Walden, CO to Rawlins, WY

Posted on May 24, 2009 by ryguy

ready to leave

I woke up around 6:30 AM to Shane and his friend Josh working on the four-wheelers. I started packing up, and after 30 minutes, Shane jokingly said, “Jeez, I thought Ryan was going to make us breakfast.” Weird. Was that a hint for me to fire up his grill and cook food? I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I just sat there and laughed nervously. It wasn’t funny.

Shane had a bossy streak in him. “Get that. Do this.” I first saw it when he was telling EC to let me use his laptop. It continued, and it eventually came to me. I had dug a deep fire pit to protect the fire against the wind, and he questioned the design. “I think that’s too deep. You should make it wider.” He took the shovel from me and adjusted it. It really turned me off and put a damper on my mood. I was ready to leave the previous evening when that happened.

I cooked up sausage and egg beaters. I should have just eaten my bagels and bananas. I could feel my stomach getting pissed at me for eating crap. A few minutes later, EC woke up and once again began squabbling with Shane. Shane and Josh were planning on riding some trails, and EC felt left out. Ugh. Stupid squabbling. I felt awkward just watching them argue. So did Josh.

I wasn’t able to push my bike out of the forest due to all the loose sand, so Shane drove me back out to the highway. During the short ride, I enjoyed a conversation about his present relationship with his girlfriend. Those were the conversations I wanted to have with him…not ones about a $5,000 sound system.

I said goodbye to Shane and let him know how touching it was that he pulled over to ask me if I needed help. It wasn’t a lie. It really was touching. I was grateful that this trip brought me such an experience, however unique it was.

onward to wyoming

The day’s ride would take me to the town of Saratoga, WY. I’d stay on a stretch of highway for about 60 miles. After cresting one of large hills, I saw a landscape that I had in my head of Wyoming. Sage grass covered the terrain, and the sun broke through the rain clouds into the high desert. It was beautiful, but I wasn’t looking forward to riding through the rain.

The storm seemed to be blowing nothward, and I was following a hole in the clouds just above me. Very lucky. Most of the ride was rolling hills, which was very different from Colorado. The highway I was cycling seemed remote. A car would pass by every 20 minutes.

60 miles later, I rolled into the town of Saratoga. I noticed a National Forest building off to my right, and I slowed down to pull into the parking lot. I wanted to figure out where public land was located so I could primitive camp. Suddenly, a woman in a truck truck yells at me. The truck had passed me a couple hundred feet back and did a U-turn in the parking lot. She wanted a picture of my sign that read “I miss my shower.”

lucky me

Her name was Noelle. She worked for the Bureau of Land Management up in Rawlins, WY, the next big town on my route. I started talking to her about places to camp in town and asked if she had any maps. We spoke for about 5 minutes, and I asked her where she was headed. “Rawlins,” she said. “Want a ride?” OK…I’ll go with it. She said I could camp in her yard. I was pumped because I had a sure-fire place to camp.

After getting to her house, she offered me a shower. Damn…awesome!!! After being in the sand dunes for two days, I was caked with dirt. It was in my ears, nostrils, and fingernails. I felt disgusting. And then she offered for me to do a load of laundry. And then she offered to drive me to the grocery store. I was blown away. Noelle was awesome. I would have never expected this to happen. At best, I was hoping for a public shower at the hot springs in Saratoga, WY.

Her husband Andy got home from work. He worked as an officer for Animal Control. Shit. I hope he’s cool with me camping at their place. And he was.

We went to the grocery store, and Noelle told me that she was grilling that night. “Don’t worry about food,” she said. What? Are you serious? When does it end? When I got back, Andy offered me a bed to sleep on downstairs in the basement. These guys were great.

I tried to contribute and show my gratitude by washing dishes in the kitchen. I also baked up a batch of brownies. Yo Andy and Noelle, you got browned!

Here’s Andy feeding a baby bird that he didn’t have the heart to kill on the job.

day in rawlins

The next morning, I got up early to prepare for a long ride. It was going to be a 90 mile day in the wind and rain, something I was not looking forward to. After Andy left for work, Noelle told me that they were going to Casper the next day, and they’d be happy to drop me off at Muddy Gap. I looked outside. OK. That would be awesome.

