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Day 36: {at point "D" on the map}
JULY 10: Eads, Colo. to Ordway, Colo. 63 miles via Colorado Route 96. Average speed today, 12.9 mph. Total trip mileage to date, 2,216. Average daily mileage since June 1, 55.4.
Good day on the road. Started from Eads at 7 and covered first 10 miles at nearly 14 mph. Winds moderate and we were out early enough to avoid the heat of a 100-degree day.
Nothing – and I do mean nothing – was between Haswell (20 mi west of Eads) and Sugar City (5 miles east of Ordway). It was empty brush country: no ranching, no barns, no wheat, no corn, no wells, little livestock. Eastern Colorado makes Kansas looks like the suburbs.
The only point of interest on our route: The one (count it, one) tree between Eads “and Ordway. We spent five minutes enjoying its shade before continuing on into the morning heat.
Met three groups of cyclists this morning. A couple going from San Francisco to their home in Boston, four guys going from California to their home in New Jersey and Harry, a Loveland, Colo. guy riding from Astoria, Ore. To Yorktown, Va.
Except there was something wrong: Harry didn’t have any gear. No panniers, no trailer, no handlebar bag. Just two water bottles.
“I’m traveling light,” he said, eliciting double takes.
Turns out his wife was carrying all his gear for him in a pickup truck and would meet him each night for dinner. “I knew there was something special about her when we met 40 years ago,” said Harry.
The Sugar City grain elevator, which we saw from six miles out, signaled our day’s journey was about to end. Thirty minutes later April at the Sugar City bait store filled our water bottles and welcomed us. And when we reached the Hotel Ordway a half-hour later, manager Carol was equally hospitable.
Turns out Kiowa and Crowley counties, here in the desolation of eastern Colorado, are trying to cash in on the fact that Adventure Cycling’s Trans Am route runs through the area. They’ve named their stretch of the route the “Prairie Horizons Trail” and its logo on road signs and on businesses all along 96. “Cyclists Welcome,” it reads, which is nice.
Had lunch at Ordway’s Spurs and Bits Café and dessert at the Dairy King. Our accommodations at the Hotel Ordway are clean, old-fashioned and charming. Carol doesn’t even allow bikes in the rooms – the first such prohibition on our trip.
