The night did not go too well. In the morning, we were a little worried and Andy ended up going to the front desk to get in contact with a doctor. Apparently I was paranoid. The man at the front desk called his wife who called the husband of the doc who called the doc who then came to our hotel room to give me a look over. She appeared 15 minutes later, looking like the well-groomed but casual horse person she was. Dr. Fittings then gave me a check up, including checking my oxygen which was fine, groaned when I told her what I had eaten and told me that after I finished cleaning myself out, a diet of rice, toast, bananas, and apple sauce would get me back to a healthy digestive track, and that it was most likely something I had eaten.
Feeling mentally better with this in mind (and the doc was so nice--she didn't charge us a dime! which is amazing, god bless her) we spent another hour or so relaxing and getting our stuff together, picking up some applesauce and toast, before we decided (mostly with that $75 in mind) that we should probably keep going, up to Hoosier's pass as it happens, our highest point on our route at 11,500+.
The initial part of the climb was good, we passed out of Fairplay and into Alma (where a bike route was provided- yipee!), meeting a couple older guy bikers on the way who were riding from Portland to Pueblo. We didn't really feel like chatting though and Andy very graciously talked our way out of the conversation and back onto the bikes pretty quickly.
As soon as we were out of Alma, a few things happened, the road began to have zero shoulder and a ton of traffic, our climb became quite a bit steeper (4 mi. to the summit), our breathing got much more difficult, and we started taking pictures like crazy, knowing full well that the views we were seeing would in no way translate, but still hoping to capture some glimmer of the moment.
We stopped a couple times on the way up to give ourselves a break from traffic (swear). We miraculously made it up to the top, loving the cool crisp air, even if we were gasping a bit. After a few pictures and some chatting with others at the top, we headed down the otherside (now slightly more bundled up) where we gave encouragement to another cross-country couple going east. We had to brake almost the entire way down, but we were loving the view, and at one point we both got teary, had to pull over and hug. aww.
The next stop was Breckenridge, their bike shop, and lunch for Andy. We felt a great sense of relief having come over the highest point, but the town itself was such a Disneyland tourist mecca, that we felt quite odd, dirty, and somehow run-of-the-mill. As A said, everyone's a tourist, and no one wants to be. We went to the bike shop where we had ordered a part for my bike, left to have them install it, put a new back tire on, and look at A's gears. Everyone we talked to in town seemed a bit oxygen deprived, smart, but the words definitely took some time coming (and this is from a southern girl). Andy dined at a Polish joint on Zuppa while I steadily ate applesauce and melba toast. We headed back to the bike shop, only to find that Agnes (my bike) has had MORE wonky things done to her in a previous life and her bottom bracket can pretty much never be replaced because someone drilled it out and rethreaded her backwards. Crazy. Why you would do this, we have no idea. In any case, new tire, and slightly better gearing on A's bike (although the front part of his drive train is looking a little rough), so we set off for an easy downhill (mostly) ride out of surreal Breckenridge via their bike path to a campsite that had just opened 4 days ago and recommended to us by Michael as "a million dollar view".
We were not disappointed by the campsite. Although we started noticing in more vast numbers, that the pine trees were dying like crazy. Almost 75% of them were discolored, making them look strangely like the Appalachian mountain fall foliage. Pine Cove Campground had only recently opened because up until then they had been logging out some of the decayed pine trees. A fellow camper named John (a gypsy/big rig driver who also talked very slowly but seemed to be quite a knowledgeable fellow)told us it was the 300 year onslaught of the Pine Beetle who was ravaging this countyside. The site overlooked the Dillon Reservoir with stupendous mountains all about. Andy was a little miffed because some day users stole our campsite and then left, but the one right next to it proved to be just dandy. Since it was a pretty short day, we took it easy, built a fire with all the dead wood EVERYWHERE, read, and went to bed.
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