July 1st Sunday Day 24

Dolores and Rico should switch names because we were feeling no pain in Dolores, what with the cool people at the Brewery and all. We camped in Dolores at this very homey RV place. A lot of these places are like seasonal homes to people who live in their RV's. This group was very sweet and almost all of them had been there for more than 3-4 months. On the way out of town we stopped for brunch at the Stoner Creek Cafe. There were about 15 hummingbirds buzzing our heads to get at the multitude of feeders hanging from the rafters. Solomon was beside himself with joy and almost got one of the hummingbirds to alight on his hand. We had him convinced that if he stood next to the bird feeder with his red,plastic water cup on his head, the hummingbirds would land on his head and drink. This provided us with great mirth and photo ops but no birds on the head. As soon as we get to Pueblo I'll send webmaster Ken the CD of the pictures to post on the website. Besides the wildlife of the West and the temperament of passing motorists, Solomon has become absolutely obsessed with Butch Cassidy. He is constantly asking anyone who will listen about how Butch died, where he died, how he lived, what he did, etc. But Rico was not at all Rico. The locals were a surly lot and it was hot as hell. We did find some hot springs though, which were nice if you were in the water but if you were out of it you were being eaten by these biting horseflies. Needless to say, we didn't stay long but continued on our way to Ridgeway via Telluride. I was so hot and sweaty and sticky and salty and soooo wanted a shower but the only place we could find to stay was a State Park campground with no shower or swimming options. The one great thing about this campsite though, besides having a water pump to fill our bottles, was this crazy red bird that kept us entertained all morning. It would land on our cups and bowls, Yonah's hand, my back as I bent over to get something out of the tent...It was obviously a very bold bird that had probably been fed too much human food. When we sat down at the picnic table to eat breakfast, it just stood on the table next to Solomon, like it fully expected us to set some food down in front of it. We had so much fun with this bird. At one point Matt said "what if it is only like this with us? What if it hasn't ever done this before? Maybe it's Old Gramps!" We all laughed but then I thought "it is the most bizarre behavior I have ever seen in a wild bird...and Old Gramps DID love the color red...and if he was still alive he would have hated to have been left behind...he would have gotten a train ticket to DC and met us at every stop along the way, I'm sure of it....maybe it really IS Old Gramps". So the next time the bird landed on my arm I looked him right in the eye and said "are you my Dad?". This had the boys rolling with laughter and the bird just looked at me like I was nuts and flew up into the branches of the tree.
The next morning we rode to Telluride for lunch. It was 3 miles off our route but on a bike path. It was just beautiful. This cute little town nestled in the bowl of all these spectacular mountains. The library was the most impressive library I have ever been in in my whole life. The bathroom was like a day spa in some high end Italian hotel. Nothing like a good tax base to spruce up the public restrooms. The librarian was so helpful and she helped me burn all my photos to a CD so I can send them off the next chance I get. The waiter as the restaurant was so surly and slow that I had time to run out and get new cleats put on my bike shoes. They were so worn down I couldn't clip in any more. The bike shop guy was thoroughly disgusted by how long I had waited. Matt and the boys waited in the restaurant and had time to come up with a whole ad campaign around the Gracias Carne. The whole Gracias Carne thing has taken on a life of its own. We now start the day with On The Road Again but it has become like a Liberetto (I have no idea what that means, but neither do you and I like how it sounds)sung at the top of our lungs and then ends with about 5 operatic Gracias Carnes (Yonah now includes a few Gracias Calles as well), complete with hand salutes and enough R rolling to impress even the Argentinean Aristocracy. Telluride we set out to conquer Lizard Head Pass. We had been psyching ourselves up for two days for this pass but it was so mellow compared to what we did in Utah. The thing about Colorado is that all the highways used to be train tracks so they are graded for trains and are only about 7% of winding, curving, mountain side hugging roads...unlike the ones in Utah which were made by all these Mormons and their mountain goats...going straight up and over the mountains. So we get to the top of Lizards Head Pass and Yonah says "well that was sort of anti-climactic". Of course that is Yonah...who we now call Seabiscuit. Or sometimes, when referring to him in the third person, just The Biscuit. As in "I think the biscuit needs more weight, let him carry those peaches".
The ride into Ridgeway was just beautiful. There are so many beautiful scenes I had to stop taking photos, it is just constant. We screamed into town just as it was getting dark (and there was a sheriff incident but Yonah wrote all about it in his journal and promised me he would post it to the blog)and tried to find a place to stay. By 10pm it was clear there were no vacancies to be found to we headed out to the reservoir someone told us about, made a quick dinner, got the boys in their tent and asleep and hoped the sheriff didn't see our lights as we camped illegally in a day use picnic spot....No such luck...Yonah will tell you about that as well. The worst part was no shower again...my third night of going to bed sticky, salty, sunscreeny,sweaty...I was tempted to stop at the hardware store and get a putty knife in lieu of a shower, and just scrap myself off. The next morning was great though. We got to see all the different kinds of people who come to places like this at the crack of dawn...the two fishermen in wool plaid jackets who silently got out of their truck, got their gear together, found their fishin' spots and just went into their silent zen fishing thing. Then came the couple in a spotless red car, with two identical dogs in the back. They were wearing matching LLBean hiking shoes and socks, knee length canvas shorts, big floppy canvas hats...they had similar builds too, slender, athletic. Both had short hair..and the dogs had matching leashes. It was like something out of that movie Best In Show. You can just imagine them getting into bed, each wearing identical plaid LLBean nightshirts and whipping out their LLBean sex toys. Then came the Kayakers...etc. etc. Not one of them said a word about the fact that we were camping illegally, that our children were sleeping in a tent set up in a picnic area, or that we were making hot chocolate and oatmeal on our little backpacking stove on the picnic table.
We left Ridgeway and headed for Sapinero.
I am being kicked off now so I'll write more in a few days when we get to Pueblo.
Love,
Djina