Hot Springs Time Machine

Raingeared-out Alex rides into the Mountain Mist

Okay you jokers. So we had this really excellent surprise to reveal to you--the one that we built up like a couple of Dubai real-estate developers on meth--but then we were totally SCOOPED in 1920s-esque yellow-journalism fashion by none other than our Pueblo couchsurfing host, Jenny K---!! "Can ya buhleeve it?!"

If you read the comments (which you probably didn't (and to which you most certainly did not contribute)), you would have seen that Jenny revealed to the whole "global online community" our plans to sally forth into the wild, wet world (WWW) of the Coloradan hot springs!!!!!!!!!1!!!!11oneone.

BUT FIRST

Before we could soak in the hot springs, we had to transport our hairy and not-hairy bodies (respectively) to the hot springs. We decided to ride our bikes. It was a pleasure to ride the 30 short miles from Montrose to Ridgway. Over that distance, we executed a gradual climb of about 1,000 feet up to the base of the San Juan Mountains/Mt. Sneffles Wilderness Area. The approach into Ridgway was heart-flutteringly scenic, as the monumental mountains made magnificently magical mirage-like miraclelands M&Ms mmmmm. Mamma Mia!

Just outside of Ridgway, a wonderful bike trail beckoned us to mount it. "Okay," we implicitly remarked while mounting it. The trail brought us plum into town and to the doorstep of Ridgway's library that appears to be staffed mostly by cougars. No big surprise there--Ouchie Mama!

After blogging away four hours of the afternoon (not JK), we high-tailed it two simple miles outside of Ridgway to the Orvis Hot Springs. Disclaimer: the following narration may include allusions to situations that are appropriate only for mature audiences or nude boy-loving mega-creepers or mature nude boy-loving mega-creepers or boy-loving audiences or audience-loving boy nudes or mature loving boys. We've included this disclaimer because at the Orvis Hot Springs you get naked.

Ladies, one at a time, please!

In all seriousness though, folks, we had an overall soothing and wonderful experience in the springs soaking our naked bodies in the springs. We say "overall" because at the beginning, when it was still light out, we were unnerved by the amount of solo-soakers who were a) male b) over 40 years old and b.1) wearing sunglasses. Fortunately, the sun sets on this godforsaken rock and things got uber-chill once we couldn't discern the amount of creepers hanging out in the springs.

Since we couldn't take any pictures at Orvis (for obvious reasons, duhhhh you pervs!), we wanted to take some time to set the setting. Unlike some of the other spring-locales we've heard tale of in this state, at Orvis the pools are designed to resemble a natural alpine setting (in the better-known springs at Ouray, for example, we hear that the springs flow into standard poured concrete basins). In addition to the natural flagstone construction of the pools and walkways, the organic ethos of the outdoor facility is enhanced by exquisite landscaping, rough-hewn wooden seating/towel-hanging opportunities, and distant views of the area's Rocky horizon. You may even want to take your pre-wedding photos here, if not for the weirdos who might endeavor to insert their genitals into the frame!

Honestly people, we lived the springs up. We soaked for four hours, moving from spring basin to spring basin like a curious robinredbreast seeking out the choicest birdbath in the cul-de-sac. When our time was up at Orvis, we rode back to Ridgway and set up camp in the lovely town park (see previous blogpost).

The morning brought the sun and cereal. We ate a box a cereal. Then we went over to a quaint little Ridgway coffee shop, which turned out to be the #1 freak hangout in this otherwise chill mountain town. Specifically, we're referring to the bizzare barista whose brain was likely addled by the fallout from a weeklong LSD bender at Joshua Tree in 1972, that she shared with her far-out pal Lou who drove an orange Volkswagen. The hallucinations seem to haunt her to this day; we can only assume that beasts unseen to all but this coffee-wretch order her to speak in childish tones and respond to queries as to her state of being with the word "groovy." As we were paying for our beverages, she could not help to giggle maniacally for the duration of the transaction, in all probability remembering a four-hour hula hoop experience at Burning Man back when it used to be about the Burning (weed) and not The Man (corporations). Good-bye Ridgway!

We expected a relatively normy day of mountain bicycling between Ridgway and Telluride. All of our expectations were thrown into a Vita-Mix, however, when this happened. At first, we thought it was really cool because we finally got to use our raingear! The rain even subsided for a moment at the top of Dallas Divide (4,200,205 feet above sea level JK 8,900 f.a.s.l. (asl?)) and revealed Mount Sneffels in all its cloud-shrouded, sun-bathed majesty. On the way down from Dallas, however, the weather morphed from a pleasant drizzle to an obstructive obstruction to our progress and comfort. Sixteen miserable miles later, we landed in Placerville (population: tiny) and hung out in the general store with a weirdo from Shaker Heights for an hour so that we could warm up/dry off.



