This is our latest Blog Entry!

Hello there you Yodelers and Chodelers! Can you believe it? We're on BikeTour!

Let's get down to BS (business). We've got a lot of animal dung to shovel down your throats, and we want it to be resplendent with linkage and photographic representation, so we're going to attempt to get the last nine days into this post AQAP.

Day 39:

We left Telluride on a frigid morning. It was difficult to depart from such luxurious accommodations, but we did. We had to climb up to Lizard Head Pass (10,222 ft above sea level (asl?)) through some stunning deep wilderness. It seemed like the mountains were engulfing us like friggin Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters. The rest of the way was down down down into Dolores, CO--passing through some truly spanktacular valleys and et cetera. This was our last major day of riding through the Rockies; Alex was heard (by himself, the pompous braggart that he is) to say, "This is the end of an Era." In Dolores, we were mistaken--for the second time on this trip--for Phish fanatics. What the heck?!?

Alex pretends to read

Remember that story about how we got nailed by sprinklers in the middle of the night in a city park in Colorado? Unbeknownst to us, the producers of this trip had planned a sequel, and it was set in Dolores' city park! What fun!

A platform over the Dolores river; we peed off it.

Day 40:

In spite of its outwardly racist atmosphere, the Ponderosa Restaurant on Dolores' main drag offered a pretty wonderful, stupendous, scrumptious, tasty, yet delicious Breakfast Buffet for a measly-weasley $7. We basically loaded our faces with: WAFFLES! FRENCH TOAST! FRUIT COCKTAIL! HASH B'S! CERE! B's and G! C-ROLLS! M.E.! D! .! and MORE!!!!!!!!!

This food hates Mexican immigrants, but it was actually pretty tasty!

We rode out of the pine forests of Western Colorado, across another state border and into the increasingly desert-like world of Eastern Utah. This was our longest-mileage day since hitting the Rockies; we banged out 83.64 relatively smooth miles between Dolores and the day's landing point: Blanding, UT.

In Blanding, a city that lives up to its name, we hung out in the town square (A&W Restaurant) and purchased groceries (Ramen and beans) from a cashier (of androgynous countenance). We slept underneath a jungle gym in order to avoid a spontaneous outbreak of "Alex and Emelio Become Enraged Due to City Parks in Desert Situations that Massively Utilize Sprinklers Syndrome."

Day 41:

In "The Real Utah" making a "'U' via His Arms"

Alex, in his habitually boisterous and increasingly annoying way, quoth: "This was our first day of riding in 'The Real Utah.'" Emelio grudgingly agrees. Nevertheless, the scenery became much more craggly as we approached what turned out to be our evening's destination, Natural Bridges National Monument. This National Park Service-administered site contains three spectacular natural bridges (which are specific geologic formations; don't get them confused with arches or a Ranger will give you an ATOMIC WEDGIE) in close proximity -- an occurrence not matched elsewhere on this godforsaken planet. Needless to say (or is it??), we went to the park to check them out.

N.B.N.M. itself is relatively small; a one-lane road circumnavigates the rim of the canyons in a 9-mile loop. From this loop, there are multiple overlooks onto the three bridges and the surrounding rock formations. At least three trails down into the canyon depart from this loop; we were basically foaming at the mouth to bury ourselves deep, deep underneath these hard, massive chunks of rock.

Almost to the canyon bottom... Alex is actually physically literally ON the bridge!

We selected the hike down to meet Sipapu, the largest of the three bridges (second largest in the world only to the Golden Gate Bridge of course!). It was sweet and excellent and high-five-slappingly awesome. There was no one else around, and it was basically like a big rocky playground and we reverted into little idiot children and even crapped our pants (honestly!!). The canyon floor was lush and magical; looking up at Sipapu was disorienting and we puked (honestly!! (no, really, we did!!!)). But seriously though, the bridge was huge and it was great.

The preferred way to experience a natural bridge is in silhouetted profile

The best part of this evening, although, came just a bit later as we realized that we were running out of daylight and needed to find a place to camp, quick-like. Serendipitously, a group of thirteen lively geezers from Salt Lake City were on a sick bicycle trip themselves and happened to be camping at one of the Park's fully-booked campsites. We fooled those idiots into letting us couple dudes camp with them, for FREE! What luck! Seriously folks, they were really kind and interested in our trip and our lean young muscles. It was a super night. Thanks again to the Wasatch Mountain Club!

