Cycling

I open my eyes at five in the morning, wondering if it is noon. Six o’clock comes, the sun is up, and Nancy comes out of the camper wanting to leave as soon as possible. We are on the road by 8:00 a.m.

The scenery begins to change. I notice more trees and greener grasses.

We are close to Custer State Park. It is barely noon, so we enter the park and start driving through to get to our campground.

Coolidge Campground is small with only twelve sites. We set up. Nancy goes to the park store and brings Nancy a pizza with buffalo meat. Great pizza, by the way. It is 7:45. We take Moe for his nightly walk along the bike trail. We see at least three deer along the way.

The sun is out of sight somewhere below the tree line. I pitch my tent and take a shower. I wake mid-night and see the beautiful sky.

We didn’t want to but we need to move on to Riverside Campground in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. This will be another step closer to the Badlands, South Dakota.

Out of the mountain and on to the plains. This change brings faster roads, big cities, and more people. Ugh! Back onto the heat  also. The move into Nebraska is more green. The landscape, although similar, has shuttle changes. I begin to like being here.

We stop in the town of Kimball for gas and lunch. An Indian restaurant, the name slips me but the food is excellent.

Back on the road to Scottsbluff, with another thirty miles before shutting off the engine and ending the day.

The Riverside Campground is a no frills RV park on the edge of the city. The tent site look nice, much better than what most RV parks provide. But, what campers park is crowded with no shade. The only positive offering is electric and water hook up and sewer connection.

It is late, waiting for the noise to cease. It is quiet, if you don’t count the trains and load muscle trucks. So the noise dims and the lights, bright enough to compete with daylight. These light are places at every campsite. I lay on my mattress as if building a tan at the beach.

The day begins.

Today is our last day to explore the park. We drive to the Old Falls River Road and carefully make our way to the top to the Alpine Visitor Center. This is a steep one-way gravel road with no guardrail.

At the top, I visit with four separate cyclists that rode their bikes here. Two years ago, I had plans to ride west and ride through this park heading south to meet Nancy in Salida. Life gets in the way, and plans adapt.

This has been an all-day adventure. We get back to our site tired. We unwind with full heads of enjoyment. Bedtime falls with the sun as I make my way to the hammock. I drift into sleep with the slow rocking movement from the breeze cooling my face.

We try to get an early start, our next campground, Moraine Park Campground, one hundred eight miles away.

The route is simple enough. We get back to Route 9 and follow the TransAm route to Silverthorne. But, somehow we got off route and went twenty miles in the wrong direction. F word punctuated! Back we go, heading to Hartsel to pick up Route 9.

After Silverthorne, we get on Interstate 70 to Idaho Springs, where we climb a very long one, it is 11,158 feet elevation. The tunnel cuts through the mountain below Loveland Pass, 11,990 feet elevation. There is a bike trail up and over the pass.  The descent off this mountain is long and steep.

At Idaho Springs, we gas up and begin the road that will get us to Moraine Park Campground in the Rock Mountain National Park.

We arrive tired with too many photos to edit. After dinner, I get through half the photos and crawl into the hammock for a good night’s sleep. But, first, more photos of the setting sun.

The camper next door ran a generator all day and night. We later found out that the man has lung cancer, and the generator powers his breathing device. With the motor running outside, I was able to get a restful, deep sleep. I woke fresh, and Moe walked under the tent flap to greet me.

Nancy expresses interest in hiking some trails after breakfast before the heat.

We are back from the hike and hiding in the shade. The wind is picking up. 

The first sounds of thunder begin at 5:00 p.m. We only get a few drops of rain before the wind relaxes into a cool breeze. The lake is at 9,000 feet elevation, so the clouds are close to the ground.

It is 7:42 p.m., a beer is opened, and I will be relaxing with a bottle in hand while waiting for sunset.

Eleven Mile campground is on a reservoir surrounded by mountains. The clouds and sunsets are surreal.

The wind is strong in the afternoon. Everything needs to be tied. The shade tent is anchored to the ground and braced with rope to solid objects. My tent is staked at every tie loop, and I also have a rope tied to the camper.

Just relaxing and enjoying the campground. This evening gives another spectacular sunset.

The wind slowed to just a breeze early in the evening. Sleeping in the tent is peaceful.

As much as we like Aspen Glade, we must move on. Both of us, and including Moe, are not looking forward to another long day in the car. Since we got to this campground, we have had zero cell service, so we cannot load Maps for directions. So, it’s back to what we did before all this technology took over. We opened an Atlas and plotted a route the old, tried-and-true way.