Emelio tries out his raincoat while Mt. Sneffles hides behind the clouds (scaredy-cat!)

When we hit the road again, Fortune spun her mighty wheel in our favor and the rain held off for the final twenty-mile stretch into Telluride. Our route along Hwy 145 traversed breathtakinger and breathtakinger landscapes: crystalline mountain rivers, fluttering aspens, ruddy canyon walls, looming peaks, and some birds. We hopped on a bike path a few miles outside T-Ride; it was smooth sailing all the way into town.

OR SO WE THOUGHT

Two miles out of town, Emelio hit a chunck of glass that instantaneously flattened his rear tube immediately on the spot. What appeared to be a major bummer turned out to be a flavorful stunner! "Why?" you are probably asking. Well, here goes: WE MET A TOTALLY CHILL MAMACITA WHO ENDED UP HOOKING US UP EXTREMELY! Megan was riding home from working the fields (basically landscaping Tom Cruise's house literally probably) and stopped to chat our brains out when she got the vibe that we were on biketour. Turns out, she has also gone on biketour! After engaging in some excellent conversation, she gave us a couple good localtips and left us to flat-fixing. We thought our days with Megan were over...

...but then we ran into her again later! Phone numbers were exchanged, and soon enough she was inviting us to dinner in her chill-ass crib!!!!




This shrimp is totally dwarfed by the Telluride surroundings. Grow up, jerk!

First, however, we had to find our evening lodgings. Emelio's friend Colin Raffel's family's apartment (please excuse the triple possessive; there's no better way to explain this) was our destination. Only one problem: in the course of arranging these accomodations with the Raffels we never asked what the name of their lodge was. We felt like Mary and Joseph looking for a place to birth the savior of mankind, sheesh!! Eventually we found the spot and checked in like your freaking mom when you're trying to get a smooch or two in the basement, golly Ma ever heard of knocking??

Let's just say that we owe the Raffels a portion of our firstborn for hooking us up with such an amazing place to stay. We can't thank you enough!! So the place we stayed was sort of in Telluride, but sort of not. To be precise, it was in a nearby (as in a few miles up the mountainside) town known as Mountain Village.


Get a load of our view from the Raffels' condo! (hint: they're mountains)

You see, while Telluride itself is a historic mining town with a spectacular nationally-registered core of Victorian-era structures, Mountain Village is a 1990s-era product of Telluride's booming real-estate market and burgeoning wintertime skiing/summertime festival culture. The way we understand it, a bunch of developers took a huge chunk of mountain and turned it into a jaw-dropping mountain village (we think that's where they got the idea for the name) of condominium lodges, detatched luxury homes, and upscale dining/shopping plazas. The Village, along with the town of Telluride, comprise one of America's most glamorous destinations (although we guess there are about 2,000 lucky, lucky year-rounders who call the town home).


After dropping off our bikes (and "stuff") at the lodge, we had to make our way back down into Telluride to meet Megan for supper at her abode. "How'd you get all the way down the mountain (and up to Mt. Village in the first place)?" you are perhaps pondering. Well, it's like this: there's a mega-nasty, freegtastic TOTALLY FREE GONDOLA that transports freaks like us (even our bikes) up and down between the two alpine communities, TOTALLY FREE OF CHARGE from 7:00 AM to 12:00 AM (midnight, you dummies!) seven days per week. Riding in this gondola is really really rilly fun.




While riding the gondola, Alex takes a couple "personal minutes"


At the bottom, we had a short walk to Megan's cute little place that she shares with two other mamacitas. She prepared us a delicious chicken dinner and we both ate it (even Emelio's stupid vegan ass)! We all got along great and had a lovely time, but eventually us couple dudes had to skip out in time to catch the last gondola "home".


Further highlights of our stay in Telluride:


1) An awesome hike to the bottom (and then the top) of Bridal Veil Falls at the eastern end of town.





"Bouldering" "up" "the" "veil"

2) Super-chilling and movie-watching in the condo (PS: DVDs borrowed from T-Ride library, which is tiz-ite).




3) Visiting Travis' radical bike shed for a once-over on Emelio's bike.

In all srsnss, you gotta hit up Travis' shop when you go to Telluride. Thanks for the great hookup, Travis!
Good luck with the new shop!

4) Another dinner with Megan and Hong (Megan's roomie); this time we played hosts.

5) General sense of deep relaxation imbued by the glorious natural and built environment of this special, special town.

Scopin' the views from the top of Bridal Veil. Try not to be jealous, losers!

