Day 20, Friday, June 25, 2005
Salida , CO to Pueblo, CO
(1,710 feet of climbing) 101.8 miles, 13.7 mph, 7hr 25min 8sec
Max speed 35.5 mph
Up at 5:15, 5:45 load luggage, 6:00 breakfast at Patio Pancake: scrambled eggs, pancakes, hash browns, juice and coffee, 7:00 on the road.
Great cycling weather again today, with just a chance of a thunderstorm in late PM. Early start due to a long ride (95 miles). I did an extra 7 miles as most of us did a side trip to Royal Gorge in Canon City. The first 40 miles was a downhill through a winding canyon. As one can see from my pics, the scenery was spectacular. This was another soul inspiring experience. Winding turn after winding turn, each one was seemingly more beautiful than the last. I was riding with Neil today which resulted in a lot of stops for ordinary and sometimes creative picture taking. We both just love to soak up this experience substantially stronger than most cyclists. We had an opportunity to "shoot" some pics of some mountain goats just 40 feet away. After we both took some pics, Neil climbed up the side of the embankment into the rugged, scrub brush and cactus to get some more interesting pics of the goats and flowering cactus, so naturally I followed him. It was great fun! We soon continued and when we were at SAG 1, several river rafts came down the river rapids. It was so cool to watch! We continued on and at almost every turn we said "WOW, look at that! gotta stop!" George joined us and it just continued to be incredible.
At about 42 miles we took an extra off the route side trip to Royal Gorge. There were many very steep short climbs over about 6 miles before we got there. But when we did, we found a spectacular small canyon that had been developed into a tourist destination. Some of the attractions included a small zoo, burro rides, wildlife park, world's highest skycoaster, world's steepest incline railway, world's longest single span aerial tram and world's highest suspension bridge.
When we left and returned to our route, we stopped for lunch at the Thunderbird Restaurant (see pics). I had an elk burger. It tasted similar to a hamburger but not as fatty. We had a very _nice_ young lady as our waitress and her name was Vivian . She is named after her grandmother whose name was Vivian and her grandmother had and died from the Alzheimer's disease. When waitress Vivian shared this information with me, I got tingly emotional. For those of you who may be curious about the purple bear you see on my bike in some of my pics, this bear is my mascot. It was brought to my Ride For Alzheimer's awareness/kickoff May 19, 2005 at Chili's Restaurant in Waterford, CT by Pam Howard the CT. Alzheimer's Program Director. There was a couple in CT., the wife got Alzheimer's at age 61, her husband was her caregiver until she died of the disease at age 71. The family and the Association got together and decided that it was a good idea to use the bear as an awareness and fundraiser for the Alzheimer's disease. The woman's name was Vivian. Most people would agree that this is a name that you don't hear too often. And now for the final piece of the puzzle - my mother's middle name was Vivian. Obviously, my bear's name is Vivian! My mother is the reason that I've been doing my long distance rides since 1999 to raise funds for the Alzheimer's Association (over $90,000). And now, you know "the rest of the story"!
The rest of the ride today was uneventful, except for a couple of brief passing showers. I finally arrived at the Ramada Inn at 6 PM. This was very late but I had made stops at Royal Gorge, Thunder Bird Restaurant and many photo stops. I checked in, cleaned up and went to dinner at Golden Corral. Then went back to hotel and went to bed (at the urging of several fellow cyclists) at 9:30. That's very early for me.
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