Revelling in the luxury of Woodland Motel in Salida resulted in a complete failure to carry a heavy camera anywhere so no pictures,  in fact a failure to move at all, so not much to write about.

Apart from waiting in eager anticipation for the Trump vs Clinton debate this evening, it should make good viewing.

Our plans for the next part of the journey are now sorted. Tomorrow we get a bus to Pueblo,  then a one way car hire where we will drive to Cedar City in Utah (around 600 miles west). The Grand Canyon and Zion national parks awaits us there, we are really excited about this.

There was another parcel to send home at 5 pounds total weight containing set of things not used (such as common sense, humour, soap and maps).

I can also confirm that McDonalds over here is just the same as you would get at home, the idea of eating one is always better than actually eating one, I always end up disappointed by them.

(It proved very difficult to move anywhere in the USA on public transport with cycles, hence hiring a car).

As we only had 12 miles to cycle today a nice late start was called for. Our food bag even survived a lonely night up a tree without being molested by a bear.

Frost

After last nights rain the sky cleared and the temperature dropped very quickly. The rain on the outside of the tent was frozen solid along with any condensation inside. We packed the inner and footprint as they were dry and left just the outer defrosting for a while before it found a home in a waterproof bag.

The diner was open by now so we got a nice cuppa before we started, coffee has free refills which is nice if you like to start the morning with a gallon of it, it is filter coffee as well. I do not think instant coffee exists in the USA.

We has two and a half miles of road before we hit the track, as it was Saturday the road was very quiet so nice to cycle on. The wind was OK at this point, there but not causing a problem yet.

The track proved very different, it varied from a very good compact surface to washboarded sand which was almost impossible to cycle on. Last nights rain did one good thing, it damped the track so for a while there was no great dust clouds from passing cars (although there were far fewer on this track). As we climbed the views improved, we could see that fresh snow had fallen on the higher mountain tops, probably 11000 ft plus, all the tops were very white.

The hills have changed colour

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I must break with tradition and not tell you the time we started today (8.00 am oops couldn’t resist it), but begin with the wind. No not the one you immediately thought of then but the real honest to goodness blowing kite flying one.

Dawn over Como

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Even in a lovely bed we were awake at 6.00 am, no lazyness here. Things packed and breakfast eaten, today we had fresh blueberries. I wonder how our blueberries are doing at home, all gone by now I would think.

A goodbye to the Inn owner, who is from the UK as well, he came over 16 years ago after leaving the army. We were off at 8.00 am.

A ski resort with no snow

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At around 6.00 am some spots of rain began to hit the tent so we said that must mean a later start and set a snooze (by snooze I mean just roll over and go back to sleep). We only have 12 miles to do to Heaton Bay Campground via Silverthorne. Of course it never works out that way.

Just before we packed up the tent Blue River Campground

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A freshly made cup of coffee at 6.30, one advantage of a hotel plus nice cold milk on your cereal,  then it is goodbye Kremmling and hello Interstate 40. The first 6 miles are along this road and it was quite quiet this early.

The lovely hotel

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Even though this was our highest camping to date at 8220 ft there was not any frost on the tent again, in fact there was a gentle breeze helping to keep everything dry.

Easy start at 7.30 am, it was still chilly so hat, gloves and leggings are worn. It is straight into a descent of 200 ft then the climbing started, as we gained altitude the views got better and better, the autumnal colours are fabulous.

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It was a shock this morning to wake up to a completely dry tent, inside and out, with no frosting on the top (a cake reference in the first sentence, you know this is going to be a  good blog post). As this was the first mild night in weeks, it did not take very much time to get all of our things together, leaving the Steamboat Springs KOA campground by 8.00. KOA are a huge chain of campgrounds throughout the US based mainly in the larger towns, they are quite expensive to use for just a tent but generally clean with full facilities.

We rode through downtown Steamboat Springs,  considering it was early on a sunday morning there was an awful lot of traffic,  I cannot guess where they were all going. Well in fact I could guess: to get a coffee, to go to church, to take their dog for a drive to name but three possibilities.

Downtown Steamboat Springs

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The early morning sun caught our tent and quickly started to thaw the layer of frost that had formed overnight whilst we packed all of our things away. Last night was also a full moon, so whatever you do, do not stray off the path when you walk across the moors.

The morning view across Steamboat Lake

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