on Charlie, the Forrest-Gump-esque maniac who the day we met him was still 40 miles away from being done on a 167 mile day, and the sun was already setting. We also heard that a pair of Swedish girls would be doing the Western Express Route (that we are now on) so perhaps we will meet up with our Swedish babe counterparts along the way.

It was definitely a zoo-like day, since we saw so many animals! We started off rather tamely and played with some horses as we ascended towards the mountains. Apparently they thought Stephanie was pretty funny (looking?):

As we approached the mountains, the animals got a little wilder--antelopes roaming the plains and mule deer jumping across the road. We also loved the wild sunflowers lining the roads, waving in the wind as if they were our cheering, adoring fans. We had lunch about 1,000 feet up into our 4,000-foot climb in the Wet Mountains. The view from lunch:

The scenery was breath-taking. Quite literally, actually, as Stephanie suffered from a severe asthma attack that she couldn't get rid of on the climb. With Molly's encouragements and a little mind-over-matter, we successfully completed the climb, hailstorms and all!

The riding post-climb was some of the most magnificent views either of us have seen. The openness of the mountains and 360 degree mountain views were stunning. We were riding just until the sun set, and finally made it to a campground right on the Arkansas River, further than we had expected to go, with a total of 82 miles with some serious climbing and headwinds.

Hot showers, a campfire, and a rising moon over the river gorge rocks made for the perfect evening after our challenging but spectacular day. We have changed up our schedule for Colorado to enjoy some of the scenic mountain towns and to break up the climbing, but are still right on track for our October 4th finish. We can't wait to see what more Colorado has to offer...but it will require some serious work on our part to see it. Any massage therapists out there who want to join us for a bit??