We could elaborate on our time in Telluride, but we're tired of writing and, frankly, you really don't deserve any more than this.

But in one last call-of-duty, we shall reply to our commenting fans' virtual Inquisition.

Jon -- Our bloggering method goes a little something like this: we spend a lot of time writing things that make us LOL really hard and then have to delete because our families are reading (sorry families!), and then we get serious and try to get through the post, and then we spend a lot more time writing things that make us LOL really hard and then have to delete. Whenever you see a burn on Emelio, know that Alex typed it (and vice-versa DUH!). We basically spend about four to five hours on each post, and it's sort of a waste of time but we mostly enjoy it ^-^

Concerning our route: we actually haven't made too many diversions from our Adventure Cycling maps (if you cared to know, we're currently on the "Western Express" route, having left the "TransAmerica" route back in Pueblo). Telluride was a small detour off the map; the Black Canyon was a longer one only because of the hour-long climb to the top. We'll be traveling through Dolores, CO today and on into Utah tomorrow. Through Utah we're hoping to make some more small trips off the map, simply because of the glut of National Parks near our route. We pass through Cedar City near the border of Nevada; we travel through immense barrenness in the Silver State; we hit civilization once again in California (passing through Sacramento, Davis, and finally into San Fran). If all continues well, we expect to be in the Bay Area before October raises its ugly, horrific head.

Hunter -- whenever any strange formatting shows up in our post (which is happening all over this friggin post), be assured that we are loudly cursing Blogger and punching each other in the face out of fury.

One last thing: we don't have many links because WE'RE CURRENTLY IN THE STATE OF SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME ON BLOGGER AND DON'T WANT TO DEVOLVE INTO CARDIAC ARREST! Time to go!

luv yall,

A.E. (American Eagle)

Morning at the campsite

Just a quick post this morning (7:24am Mountain Time) to show you our
flabbergasting campsite in Ridgway, at the base of the San Juan range.
Feel free to say, "holy moley!"

Make sure you didn't miss yesterday's blog btw!!!!!!!!!

Ah, well, back to the bars. The Coors Light sure is cold out here!

Rocky II

Emelio maifesting man's domination over nature.

We left you last 4.5 miles from Monarch Pass next to a lovely little campfire. Maybe you saw it in our last blog entry? Although maybe you didn't because we only saw one (1) comment after that post.

[Guys: what gives??? Freakin look down. You see that big rectangle with lots of squares on it? It's called a keyboard. You can push those squares in a particular sequence to create things that we call "words". When these "words" are combined in such a way, we call it "language". And when you put some "language" on our blog, it is called a "comment". And when we couple a dudes see "comments" on our blogs, it validates our freaking existence. WE LIVE FOR COMMENTS. WRITE ANYTHING, INSULT US, WHATEVER. That is all.]

Our campsite caught fire!!! JAY-KAY

On the morning of Sept. 4 (day 30-something, we don't really know or care anymore just get us out of this hellhole JK!), Emelio woke up very early (OMG!) because it was chilly-willy and he was uncomfortable-bunfuntorble. [Emelio's note: Alex thought it would be funny to write OMG back there, which is rude] He rustled up some fags and lit them on fire to stay warm. An otherwise uncomfortable morning was made the opposite of uncomfortable due to a boy and his flames.

Now we will tell you about our climb. It was 4.5 miles and it was up a 6% grade and it was the morning and so traffic was calmer and so we could look at the mountains more easily and it took an hour and fifteen minutes (including a stop to fill our water bottles (which were nearly empty by that point) from a trickling mountain spring) to get to the Pass but we did it and it was good and great! The feeling of elation one gets after accomplishing something like climbing a 11,312-foot peak on a heavily-loaded boy-powered cycle is difficult to put into words. Basically, we couldn't wipe the goofy grins off our goofy, greasy beardfaces for like an hour after we summited at Monarch.

Alex depraving Mother Earth of her precious resources

At the top, there was a really chill place to stop and hang with other chill mountain people. We saw many forms of wildlife: the mountain biker, the matching-bright-orange-shirt-wearing older German couple, the cashier and her weird kid, the Harley-Davidson rider who thinks he has something in common with us because he rides a two-wheeled machine (hint: he doesn't!), the rich couple from Crested Butte and their well-groomed Aryan children... what a place!

Monarch Pass is right at the Continental Divide: we can pee into the Pacific AND the Atlantic from here!

