Settling In

After finishing our third week on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, we feel like we are figuring this thing out. We've ridden 780 miles so far, which works out to about 37 miles/day including two zero days. 

The landscape and camping have been off the chart good and diverse. Sometimes tenting in a cow pasture, other times in stunning forests. And even other nights sleeping in one type of accommodation or another. 

We typically get up at 5am, and will be riding by 7:30. We usually start looking for a campsite around 5pm unless we know a motel is an hour or less away. If we start setting up camp by 5 or 5:30, we will be in the bags by 7:30 or 8. Most nights it is cold enough at 8 that we are in the bag, rather than laying on the bag. 

One example of how accommodations just work out for the best happened in Horca CO. We pulled into the tiny community of Horca at about 6:00 tired and hungry and spotted what I thought was an RV park, although there were small cabins mixed in with the camper trailers. Certainly we could tent somewhere there.  In the park, I flagged a man down driving a side by side 4×4. 

When I asked where the RV park office was to ask permission to tent,  he said there is no office, these were all private residences. He referred me to a public campground a mile away that we had just passed. I'm sure he noticed that his answer didn't set well with me, but we rode off anyway, back, uphill to the campground. 

After using the camp privy and unloading a couple days of trash in the bearproof dumpster,  we made our way to the self check in station. As we studied the check in procedure, we heard a side by side 4x4 approach. It was the same fella who directed us to this campground. He said he came over to check on us because, "I couldn't get you out of my heart".... and asked if we wanted to sleep and shower in his 5th wheel camper trailer next to his summer cabin.

When I'm tired and hungry, and about to embark on 45 minutes of camp setup chores, and just then some stranger opens up his home to us, emotions are sometimes close to the surface. We answered that we would be forever grateful to sleep and shower in his trailer. 

Almighty God is good.