The motel had breakfast at 6am so I got ready and was the second one there. Just after I order Alicia and Beverly came in and we ate together. These random meetings are fun and probably the best thing about using a well documented route.
On the road I completed my first thrid quickly. The girls had warned me about a really rough section of road. I was thinking ... "Is this it?". I guess it was as it was the worst surface of the day. They are not going to like Colorado ... this was nowhere near as bad as the worst roads in Colorado.
At the side of the road I ate the patty melt I order for take away at breakfast. Soon after I encountered Frankie and we had a good side of the road conversation. He had been rescued by Dave the day before when his shifter cable snapped. He is (was?) a merchant marine navigator ... his job is to not get the boat stuck sideways in the Suez Canal. Like a lot of the young people I've met on the route he is probably going to take a break from work and have some adventures.
Later I ran into Paul and Mike. I thought they were old buddies but they had by chance met at the very start of the route and partnered up. Like a lot of the old people on the route one of them had just retired. A lot of that going around.
Passing Buhler I almost pressed on because the commercial area was a few blocks off the route but thought the better of it and turned back into town. I found a Mexican place and as I guzzled about 2 liters of Dr Pepper and plate of carnitas, I realized I did need that stop.
The route zig zagged a lot today and I missed some turns. The route is marked by a nations bike route number but as the ACA app warns a lot of the signs are "missing". I ended up doing an extra 20km on the day which had me riding an extra hour in the heat of the day. To get back to the route I did a few miles on a not dirt road ... a sand road. Sand is hard to ride in.
I was a bit cranky and tired when I got in.
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