After relaxing on the Divide for a good while, we gathered our wits and our tits and it was bombs-away! Colin had asked (IN A COMMENT ON THIS BLOG) how fast we go when we're descending one of these peaks, and in a textbook example of "Ask and Ye Shall Receive," here it comes: our mach speed going down was 37.5 mph. Surprisingly, this is not the highest speed we've reached on our trip so far (that being 39.8 on a supersteep hill in S. Illinois). Can you believe it?? On this particular descent, however, the wind was full-force in our mugs and was a real impediment to us reaching insane speeds. We're both hoping to hit much higher speeds when we have the chance to descend in the future under calm wind conditions.

48 miles from Monarch Pass we rolled into Gunnison, the first substantial town to the west of the Continental Divide. Because Gunnison plays host to Western State College, it might be better named Funnison; after all, crazy co-eds love to attend University!

We had a delicious dinner at the Gunnison Brewery (hamburger on one hand, Boca burger on the other hand) along with one local brew each. After that we spent the final three or four hours of the evening hanging out at the local supermarket, charging phones and eating supper and generally chatting it up with some curious locals. Eventually, we made our way over to a quiet city park to set up camp.

A peaceful, uneventful night of rest seemed very much in the cards. But then..... around 1:00 A.M. Alex awoke to the rather alarming sound of a medium-to-large amount of liquid being thrashed against the rainfly of our tent. "What's this?!? A Super-Soaker attack perpetrated by

a band of local roustabouts?" Alex mused. "ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz," offered Emelio. Alex reluctantly peeked his head out of the tent like a baby wallaby emerging for the first time from his mommy's marsupium to find that the sound he heard was, in fact, being caused by the park's automatic sprinkler system which was presently drenching the tent and our precious little bikey-wikes. We wished it were a bad dream, but knew that the only thing to do was suck it up and move the bikes and tent out of this impromptu "Splash Zone."

That done, we crawled back up inside our sleeping bags and dozed off again. But then, wouldn'tchaknowit, no more than about 30-45 minutes later, Alex again woke to the same durn horrific sound and this time it wasn't a Super-Soaker attack either. UGH! Another set of timed sprinklers!!! We were so annoyed and so chilly by this point (low temp that night in Gunnison was around 36 deg Fahrenheit) that we basically moved our tent out into the alley behind some poor sap's vinyl-sided car-house (read: garage). By the grace of God, no more interruptions were launched upon us for the rest of the night/early morning.

Alex writes postcards while drinking coffee.

Next day, we waited out the cold in an uber-chill coffee house on Main Street in Gunnison before returning to (our fave!) City Market to do business over there with those fine people over there at City Market. We bought cereal and milk and ate it on a bench in an empty lot next to Wal-Mart (not JJ). Breakfast of champions!

In spite of some pretty stunning landscapes all through the Curecanti National Recreation Area and the Blue Mesa Reservoir, riding that day was kinda basically comparable to a big pile of feces.... BECAAAAUUUUSE, in a mega-nostalgic throwback to our days of riding in Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado, the winds again flagellated our poor little defenseless hineys. At one point, we became so frustrated (almost scared, in fact) by the brutal gusts, that we were forced to lamely walk our bikes along the highway for a spell.

This was a neat store!

Ultimately, though, all the hard work of climbing through the gales was rewarded by what we've both agreed was the most glorious descent we've experienced thus far. While coming down from Monarch Pass was the height of rush-of-blood-to-the-head territory, the landscape surrounding us at that point was somewhat one-dimensional; thick pine forests up to the tree line and barren peaks above. During this descent, on the other hand, our eyes were treated to a Thanksgivingly-robust feast of angles, colors, and textures. Everything that makes the Colorado landscape great was laid out their before us as we rode into the glow of the afternoon sun. And as if that wasn't enough, once at the bottom in Cimarron, we came upon a painfully quaint little country store offering all sorts of doodads and trinkets, not the least of which were choco-shakes (Emelio) and cherry pie a la mode (Alex). From there it was another mile or two 'til we found a creekside campsite that basically knocked our socks off. In the end, the day was more than salvaged!

"I can't wait to get on Facebook!!!" "Why?" "Because I haven't been on in two weeks!"

-overheard in the library right this moment

The next day was a very pleasant day of riding, made up of a couple nice long climbs followed by a couple nice long(er) descents. The second of the day's uphill stretches took us off our route for what turned out to be the most "worth-it" detour we've incurred so far. It was a long and winding road that led us up to the south rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and one of America's newest national parks. Check the link and the pics, because words can't do this place justice. It may not be as grand as that other canyon, but for steepness, narrowness, and depth, the Black Canyon has them all beat! It's only about a 1/4 mile wide, but 2,000 feet deep, with dramatic, sheer cliffs falling straight down to the wildly running Gunnison River. An incredible sight to behold!

Alex accidentally fell over the edge. Don't worry he wasn't even injured!

