Our Last Ride

Hey Everybody.....those of you that are still checking this thing! My apologies for not doing a good job of updating. We've just been SO busy. And we've seen so much. In total, we've ridden in Moab, Fruita, Crested Butte, Salida (my longest ride EVER), Frisco/Breckenridge, and today for our final ride, we rode in a little town called Kittridge. Yup, the bikes are packed and ready to be FedEx'd home. We are in Bolder and I think we're going to see a Colorado Rockies game tomorrow.

I won't be able to sum everything up in a post or two.....those will come in time. And pictures will help. We have met so many nice people these last two weeks. Almost every day we met someone that has ridden out in Pisgah--small world. Oh, and we've eaten our way thru Colorado--hello healthy food starting next week!

What can I describe today? Well, our most stressful ride was in Crested Butte when we rode the Doctor's Park trail. We climbed 9 miles on a dirt rode and then once we were about a mile into the doubletrack (it was a 20 mile ride) we were met by two ranchers on horseback. I have no idea why we ran into them, but we did. They let us know that there was an ornery black cow standing in the middle of the doubletrack and that she had charged the ranchers. What the hell were we supposed to do with that? We were worried about bears, not free range roaming cows! We'd ridden UPhill for 2 hours to be turned back by a cow? We decided to press our luck and did some serious hike-a-bike up a steep cliff (not even close to being on the trail) and had to continue that for awhile. Until we were certain that she wouldn't see us. We managed to get around her and kept climbing. And climbing. And climbing. We affectionately called her Bitchy Betsey. The decent was SO worth it. It had snowed in Crested Butte a couple days before we got there so at the top the trail was very muddy and wet. It was manageable and turned out to be a great ride.

All in all, our trip has been a great success. We have had perfect weather. No rain at all! We have been so lucky. We've been able to ride all of the trails we'd tentatively planned.

Now that we are coming to the end of our trip, I've had a chance to think about favorites.
Favorite Ride: Monarch Crest in Salida, CO (When you climb to 12,300 ft and then descend over 4000 ft, it is the best!)
Favorite Campsite: Gunnison campground in Crested Butte
Favorite Meal: The Fig pizza at The Sweet Stash in Crested Butte
Favorite Bike Shop: Poison Spider in Moab, UT
Favorite Coffee Shop: Buckaroo Beanary in Crested Butte
Favorite Site-seeing activity: The ghost town of St. Elmo, CO and feeding the wild chipmunks
Favorite Animal encounter: Hearing the wolves call to each other from both sides of the campground in Crested Butte

I could go on and on. It is hard to believe that our trip is almost over--the time has flown by.