I spent most of the day helping Noelle clean the house. She was preparing to have family over for the next weekend. I also cut the grass. Although it was 3-4 hours of chores, I really enjoyed helping out. I wanted to work off some of my karma debt and pay it forward to show my gratitude.

Grand Lake, CO to Walden, CO

Posted on May 24, 2009 by ryguy

pancakes and birdwatching

Marilynn and Dave cooked up a fantastic breakfast, complete with strawberries and pancakes. During breakfast, a ton of different birds would fly by and chirp in nearby trees. Marilynn and Dave are bird fanatics, and they loved identifying rare birds. The clock in the kitchen even chirped bird sounds when it turned every hour.

They started talking to me about some of the birds I’d see in the Walden area. I don’t know crap about birds and don’t really find them appealing, but I listened thinking there might be some cool carniverous, man-eating bird. Nope. Just boring birds that look like turkeys. That’s probably how people feel when I talk about vegetable gardening or being on a bicycle.

sad, lonely ride to walden

I said goodbye to Marilynn and Dave. I didn’t want to leave. They were really good to me, and this would be my next-to-last day in Colorado. Cycling here had been incredible, and most of the people I hung out with were phenomenal.

I started my ride feeling like a really fat guy loaded down with pancakes. Stupid, always hungry Ryan stuffed himself with pancakes.

The ride out of Grand Lake, CO was a pretty easy one. Most of it was downhill and went along the lake. Really pretty.

20 miles later, I began my ascent to Willow Creek Pass. This was going to be my last pass in Colorado. It was a 25 mile gradual ascent to the top of the pass, and it ran along Willow Creek. I was hoping to see a lot of moose because they love eating willows. Unfortunately, I never saw one.

It was a lonely, sad route. The willows looked depressed. Stuck in the mud and water. No moose eating them. It was also raining, which amplified the melancholic mood. And I was leaving Colorado. Colorado was breaking up with me, and I felt heartbroken.

third day of losing something

I pulled off the side of the road to eat a few cheap Kroger cookies and looked down at my wrist. The magnetic therapy bracelet I had bought in Montrose was gone. Two days ago I had lost the necklace Emilie gave me. Yesterday I had lost the Apocalypse Briggs shirt. I was pissed.

I turned around to cycle back to the spot where I had put on my rain jacket. 3 miles back. I thought for sure it popped off there. Nothing. Ugh…this killed my mood. That bracelet represented my time in Montrose and Black Canyon. Now it was gone. I was furious at myself, and I wasted 6 miles of cycling to find it. I want to go sit in Willow Creek and cry.

The next 10 miles was spent thinking about the three consecutive days that I had lost something. Stupid, stupid boy. I wanted to punish myself. “Ryan, you will now primitive camp for 5 days. You stupid, stupid boy. Nothing but peanut butter for you, stupid.”

letting go of things

I had pedaled hard to the top of the pass and decided to stop and eat a boring bagel topped with peanut butter. The mood was somber. I was sitting on alphalt in the cold with dead trees surrounding me.

In the background of this picture, you can see red trees that have been attacked by the pine beetle. All dead. I understand your pain, dead trees.

I began an inner dialogue. I had to let go of these ‘things’. They weren’t important. However, relationships and experiences were, and I couldn’t let something this superficial ruin my day. I decided to wave and smile at passing drivers while I ate my bagel. It worked. They waved back, and my mood went to the positive.

And just like that, my day went from shitty to fantastic. A black truck that I had waved at came back up the hill. The driver asked if I was OK and needed any help. I told him I was eating a peanut butter bagel, and as I did, he read my sign. He laughed and that opened more dialogue. I told him where I was from and what I was doing.

He was impressed and hopped out of his truck to offer me a few gatorades. Shit yea! I introduced myself to him and his passenger. Their names were Shane (driver) and EC. They said they were going to a national forest just north of Walden to ride four-wheelers and grill out for Memorial Day weekend. Having spoken to them for a few minutes, they asked me if I wanted to join them for some camping. They’d give me a ride to the spot. Holy shit. I was blown away. The day had changed in an instant. I had changed my negative energy to a positive one, and that change resulted in a positive outcome. I had let go of my desires, that being the necklace, and lived in the present to avoid living in the past.

redneck riviera in the colorado dunes

Having gotten to the top of the pass, the ride to Walden was only 15 miles and downhill. I didn’t feel bad about cheating.