And while the views from the southern rim road are the most iconic (and most commonly taken), we couple dudes were privileged enough to experience the canyon in an even more thrilling canyon-experiencing way: by hiking down it! The trails are so treacherous, in fact, that we needed to be issued a special backwoods permit in order to hike them. Perhaps the rangers were fooled by our grizzly beards, but we were nearly in over our heads. We made it out without a scratch, but man-oh-man, that hike was sumthin' (check pic for a pic).

If this looks really freaking steep, that's because it WAS. We are AWESOME (not really but yes really)

That evening we found a lovely young couple in the large-ish, slightly more down-to-earth town of Montrose. Scott and Jenny have been hosting cyclo-tourists for a number of years now, and say that they've probably put up 75-100 cyclists in that time. So we're basically just a measly, oily drop of spoiled milk in the capacious bucket of their hospitality. They fed us tasty snacks and Jenny wouldn't let us out the door this morning without loading our bike-sacks with complimentary Clif bars (yom-yom! ;P). Another "shining" (we baked that bun fresh for you, Scott and Jenny) example of relentless American generosity.

Maybe we've been riding slower than we had thought!

In case you forgot, Emelio's stepdad Rick has been keeping geographic tabs on us via this snazzy GoogleMaps link. Oooooooohhhhhh..... look how far we've gone....... Bookmark the link to follow our daily progress.

Another recent evolution in the life our our WebLog, is the Creation of a YouTube channel where we're posting sweet vids of our life on the road. Videos already posted include the Monarch Pass climb and riding out of Cotopaxi, CO along the Arkansas River. Subscribe to Alex's channel for further video updates.

Thnx for reading our latest blog entry. We hope you've enjoyed it! Now we're going to do something awesome but we're not gonna tell you what it is because if we did there wouldn't be any suspense to this story and you wouldn't be as inclined to log on and read our next entry so we're not going to tell you what it is that we are about to go do right now that is going to be really great.

MUCH LOVE

Alelio & Emlex

We made a campfire!!

This is it! Pretty jealous, right??

We have a great solitary campsite only a few miles from the summit of
Monarch Pass. We're at about 10,000 feet now; Monarch is 11,300.
Tomorrow, we'll have about an hour of difficult riding, then we'll
cruiiiiiise nearly 50 miles down the mountain all the way to Gunnison!
Heck yeah!

Send us stuff!!!

Hey you guys! Here's a pic of us in the totally radical mountain town
of Salida! It's seriously great and neat and cool and good!

This is a quick note to let you guys know that since we'll be stopping
in telluride for a couple nights soon (Thanks to the generosity of The
Raffels! They have a sweet hookup waiting for us in the 'Ride!), you
can mail us stuff like letters or cookies or small pets so we can have
fun opening/eating/grooming them!! Just send to:

Emelio DiSabato
General Delivery
Telluride, CO 81435

Don't feel obligated of course, but it would be lovely to hear from
you all via the US Postal Service!

Okay time for us to climb Monarch Pass! Yowza! Wish us luck!

<3
A&E

Have you ever seen a bighorn sheep in its natural habitat...?

Cuz we have suckers!!!! And by "a" we mean "approximately 20 ranging
from juvenile to full-size big"!!! Yes that's right today on our
Conquest of the Rockies pt. I (Rocky I).

So we finally figured out a way to update the blog from the road,
using Emelio's iPhone. This is our first time trying the New Way, and
we can only include one pic. Additionally, the posts will be a bit
shorter than you're used to for a variety of reasons which should be
obvious you morons. Also, before you read this next part, remove
yourself from the proximity of any firearms, cutlery, and window
ledges: we can't do links!!!!!!! Oh nooooooo...... :,(

We'll be able to do regular posts when we get to a computer, so don't
freak your neeks.

Right now we're eating a gourmet campingman's supper of strawberry
cereal bars and shortbread cookies+peanut butter. Welcome to
Yumsville!!! We're camped in a weird little town called Hillside that
might be a ghost town; we're not sure, but the only resident appears
to be a horse that freaked out Emelio.

Okay then, so this morning we ran into some bicycle-maintenance
shenanigans. Emelio's front brake had been acting screwy, and he tried
to fix it but to no avail. We both also had to take time to mend our
punctured tire tubes (when we got those flats recently, we swapped out
for new tubes rather than patch the holes by the road). Eventually we
enlisted the help of a great local bike shop. Problem solved! But
departure delayed!

We finally escaped Pueblo around noon (JYYC we luv that town) and rode
the final 30 flat miles to the very base of the Rockies and the town
of Wetmore (shout out to Alex's G&GC). There was a nice little store
where Emelio ate candy while Alex ate beef.

And that's when the real fun began!!! Ohboyohboyohboy!!!

