East of Gunnison, CO; Heading toward Monarch Pass
This is the tepee I slept in at the base of Monarch.
It's a propane fire pit, which I didn't actually use because it was very warm and, frankly, rather cheesy.
Can you tell that I really dug the tepee?
When I got to this sign, I had already been climbing for at least two miles.
I swear, it was way steeper in real life than this photo makes it look.
The views were pretty cool; again, the camera does no justice.
Some kind of critter jumped off this rock. I only caught a glimpse of it and I couldn't see where he jumped too, but I'm still a little worried that I witnessed a rodent suicide.
I actually deleted the first photo I took because I was smiling so big I didn't think anyone would believe it was genuine.
The Monarch Range.
I took this photo because I was so pissed that I was still climbing several hours AFTER my descent from Monarch Pass. This is north of Salida, CO, and yes, I now know that it's difficult to convey gradient like this.
Spotted an eagle soaring overhead at my campground in Johnson Village, CO.
This is the Johnson Village KOA (Kampground of America; no I have no idea why they spell it that way). They stick you in close quarters with a ton of other people, mostly in R.V.s with screaming children.
I was asked to take a photo of myself for the Fairplay Tribune or whatever.
This was the trailer my new friend Sean let me stay in in Shawnee, CO. I took the photo the morning after the deluge.
This was just too awesome to not take a photo of. Between Shawnee and Bailey, I think.
This is Fred trying to fix the toilet at the crappy motel in Ft. Collins.
Really nice public park in Ft. Collins. There was some kind of weird recorded drum track that some hippies were dancing too over the hill. It played incessantly the entire time we were there.
Ault, CO. A Unique Little Town. Nice.
I felt the first flat of the trip was a moment worthy of documentation.
I felt the second flat of the trip was also worth documenting, but mostly because it occurred fewer than ten miles after the first.
This was really the middle of nowhere.
This is the bar/restaurant we went to in Sterling, CO, the night of the infamous shoe disappearance.
I tried to capture the sunset, but the flash washed it out. This was moments before I realized I was missing a shoe.
Two gigantic grasshoppers getting groovy. Fred was excited. You'll have to check out his blog to see the photo he took here.
Check out Fred's blog for those images.
Friendly people in Colorado.
Fred had been talking about finding a cow skull to tie to the front of his bike for at least a day before he found one.
Unfortunately, as he was attempting to poke out the remaining tissue, he decided the smell was too awful.
For some reason, I thought this might make a cool shot. I was wrong.
But being wrong should never stop you from trying things again. Just ask any politician.
Weather moving in?
One can never have too many shots of clouds at dusk, right?
Right?
You know I'm right.
Okay, maybe that's one too many.
So one more?
Grain elevators. Awesome. Praise Nebraska.
Moments before these pictures Fred and I were huddled underneath that pavilion, trying to build an ark.
Grain elevators make you feel really small.
I set up my tent under the pavilion, cause I figured we weren't done with the rain yet. P.S., I was right, but Fred did not regret his decision to sleep out of cover.
This was probably the tenth flat in two days. I was hoping that maybe if I filled up my chip with pictures of flats, the cycling gods would take that as a sacrifice in their name and leave us the hell alone.
If only that were true. Actually, I was only about a fourth of the way.
We felt a time zone change was worthy of documentation. Hey, that's 15 degrees of longitude.
McCook, NE. We had had a very long day, which included: Fred taking a hard spill and getting pretty cut up in Palisade, NE; finding out that a tooth on my middle chainring was bent; several flats between the two of us; excruciating heat; twenty some miles more than we had planned on riding and at a blistering pace, for some reason; arriving at our campsite after dark. I could go on, but I'm out of caption space.
This is the nice lady who stopped her car and ran across the street to give us bottles of water. Indianola, NE
The only non-Pizza Hut restaurant experience of the trip, excluding rest days.
Remember that thing I said about thinking this might be a cool shot? And remember that thing I said about trying things over and over again, despite any kind of measurable success?
Remember?
I guess we were getting kind of tired of this particular view.
Ah...This is the only remaining landmark commemorating a WWII prison camp for Nazi POW's. It's a chimney. The story goes: There was virtually no security. One inmate escaped, and two days later turned himself in because he was near death. Nebraska kicks Nazi ass.
We arrived at the same time as a group of motorcycle riders on their way back from Sturgis.
This is the family that brought us cookies.
I really enjoyed riding into the sunrise. It was always the best time of the day.
Just outside of Lincoln, NE. It rained pretty solidly all the way to the Iowa border and then just stopped.
This is my silly hat. Its name is dayglo.
The wind blew the brim up. Fred found this hillarious.
Kristen Gray, Shenendoah, IA. Awesome interviewer. She recorded at least 45 minutes of our conversation.
There was this rickety but fairly cool observation tower at this campground in Osceola, IA. That pond was extremely refreshing after a hot and very stressful day (when I destroyed my wheel).
Crossing the Mississippi River. This felt like a really huge landmark at the time.
I had been wanting a shot of me and corn for a while. You know, when it's all you have to look at for eight hours a day, it really gets in your head.
John and Natalie at their house. Yay!
John's Subaru is older than any of us, I'm pretty sure.
This was the last "Now Entering..." sign I was able to get a photo of, except for the unremarkable New Jersey sign. For a number of reasons I missed Ohio, Pennsylvania, AND New York. Nevertheless, I like how Indiana and Illinois are both fighting for a stake in the Abe Lincoln game.
The amphitheater in Terre Haute, IN where I surreptitiously spent the night after breaking my rear derailleur hanger.
I was just happy it was dry.
Where I spent the night in Greensburg, IN
Not sure why, but I really liked this park a lot. There were ducks and swans in the lake, maybe that's why.
Oh yeah, it was quiet too. That's a MAJOR plus.
Liz in Cincinnati, yay! I wish I had taken more photos. Liz's apartment was awesome and I had a good time visiting Cincinatti.
You can't see it very well, but the water tower bears the town's name: Plain City. And it was.
Nice spot of land on the outskirts of Akron, OH. I really dug this spot because it was surprisingly quiet and serene even though the highway and the ugly city were literally right behind me.
I'm eating in the public park, but I slept twenty feet to the viewer's left of that van, on property owned by the auto body shop in the background. I asked a guy who worked there and he said it was cool. Yes, that's the last Harry Potter book on the bench next to me. I bought it in Cincinnati with Liz.
This was the in the morning. I was awakened by the ducks.
It was starting to get really cold at night by this point (western Ohio). This was the first time since the Rockies that I needed my windshirt first thing in the morning.
This is the campground in Pennsylvania where I got interrogated by the police at 5am because I wasn't supposed to be there.
The mohawk was a bit out of control by this point.
This was a construction zone that I chose to ride through, rather than take a 45 mile detour. It was great because I had at least ten miles of open road to myself before and after, and all I had to do was walk my bike across a narrow dirt bridge on the left.
I thought this would look funny next to my Monarch Pass photo. In reality, the Pennsylvania hills proved to be much more debilitating than the Rocky Mountains.
Matt crossing the Delaware.
I really feel close now...
The view from the north side of the George Washington Bridge. The south side walkway was closed, so no view of lower Manhattan. I was okay with that though, I've seen it.
Sadly, this was the last photo I took. I got some video of me arriving at my folks' house, but it wasn't as cool as the reality. If you want more details, you'll have to ask me directly.