I was a little antsy about getting there. Shane said that there were going to be thousands of people there with crazy dune buggies, four-wheelers, and dirtbikes. Having ridden dirtbikes as a kid, I knew what a lot of the off-road riders were like: cocky and showboats. Thousands of them in one place was no good. I would probably be the only one there with transportation that didn’t require gas, along with stupid bicycle clothing. Whatever. This will be a unique experience. That’s what this trip was about.

We rode up to the forest. It was littered with huge, gaudy RVs and off-road vehicles. I felt sad for the park rangers working there. They had to deal with thousands of drunk assholes the entire weekend, most of which had no respect for the land. I saw a lot of riders going over the vegetation off the trails and thrashing it up. They didn’t give a shit.

People were setting up huge, big-top tents, complete with generators, TVs, grills, and stereos. This was a redneck party spanning a couple hundred acres, and it would certainly not qualify as camping. Shane told me a lot of these vehicles ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. He and EC would get a hard-on when some cool, unique, gaudy vehicle drove by. They’d automatically spout off the model number. I wasn’t impressed or interested, and I felt really out of place. I guess all these people get their kicks from this stuff. They probably feel the same way about my bicycle adventure.

We set up camp and rode out to the dunes. I have to admit that the dunes were gorgeous. To the west were the snow-capped mountains of the Rockies, and just beneath my feet lay a terrain much like the Sahara. And then I’d look around and see all these assholes drive within 5 feet of me, spitting dirt into the air. Ugh.

In an effort to relate to Shane and EC, I told them that I had ridden dirtbikes a lot as a kid. They offered up the four-wheelers to drive around. OK. Gladly. While I rode around on the trails, Shane pulled EC on a sled.

EC kept saying he wanted to show everyone his skills. Unfortunately I think that’s the only reason he wanted to do it. I felt like everyone there had something to prove.

After a few minutes of riding, EC bit it hard and broke the sled. And that concluded my riding for the evening.

wind, sand, and expensive sound systems

That night the weather was terrible. 40 mph wind gusts. This combined with the sand left me with an inability to have functional eyes. We all piled into the truck to watch a movie. Shane drove a pretty big truck equipped with GPS, power everything, DVD player, and other stuff I don’t know shit about. Again, cars don’t impress me. I don’t really care.

Shane then went on to tell me about his $5,000 sound system. Why did he have to tell me the price? He continued to tell me all about the specifications of the stereo system. I said “cool” and “awesome” over and over, feigning interest. I didn’t give a shit. Shane’s bragging was the mentality of most of the people there. They had something to prove. Anyone who drove by us on a dirtbike did a wheelie. They knew we were watching. I was really tired of it.

It was too bad. Shane had done a really great thing for me, and I was really touched by the fact that he did such a selfless act. But the things he was doing (along with the thousands of others there) went against this. Conversation always revolved around a thing and its price tag. Fate, it seemed, had a sense of irony. My inner dialogue earlier that day had told me to let go of such things. Here I was smack dab in the middle of thousands of people obsessed with objects. Did Shane’s selfless act have purpose in that it showed me the result of a selfish lifestyle?

It made me really uncomfortable. One of the other things that I’d like to bring up was that everyone ran their cars idle to power all their gadgets and gizmos. In Shane’s case, he was charging his phone and running his sound system. I didn’t understand how people could be so wasteful.

That night, I slept in the back of Shane’s truck because my tent was full of sand. I was very grateful to have a place out of the wind.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Posted on May 24, 2009 by ryguy

riding unloaded

Lloyd and I woke up to the sun around 6 AM. Early start. After getting coffee, Lloyd went to the Alpine Visitor’s Center, located at the top of the mountain, to prepare the building for Memorial Day weekend opening. He also took my panniers with him =). Alyssa swung by and drove me just past the entrance gate. She used her ranger pass to get me in without a fee. I’m getting really lucky with the park fees…I’m 3 for 3.

I was really excited to do this ride unloaded. I could spend more time taking in the beauty of the park instead of struggling with the steep 25 mile incline at 5 mph.