We started our ride this morning at roughly 4,700 feet of elevation.
We had to climb to 9,200, our day's mountain pass, in 13 miles.
DAUNTING.

The ride up the pass, on Highway 96 (which we've been on since the
middle of Kansas for the love of Pete McDermott), was relentless aka
it didn't level off until the top aka it didn't relent much at all. We
chugged along at a 5 mile/hr pace for friggin a long while!!

Along the way, the insane beauty of our drastically new environs
basically socked us in the kisser like a Buster Douglas left hook
circa 1992. We were marveling at the Wet Mountains (which is the name
of the range you peabrains) like a couple a lunatics. Since we're not
speeding by in cars, we're able to see amazing stuff like A HERD OF
BIGHORN gathered on a small rock outcropping like Beyoncé on stage at
the Super Bowl halftime show.

Anyways, getting to the top was a mighty fine accomplishment if we
don't say so ourselves which we just did. In fact, you can see for
yourselves how pumped we were up there if you'd just scroll down and
check the pic!

The other great thing about getting to the top of a 9,000 foot
mountain is that YOU GET TO GO DOWN IT. We were flying like the
hapless Jamaicans from Cool Runnings except we didn't blow it by
wiping out and embarrassing our entire nation in the process. Srsly
guys, that ride down (complete with humongous views of distant
mountain ranges) was Exhiliraring with a capital Exhiliraring.

Since we departed so late today, we got to watch the sun set over the
mountains but we also got to ride into darkness and pretty dang cold
temps. Thankfully, though, we made it to this creepy place and we're
snug in the tent. We weren't sure how to hide our food stock, so we
just piled it in our sleeping bags and texted all of our friends who
are bears asking them to come maul us and eat our food too.

Okay y'all time for bed! Cya.

We're giving up on this trip and coming home...

SIKE!

...In fact, we're approaching what promises to be the most exhilarating stretch of the entire tour and we can hardly contain our bladders (JJ, it's our enthusiasm).

We knew you guys would think this was a cute one ;P

Sorry it's been awhile, we just haven't been able to get to a com-puter in a long time since we've been busting our humps across the dusty roads of West Kansas and Eastern Colorado!

Right now, we're sitting in the office of our shazaam-tastic hostess, Jenny K---. SHE BASICALLY ROCKS! We're in Pueblo, Colorado where she essentially runs the show in the environmental scene around here in this place that she calls home here in Pueblo, Colorado, USA, The World. We both think it's about time to explain just how we've gotten away with not dropping a penny on accomodations in the near-month that we've spent on this lonely (but often not lonely!) road.

In short, we have relied heavily on a couple little numbers we like to call Couch Surfing and Warm Showers!! These are sites on the 'web where one can locate potential hosts for overnight accomodations. They function based on the hospitality and trust of strangers. For example, as we're approaching any town of substantial size, we can log on to these two websites and search for people who are willing to open up their homes to us couple a dirty and weary dudes. We usually send out a few messages to the people who look the coolest (aka have probably gone rafting in the past month aka love Blink-182 aka are into just chillin' out and talkin to us about different sorts of things and stuff) in the hopes that one may be willing to shelter our stricken and increasingly emaciated bodies.

The agreement is highly casual; guests can expect sleeping space in someone's home for free (which might mean couch, or futon, or air matress, or spare bed, or dog cage, or floor, or musty crawlspace, or boat house, or carriage house, or undercarriage of automobile, or swaddled in arms, et cetera and so on). Usually, however, what you get is a lot more than a place to sleep. Since you're staying with a resident of that city, a "Couch Surfer" (AS THEY ARE CALLED) is often treated to a very rich experience of the place--one that would be hard to find at a motel or under an interstate overpass. Our hosts this past month have been altogether carnivorous in their desire to eat meat and by that we mean be nice to us!!! (Shout outs to Lisa, Anne, Beth/Forrest, Austin, Shawn, Callie-from-Carbondale, Emma/Kyle, Jenny K---). So we suggest you try out those websites and acquire some temporary human pets. Seriously, though, if this sounds cool to you, DO IT. It's a wonderful way to meet wonderful peeps.

Emels got the first flat of the trip in the middle of nowhere on highway 96.

He successfully fixed it even though he's a generally useless human being.

MEANWHILE...................

