Sargents to Luders Creek Campground

Today was a peaceful and easy day. I won't have many of these left...

I had a nice breakfast at the cafe at Sargents (such good food in these small Colorado towns) and then 13 miles of easy pavement mostly downhill, followed by 27 miles of not-too-bad beautiful dirt climbing to a reservoir. There I had a good lunch and waited out a storm that was dumping on the pass I was about to climb. I also drank some terrible pump water. Blech. Side note, it's rained on me every night so far.

I then climbed 9 miles to the top of the pass over muddy, but not terrible, roads whilst patting myself on the back for waiting until the storm passed. The frequent lightning and Strange Things -esque clouds made it easy to not want to ride into it. I enjoy it when a good, patient, wait yields such positive benefits. 

I got up to this mostly deserted campground at almost 10k feet around 3:25pm, with 4:33 on bike and 53 miles.  I pretty easy day, but I'd have to push pretty hard to to the next camp spot which seems silly. The water source is a tiny creek with tons of cow footprints in it, not ideal, but you either trust your water filter or you don't...

I spent the afternoon, day four since being back on the divide, puttering around and doing camp chores, and mostly finding peace. In some ways I feel like I'm breathing oxygen for the first time since my job stole it from me this year. I actually had a really good year otherwise, but the level of interpersonal need I dealt with last year completely burned me out it ways I'm just beginning to understand.  Up here I'm completely alone. 50 miles from the nearest town over rugged roads, just me and nature. (and one other camper, but they are far away and I can't hear them.)  I definitely need to find a way to find this nearer to home... or just put Andrea in a backpack next time. She is also a good source of oxygen for my lungs.

You know, I see a lot of beautiful things out here, but honestly one of the best reasons to see those things is so you can have some perspective when you are around someone like her, who's being shines better than the morning sun on a field of mountains, and who's essence easily eclipses the most breathtaking valleys. The same stardust building blocks can make up a giant vista or a tiny human, and in either form they shine the same, and have been for eons. I see the beauty of the world in her, and I see her in every amazing thing I see out here. I'm not talking about physical beauty, mind you, although both have that in spades, but there is more. The best of us it out here, and out here is the best of us. We've all been everything on this earth at some point, but some people you can tell were just recently a sunset and a babbling stream. It stays with them, and I think maybe their bits prefer it and will be it again. Her laugh sounds like happy birds ❤

I've been able to have deep, long thoughts the last few days riding and camping today. I don't ride with music or any distactions. Just the sound of the tires and, around here, numerous snaphoppers (the namesake of my bike, insects that snap as they fly). I've been searching for the essense behind reality for a long time, not just the cosmic dust that we are all made out of - that's there - we can touch it - and in fact are all touching it right now, but what's even there behind that. I do think the answer is in the search, rather some something you can find.  

These last 4 days of riding have been so easy I was starting to think maybe I'd remembered the Divide wrong. But, doing some sobering map planning today, I realized that Colorado is just the easiest state on the Divide, by far.

I'm actually quite nervous about the next few days. Soon I enter a long stretch with contaminated river water I can't drink and questionable camping areas. Then I enter New Mexico where water gets even harder, and if there is too much water the route gets impossible and you have to find paved detours (which aren't mapped out well.) I'm about to enter areas with rivers that may not exist, wells that may be dry, and roads that could become peanut butter mud with little warning. This will likely be the hardest part of the Divide in some ways, unless I end up on the paved detours in which case it'll easier (I think) but dissapointing.  I may not be getting many all-afternoon chill sessions in Aspens beside high meadow like today... but the challenge will be there. Some things ARE worth doing just because they are hard.