Some days, pretty much all days, we have the following conversation:

Sue: Where did we wake up yesterday?

Both Bill and I did considerable fretting during the night about today’s ride over Red Mountain Pass. Several people we’ve met along the way (none of them cyclists) warned of steep drop-offs, narrow shoulders, and blind curves, and that was without factoring in Labor Day weekend traffic.

We managed to be on our bikes by 8:30-ish, to leave open the possibility of going all the way to Silverton in a day —  50 miles and over 5600 feet of climbing.

Another RV Park meant another rec room, and again we did our breakfast in there. This time we had company — there were four guys seated around a table, “solving the world’s problems.”

Lake City is a great base for hiking and we considered spending one of our bonus days here. Last night as we were setting up the tent, showering, and getting set for eating Cannibals, a group of seniors was sitting around the fire pit and I was dying to join them.

I’d picked up an immersion heater for use in campsites with electricity, and we tried it in the RV park rec room this morning. Thing was useless, took like half an hour to heat 2 cups of water, so we donated it.

This morning we managed to depart within 90 minutes of waking up... though it’s a lot quicker to pack up when you don’t have to break down a tent, cook your breakfast on the little stove etc.

In 2006 I performed and taught for two weeks at the Aspen Music Festival. After the final concert, our plan for that summer’s adventure was to ride a big clockwise loop starting in Aspen, through Buena Vista, Durango, a bunch of other towns whose names I still haven’t memorized...