Let's get back to our departure from Hutchinson, Kansas. We left pretty late (since we were busy blogging all over your faces!!), and were expecting to reach our destination (our intended destination was L---) after nightfall... a risky proposition, at best. BUT THEN! 20 miles outside of the stoppage point, we encountered this freaky deaky bearded guy smokin a cigarette next to his pickup truck by the side of the road. Alex thought, "It's 'lights out' for us! This guy's gettin' ready to stab!" But it turned out he was wrong. In fact, it was just Terry, a super chill ageing deadhead Kansan mountainbiker who loved what he was seeing!!! Terry gave us this super chill local tip. The local tip was, stop early before dark, hit up this extremely tiny town called Seward (population: roughly 35), and totally eat at Mom's Diner! The dude even busted out his celluar and phone book (srsly) and friggin called the place to prepare them for our pungent arrival!!!! Such a good tip, this is why:

1) The roads in Seward are literally sand (Alex even fell down because of it, hilarious!!)
2) Kids ran out of their home to greet us (how did they know we weren't locals?? LOL JJ)
3) A dude and his sister, visibly inebriated and brandishing Budweisers, together with a couple random children, were driving around a golfcart at dusk and chatted us up big time
4) The mayor of Seward was also our waitress
5) Her mom was the cook and makes the best pecan pie we've ever had
6) The drunk golf cart operator was the husband of the mayor/waitress

SEWARD WAS THE BOMB!!!! Thanks, Terry!

Grain elevators like this one are a fixture of any self-respecting Great Plains town.

The notorious Kansan winds started to become a factor the next day (Day 24 (of our bike trip (did you know that we are on a bike trip?? you should check our blog))). Nevertheless, we made it over 88 miles to our next destination: Ness City, K---. This--a rugged town full of ranchers and oil fieldhands--was the last place in the world we expected someone to make fun of us for having untamed beards, but the moment we walked into the local watering hole, a corpulent drunkard let loose on us. Sheesh! The others in the bar, however, sure were nice and ended up schooling us hard on the ways and means of a Kansan farmer. One fella, in particular, learned us:
1) Wheat sells for $5 a bushel
2) It used to be $11 a bushel
3) One grain elevator moves about 2 million bushels of gran in a season
4) If oil is found on your property, you will pull in $60,000 PER MONTH.
5) Wheat is planted in the fall, and harvested in the spring
6) What we thought were giant crops of wheat are actually crops of milo
7) Much of Kansas was settled by Germans who had gone to Russia when Catherine the Great was looking for farmers; decades later, after being stripped of some of the freedoms promised them, they moved on to the Great Plains to farm
8) Silage is the leafy matter from grain crops and is used as livestock feed

This bar-goer was a great source of knowledge, and our time talking to him was just one example of many agricultural lessons learned in the Sunflower State. This, overall, was interesting to us.

Most of the time, nodding donkeys like this one are the only things keeping the grain elevators company.

FAST FORWARD TO NEXT MORNING

Everything about this day was pretty much cool, except for the six-plus hours of excruciating bike riding which absolutely sucked due the fact that the winds declared a jihad against our Westward progress. The last 24 miles were especially painful, since the afternoon gusts often broke 40MPH. YOWZA!!!! The night before, we had determined ourselves to put another notch in our belts (by that we mean get another Century don't you understand our cool touring lingo you MORONS???). HOWEVER, just shy of 60 miles, we struggled into Scott City and couldn't make another pedal stroke. Get it? Stroke?

Let's pretend this is show-and-tell. We're showing you a picture of Emelio's locks flowing

in the wind and telling you that it was overwhelmingly windy out here in this wild country.

Hopelessly disheartened, your heroes [sic] rustled up some grub from the local greengrocer. After a blustery dinner in an otherwise pleasant city park, we were riding through town lookin' a little lost we guess, because in swooped KYLE THE REALLY NICE YOUNG BAPTIST PASTOR WEARING SUNGLASSES!! He immediately asked us, from the cockpit of an enormous automobile, if we were looking for a place to sleep. "Y-y-yes!" we blubbered. Kyle led us to his church's newly annexed Youth Center and basically gave us free reign over the palatial facilities, including but not limited to: couches! shower! kitchen! flatscreen/dvd combo! We rented a flick (There Will Be Blood), watched it, and ate some Reese's cups. This was a mega high-five-slapping coup. Zeroes to Heroes, Baby!

AFTERWARDS....

The next morning, expecting the same infuriating and time-wasting amount of high-speed wind, we devised a plan to hitchhike out of Scott City as far west as anyone was willing to take us. Call us wimps, but you guys are the ones sitting at your computers reading our stupid blog eating cheese-doodles!!! JK we luv u guyz.

The plan was foolproof, except for these three factors: 1) It was Sunday 2) Nobody drives on Sunday because it's against God's Law 3) We were trying to get from Nowhere to Nowhere (no hard feelings Kansas, you guys were great!).