50th b-day for mother dearest

My mom’s birthday fell on Memorial Day, so I wanted to write something on the board for her while going through the park. The views gradually got more and more spectacular. Older drivers passing me enjoyed the message and thought I was a really sweet guy. Really sweet, ugly guy.

Longs Peak.

I was coasting up the mountain and had no problems with the climb. The past few days had really prepared me for this ride. I took my time and took some pretty cool shots of the landscape.

I climbed down to get this shot.

On the way back up after taking the above photo, a guy on a motorcycle came over and started talking to me. He mentioned that he was from Ohio and started bragging about how hard his ride has been. I just sat there listening to him complain about the wind. Whatever. I didn’t feel like showboating. He probably thought I was on a day ride since I only had one pannier attached to my bike.

This pictures gives you an idea of how much snow had been piling up on the side of the mountain. Cold and high. And I wasn’t the one who etched that image of a penis into the snow. I didn’t know it was there until I looked closer at the picture.

Jim

I was getting annoyed by the cloud cover on the mountain because I really wanted to get some pictures above 12,000 ft. The visibility was pretty bad, and at times, I could only see 10 feet in front of me.

I turned a corner and there was a pretty fantastic break in the clouds, revealing the landscape of the southwestern portion of the park. I was having a really hard time getting some side shots because I had to set up the tripod in the middle of the road.

A van pulled up behind me full of some old folks, and out pops a cyclist named Jim. He came up to me and stuck out his hand with a few dollars in it. I couldn’t accept it. It just felt weird taking money from this nice guy. I refused to take the money and just said I’d rather shake his hand. He was pretty happy with that, and we spoke for a while. I asked him if he could take a few profile pictures of me riding along the road.

Failure after failure. He couldn’t operate the camera and had trouble placing me in the frame. 15 minutes went by, and I just told him it was OK. I could tell his friends in the van were getting impatient.

top of mountain

I finally got some pretty good pictures.

This one was at the highest point on Trail Ridge Road…about 12.3k feet.

And of course I had to get a some shirtless pic with my ugly tan line.

I finally got to the Alpine Visitor’s Center where I met Lloyd and picked up my bags. He was eagerly waiting in the Visitor’s Center, lonely and really happy to see me. What a friendly guy.

I actually just asked him to stand there and wave. Friendly and lonely.

The ride down was quick and cold. I went from tundra to forest in a matter of a few miles, and when I did, I got to see a ton of wildlife.

Elk.

Moose.

And a lot of other animals I couldn’t get on camera. The fox once again eluded me.

marilynn and dave

Marilynn and Dave were two touring cyclists that were letting me crash at their place that night. Upon my arrival, Marilynn was eager to show me the shower and bedroom. I had a long day and hadn’t eaten anything, so I cooked up some grilled cheese. Bread caked with butter. Yum.

During dinner, Dave spoke a lot about his touring experiences. I tried not to zone out, but it was so much information. My brain couldn’t process it at that elevation. I felt like I was going to collapse with fatigue. Sorry Dave =(

bye apocalypse briggs shirt

I went through my clothes later that night and realized I had lost my Apocalypse Briggs shirt. Shit. That shirt allowed me to not wear my damn bicycle jerseys around all the time. Now I would always look like some retarded guy in synthetic shirts.

I could hear passers-by in cool, hip towns questioning my style and wardrobe selection. “Why is that guy so ugly? Why is he wearing a synthetic bicycle jersey to a dance club? He’s not on a bicycle. He’s a liar.” Oh well. This only solidified the fact that I’m ugly.

Nederland, CO to Estes Park, CO

Posted on May 24, 2009 by ryguy

morning freak-out

I woke up around 7:30 AM and packed up pretty quickly. Bonnie was fixing some omelets and wanted to know if I wanted any coffee. Absolutely. After loading up my bike, I went inside and fixed the pot of coffee.

Shit. Max and Bonnie don’t drink coffee. There I was with a full pot and no one to share it with. This was a dilemma. I didn’t want to drink the whole pot, and I didn’t want to waste half a pot. I decided to drink the whole pot.