The route to Eleven Mile State Park is on the other side of the Rockies from my TransAmerica route that I biked in 2022. We are on Route 24, and for a brief section of miles, we join Route 9, the TransAm route.

We drive into the town of Hartsel, CO, and stop for supplies and lunch. I know this town; I have been here. Lunch is at Zuccaro’s Kitchen, a great pizza restaurant. They have a small fenced-in grassy area for outside seating, so Moe is able to sit with us. We get to meet other people and sit with them as we enjoy a delicious meal.

As we are about to leave, the waitress comes over to let us know a touring cyclist just came in. I go over to visit. Klaus is from Denmark, and he is going to stay here for the night. There is camping for cyclists behind the building. I have fond memories, that I shared with the staff, of being here in 2022. Those memories are now linked to 2026. The visit with Klaus sharing stories of places we have both stayed along the TransAm is a deep connection. I wish Klaus safe traveling. I walk with Nancy and Moe back to the camper. A part of me stayed with Klaus to ride the TransAm one more time.

We are about an hour from our next campground. We want to be done with the drive and be set up relaxing.

Here, we are settled in. There are no trees to hammock, so I set up the tent. The sunset is perfect tonight. I will sleep well.

We took an open registration site that was only opened for the night we needed. We now need two more days. There are only two open “first come” sites available in the loop.

The host told us that another couple is looking to move into one of them, so this morning we eat and clean up and watch for the person in site 24 to leave. Nancy is walking with Moe, and I am sitting watching the road. It is 10:58. I start the car and drive the camper to site 24 and walk back to get my bicycle. As I ride to the new site, I see a man looking at our camper and the tag that I moved to the post. He seemed upset and dismayed. I beat him to the site. The other open site is 25. This is also a nice site, but the table is broken as a result of a fallen large tree.

He left to try to find another open site, but it would need to be in another loop. Nancy comes back and already knew the situation. She likes the shade in 25, which is much better, but not having a table is an inconvenience. One that we could forfeit in return for the shade sheltering the full day’s sun.

I ride my bike to find this other person. I find him walking the loop with his wife. I let him know that 24 is now open. We have moved to 25. His surprised expression and sincere thank you were deeply felt.

He is carrying a sack with a pop-up tent and places it into his new site. He helps carry over the rest of our gear.

We visit Mikey and Alison and become friends. They are great neighbors to have and share common interests. I gave them my contact card with the hope that we can follow each other’s adventures.

Our site is right on the Conejos River, a tributary of the Rio Grande. This is a favorite fishing river. We enjoyed hiking the water trail.

Leaving this morning, easy, I move the bike and gear into the camper, load the car, and off we drive.

We are driving on Route 64, a major road that is mostly cutting through mountains. It is very desert like with a few more trees. This is the Apache Reservation.

Just a few small towns and nothing else that I can see, maybe a ranch or two scattered among the many gas wells.

We cross into Colorado and climb through the San Juan Mountains. We are heading for Aspen Glade Campground in the Rio Grande National Forest. We don’t know for certain that there will be sites available; this campground has multiple “first come” sites. We hope to find one for the night.

We ride around the first loop and see a few that might be nice. Nancy wants to drive into other loops to see what might be. We luck out; the first site is opened for the night, and that is all we need.

This is a dream site, with many shade trees and it is on the bank of the Conejos River.

It is so nice here that we talk to the host and end up canceling tomorrow and the next night’s reservations at Great Sand Dunes National Park. We will enjoy this campground a bit longer.

Moe now knows where I sleep. I heard Nancy open the camper door, and Moe walked over to welcome me into the day. I put him on top of me before setting him back on the ground. My feet followed. The day has begun.

A 3:00 p.m. thunderstorm rolls through. With it comes wind and heavy rain. I’m sitting under the screen tent enjoying the wind-swept water on my legs.

It is now hailing. Five minutes later, the hail stops, and all this time the sky is blue with white puffy clouds. The thirty-minute storm has left us with what feels like a twenty-degree drop in temperature.

It became dinner time, and Moe let us know. I feed Moe, and Nancy is busy prepping veggies and slicing sausage. I get the camp stove ready. I start stir-frying, and Nancy brings out the rice. This is a great meal; who says camp food can’t be on the edge of gourmet?

I reset up the hammock. I took it down when the thunder got close. Moe has a fear, or more accurately, a trauma attack when it’s booming. Even the sound of rain drumming on the roof sets him quivering. He bolted into the camper, and Nancy went in to comfort him. I sat under the screen tent where the full effect was felt and seen. First, the wind blowing anything untethered. Then the downpour followed by three-eight-inch hail. And then, as soon as it came, it was gone.

Tonight is our last night here. Tomorrow, we will be heading to new adventures.