After two-point-five hours (during which one guy actually stopped and gave Alex the best beef jerky of his life!), we hit the jackpot. Rex, which was this guy's name, offered to drive us down the road a spell... but ended up driving us all the way to Leoti (nearly 25 miles) out of the goodness of his heart! On the way, we got some more excellent learnin' about Kansan agriculture and wind power (for we passed 33 massive turbines).

Then, tragedy struck. But don't get too worked up. We're fine. It was like this: we got out of the truck, unloaded our bikes, waved goodbye to Rex, and felt good that we had benefited from his generosity. But our smiles faded as the TRUTH dawned on us: we'd left our bike helmets in the bed of his truck!! DANGNABBIT! This was actually a pretty freaking depressing thing, and no matter how much we tried to stay positive, we were a little bit bummed for the remainder of that day.

But no matter! The show must go on!

The winds were still challenging us all over the place, but we decided to tough it out like a couple a macho-nachos and mounted our steeds (read: "bikes"). Something that happened that cheered us up a little bit was when we got into Colorado, totally out of the blue! Emelio thought it would be fun to approach the sign announcing the border and then climb on it like a child:

We don't exactly need a caption for this one

So then we got to Sheridan Lake, another sparsely-populated main-streetless town (Eastern Colorado, you might not realize, is a heckuvalot like Western Kansas), and something totally wackalicious happened. Someone called out, as we passed by, "Emelio!"

"BWUH???" Emelio thought, freaking out in his mind about what had just been hollered out to him in this place that was so far from home. But wouldn't you know, he scoped to the right and spied none other than BRENDAN, the great guy we rode with between Cassoday and Hutchinson!!! AMAZING! Turns out, Brendan had broken down a few towns back, was picked up by sympathetic locals, and was hitchin' a ride all the way to Colorado Springs. We exchanged hugs and stories, talked with his lovely benefactors for a spell, and ultimately camped in their backyard after failing miserably to hitchhike further down the road.

The family of four and their dog (note Brendan on the far left and the mangey mutt on the far right)

THE NEXT MORNING...

...just as we were waking from our slumber and steeling ourselves for another brutal day of wind, Jamey (one of the great dudes who let us camp) offered to drive us down the road on his way to the farm! Alex and Emelio were all, "Okay!!" and it happened! We got a great 8-mile head start on the day, and on the way were able to see an amazing rainbow stretching across the horizon in a perfect 180-degree arc (lifer!). Once again, it was hard to get much of anywhere, and after almost 60 miles we threw in the towel at Arlington, literally the smallest town we've camped in yet. Rumor has it only three houses remain occupied in the entire municipality. Surprise surprise, we failed at hitchhiking for a while before finally eating Ramen and laying our heads down to sleep.

THE NEXT DAY:

the winds had subsided!!! God Above took pity on us poor cyclists, and gifted us the speediest day of cycling we've had yet. It seemed even speedier, given our sluggish pace over the preceding days. We were eating up miles like a llama eats tuna casserole, and on top of that, the freakin' Rockies appeared on the horizon, coaxing us onward the whole way!!! Seriously folks, we couldn't stop staring at those tempting mountainous shapes in the distance. Approaching the Rockies over the course of a full day is really a treat only bicyclists and mule-riders can devour.


A "sweet" cafe in Sugar City!!!!!!!!!! Note the elevator (locals drop the "grain" part!) looming beyond

This day was even more spanktastic because our endpoint was Pueblo, the place in which we had planned well in advance to take a whole day of rest which is TODAY sillies!!!

This cup of coffee from the Sugar City Cafe was fifty cents,
but we had to do self-serve refills because the waitress was lazy. NOT JK!

This is what we've done in Pueblo:

1) Attended the Colorado State Fair! The grand champion steer was auctioned off for $54,000!!!
2) Ate pizza with our lovely hostess, Jenny K--- and her really interesting friend W---!
3) Slept like a couple of freakin babies!
4) Ate a local delicacy: The Slopper!
5) Bought new bike helmets!
6) Wrote this blog entry!
7) Inhaled oxygen!
8) Defecated!
9) Scratched our itches!
10) Blinked occasionally whenever our eyes felt like it!
11) Tamed a bear!
12) JK on #11!

Alex thinks the car might be ruining the shot here. What do you guys think? Let us know in the comments section.

We hope you have enjoyed reading this! Today is September 1st; we consider this the turning point of our trip, as we'll be in some drastically unfamiliar terrain (to us Ohians!) for the rest of the journey. You can expect some pretty insane pictures to show their faces on this blog, as well as some excellent stories and funny commentary since we're such a hoot! We are both really extra-pumped to hit the mountains, even if it is a tad daunting. Wish us luck!

AND FOR PETE'S SAKE, CHECK THE CONSARNED LINKS

Love,
Emelex