Four cups of coffee and an omelet later I realize I lost the necklace Emilie (from Gunnison) gave me. Shit. I really liked it too. It must have fallen off when I was asleep. Meanwhile, I’m really messed up from all this caffeine. Hundreds of thoughts are running through my head, but I can’t seem to string any of them together. I’m just pulling things out of my bags to find the necklace and not even looking through them. Pretty soon, I go from having a loaded bike to an unloaded bike.

i’m fat and heavy

While I’m internally freaking out, Bonnie brings out a scale because she’s curious how much my bike weighs. All I can think about is finding the necklace. I don’t know why I’m so fixated on finding it. I just am. The caffeine amplified my fixation exponentially.

Max guesses my loaded bike weighs about 70-80 pounds. I agree. I step on the scale with my bike. 277 lbs. I weigh 170. Shit…that’s 107 lbs of shit I’m carrying around. Terrible. The good thing is that I’m stronger than I thought. The bad thing is that’s all I’ll think about when climbing a hill. “I could be lighter.”

I said goodbye to Max and Bonnie. I feel bad about the goodbye because my mind was preoccupied with that damn necklace AND the weight. When I got a few miles from their home, I re-emptied my bags and searched again. Stupid. I wasn’t going to find it. I had to let it go.

rocky mtn national park appetizer

I could see parts of Rocky Mountain National Park during my ride to Estes Park. It was really pumping me up. By this time, the caffeine had run its course. Unfortunately, my iPod had run out of juice. I was stuck with the silence of my tires on the road. Ugh. It made me want to have a cycling partner that I could talk to.

Trish Lal gave me the message “This is Ryan. Be nice to him” to ride with. I appended to it my weight. I thought it was funny since I was such a heavy piece of slow-moving crap. And people seemed to be nice to me. Drivers often laughed and waved. Kewl.

Lloyd

I lucked out with my couchsurfing host that night. Lloyd worked for the park as an EMT and interpreter. He often dealt with old people that couldn’t handle the altitude. He was an encyclopedia of knowledge about the park and told me great stories about really annoying people that visit the park.

He later said he would bring my bags to the top of the park for me because he had to prep the visitor’s center for the opening on Memorial Day weekend. That pumped me up big time because I was dreading the ride up with my heavy load…277 lbs. I would be able to enjoy the park without having an alien burst out of my chest. Lloyd…come give me CPR. I’m dying because my bike is heavy.

Lloyd, his girlfriend Alyssa, and I went to a BBQ place in town. I was pumped to get some sweet tea and pulled-pork sandwich. Lloyd picked up the tab. I tried getting it back from him. Really awkward…similar to what happened with Shawn in Liberty, TX. The awkward check dance. He insisted that he pay it forward. He had couchsurfed in Europe and got taken care of a lot. I wanted to give Lloyd a big fat kiss on the cheek. First he told me he’d take my heavy panniers up, and now this. <3

To show my gratitude, I purchased some icecream and made brownies. Brownies and ice cream. Yum.

YO LLOYD AND ALYSSA…YOU GOT BROWNED!

I kept saying that to them. Over and over. I was probably on some annoying sugar high.

Eoin, I am totally ripping that line off. It’s really good.

Blackhawk, CO to Nederland, CO

Posted on May 24, 2009 by ryguy

morning paranoia

6:30 AM: I heard a huge metallic noise. ! I thought it was the campground gate opening. Maybe the US Forest Service is coming into the campground to prepare it for its opening on Memorial Day weekend. Maybe it’s the cops. Maybe it’s a giant metal monster. I was freaking out.

I got my ass out of the tent and packed up in under 5 minutes. It was the quickest I’ve packed up on tour. I was constantly looking around. I didn’t want to get a USFS fine for $50 or something.

I was packed up pretty quickly. I walked my bike down to a picnic table and enjoy a peanut butter bagel. Bland breakfast.

nederland library

I got to Nederland really early, so I headed to the library. It didn’t open for another hour, so I just sat and ate my plain bread. Bland brunch. There were three other sad people sitting around waiting for the library to open. One of the people was a guy that came to CO to hike for 5 months. He was using the payphone, so I listened to his conversation. He didn’t have a sleeping bag, and he had somehow just spent $67 at Walmart. What? Where is all this stuff?