Day 42:

These outdoorsy people were even nerdier than we are!

We tooled around a bit this morning, chatting with the other cyclists and getting our proverbial shit together. No more than an hour into the day's riding, we encountered a really big Australian guy... riding a bike! Matthew (that was his name! (GET IT??? (Alex did that so we could have a double parenthetical; Emelio thinks he is an IDIOT (and now, Gawd, we have a triple parenthetical (ARGHH it's up to five now!!))))) gave us a really slick localtip. It went a little something like this: "Why don't you mates throw a shrimp on the barbie and take a ferry across Lake Powell so that you can meet up with the famed Burr Trail; I want a Foster's: Australian for Beer!" (JK sorry about the racist jokes Matthew, we're just doing it for our racist friends back home! You know we're down with the Aussies and everything that you're doing).

In all seriousness, Matthew was da bomb. Check out that load!

Matthew's tip led us, of course, to Lake Powell--a lake (JK it's a reservoir). When you picture lakes, you probably think of a bucolic tree-filled setting, with fauna galore. L.P. is slightly different, in that it is not like that at all. Our route to Powell was brutally empty, and after some extremely taxing canyon climbs (9% grade for nearly four miles) we stumbled upon some really, really barren desert and a horrible lakeside supply store (square footage: 24. number of people staffing this hole of a shop: 5) where we spent way too much money on paltry comestibles.

We had a hard time convincing the ferry captain that we weren't pirates, but eventually she/he let us on board!

The ferry across the lake, however, was a real delight. We chatted up some megababes (one of them was even Serbian!) aboard the vessel, and they gave us water and applesauce as well as a cucumber. Thanks, Ladies! When we got to the other side, we were hot. Not like that, you guys!! The lake beckoned to us like John Madden beckoning you to buy some Tough Actin' Tinactin. Our swim was both refreshing and in Lake Powell.

This is Emelio on his bicycle in Utah

We knew we would be riding into some truly back-country areas where campsites would be be both abundant and spectacular. Even so, we never expected to find as sublime a sleeping spot as we did that evening. As the sun set golden over the ruby-red canyons, we pedaled over a completely car-free and sand-shrouded Scenic Backway (From this website: A Scenic Backway is back country road or path that offers outstanding scenic beauty along with historical, recreational and cultural qualities. Backways have surfaces that vary from pavement to gravel with vary degrees of travel difficulty. Backways are generally recommended for vehicles with high clearance and four wheel drive. When planning your trip along a backway it’s advisable to bring preparedness items such as food, water, spare tire, & maps. Cell phones often do not work in the back country. Always tell someone your travel plans).

The final switchback before we hit the campsite of our dreams

Things looked great. And then, just in time, we saw her across a crowded room: the campsite of our dreams. In the Land of Many Contrasts, this was just the contrast we needed. Smooth, sculpted white stone mounds billowed up from road. To the west, a range of distant mountains and the blazing, dipping glow-orb. To the east, a radically striated cliff-monster that stood watch like either a massive ancient headless ancestral Puebloan Sphinx or a crumbling fascist temple of terror (see pics for pics).

A boy, a sunrise, and their oatmeal

We made a fire, roasted mallows, and camped out under the open starlit sky (that means we didn't use the tent, doy!).

Note the lack of tent; consider us a couple a Davy Crocketts

"sublime"
-Alex

"What an ass"
-Emelio

It's beddy-bye time for a couple a beat dudes. We're just simply gonna hafta finish the story when we wake up tomorrow! (...if we wake up!!)

We knew you guys would think this was a cute one!

Utaht we wouldn't make it...

...to Utah. But we did you bunch a naysayers! In fact, we're here
right now, just check the pic for a pic. It's definitely not the
Rockies out here, although we did just hit 41.9 mph going down an 8%
grade into a canyon, yowza! We probably won't have service for the
next few days, so by the time we get to a "com-puter" we better have
23 comments on this post. Make it happen people!

-A&E

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