Pueblo

I fell asleep so easily last night and so it was good to have an easy day today as the trip is definitely catching up with me. I spoke to my brother yesterday and apparently the trip isn't coming across as too gruelling on this blog. For the record it is physically tough with the hills, winds and constant heat but I guess I write the blog in the evenings when the days seem less horrid in retrospect!


So today we were out by eight am and made sweet time for the first 20 miles with no real wind to speak of. We stopped for a break and to take some photos out by a railroad track when a pickup pulled up and a guy called Jim Dillon got out for a chat. Jim owns a few hundred acres around that spot and was heading out to release a raccoon he had captured! I still can't get used to the way people here refer to them as 'coons' as for the non-English readers, that is a racial slur in the UK. Anyhow, we left Jim to carry on caging coons and headed for Pueblo.



Another 15 miles or so went by without any problems when we met two riders coming the other way. They were Bill and Tom, a father and son from Columbus Ohio who were riding from Pueblo to Wichita or Kansas City (they hadn't decided yet). They had a cool stereo setup going on which must have given them some good music to accompany the ride. From there it was a short canter into Pueblo which with over 100,000 people is the biggest town so far. We headed up to our planned hotel (Days Inn with a pool and jacuzzi!). There were a few map reading problems but we made it to the hotel by half one then chilled for most of the afternoon.

For the past week Chris and I have been planning a solid steak dinner when we got here since the food has been so poor on the road in Kansas and we weren't to be disappointed! A couple of 20 ounce prime rib steaks later and we were done so an action packed evening of laundry ensued before we go our separate ways tomorrow - Chris going SW towards California and me NW towards Wyoming. It has been great cycling through Kansas with Chris and I think we managed to keep each other sane through the seemingly endless identical roads through the state. The next rider ahead of me is a chap called Carl Carlsen who I keep hearing about and seeing his name in guestbooks in different towns. The last report had him 2 days ahead and so to catch him will be my motivation during the early parts of the Rocky Mountains which start tomorrow.