The other guy was just standing by the door staring in. When the library opened, he charged in, nearly running over the librarian. I heard the librarian yell out “JEEZ!” What an ass.

I sat down at a computer next to a lady with a terrible shade of hot pink lipstick. She was also wearing ugly sweatpants. I looked over at her computer screen, and she was reading about parasites. Worms. Gross. I think she was the town prostitute.

indian and nepali buffet

The last time I had gorged on a lunch buffet was with Eoin in Abbeville, LA. It was glorious Chinese food. I had asked several people in town where a good place to eat was. They all recommended the same place: Katmandu’s. Indian and Nepali food. And they had a lunch buffet. My eyes lit up, so I headed there.

I had about five plates of food. I gorged myself till I was sick. I just sat there, head in my hands, staring at the table waiting for my food to digest.

scammer kid at grocery store

I cycled to the grocery store to pick up some fruit and cookies. I was about to go into the store when a 12 year-old kid comes up to me asking for money. This is how the conversation went:

Kid: Excuse me sir. My mom gave me $10 for dinner but it fell out of my pocket. Do you have like a dollar or something I can have?

Me: Well, I have some food. I can make you a peanut butter sandwich.

Kid: I get really sick when I eat bread. That’s OK.

Me: I got bagels too.

Kid: No, no. That’s OK.

By now I know this kid is full of shit. What hungry kid is going to say he gets sick from bread? Liar. I continued the conversation to see how full of shit he was and if he was capable of holding up a good lie.

Me: So why are you here alone? Where is your mom?

Kid: She drops me off here and picks me up at 11 PM.

Me: Huh? That is really late. Where do you live?

Kid: Near Boulder. I go to school up here. I am like a math genius, so I go to a special school.

Me: Oh? What is your address? What is your mom’s number? I can call her to ask her to pick you up.

Kid: No, that’s OK. I don’t remember my address, and my mom has one of those limited minutes phones.

Me: What kind of math are you learning about?

Kid: 12th grade advanced algebra.

12th grade algebra. That was hilarious. This kid sucks, and his lie was really starting to piss me off. He clearly wanted to go, but I was keeping him in conversation. I enjoyed watching him sweat nervously while he spouted the biggest bullshit story I’ve ever heard.

Me: What kind of algebra?

Kid: Equations and stuff. OK, I have to go. Cya.

I watched him walk up to other people giving them the same story. Before I left, I asked him if he was trying to swindle people. He vehemently denied it. I wanted to punch him in the mouth.

max and bonnie

So I managed to pin someone down that would let me camp in their yard. Max and Bonnie. They were clearly flower children of the 60s who loved hearing my stories about my bike trip. They had been together for 38 years and had not been formally married. Pretty cool.

They owned a pretty amazing cabin on the north side of town. A very eccentric couple. Their bathroom was littered with their toothbrush collection. It’s a cool thing to look at when you’re peeing. Max was cooking up dinner, so I was fed salmon, avocado, and rice. Perfect timing

the wild okapis

And then 8 people showed up. What’s going on here? Is this a huge hippie orgy? No. They’re all in a band…a marimba band. The best way for me to describe a marimba is it’s a huge xylophone with its sound amplified by pipes.

The band, called The Wild Okapis, had been playing together for three years. I sat in the living room and watched/listened to them perform. They were very good and could play the hell out of the marimbas. The weird part was when they started dancing and singing next to the drums, while I sat idly by on a swing watching. Is this weird? Lonely guy just watching people dance, sing, and play instruments.

After their practice, they all went into the kitchen to talk. I sat down next to them, and they were really interested in me…my trip. They asked me what the ‘wildest’ thing was that happened to me. Wildest. Should I tell them about all the nights I’ve been drunk at all the crazy dance parties? I told them the Liberty, TX story along with the tripod story. Here I was, entertaining 10 people with my tales. I stopped at two. I didn’t want to be that guy that talked about his cool travels all the time. I transferred conversation to someone else.

They all left, and I went to bed in my lonely campsite.

Life is Real Good

Cycling through Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos

Category Archives: Colorado

Walden, CO to Rawlins, WY

Grand Lake, CO to Walden, CO

Rocky Mountain National Park

Nederland, CO to Estes Park, CO

Blackhawk, CO to Nederland, CO