another great day

Our experience at the Holiday Inn Express in Montrose was excellent. Thanks to Erin and Karen at the hotel, we were able to cook quite a nice gourmet dinner in the hotel courtyard and do our laundry - we were so happy! After our excellent feast (we should note that Dan may be making an impression on everyone, as the main dish was tofu with vegetables), we enjoyed a movie night of sorts in our hotel room along with dessert.

We began the day today by taking full advantage of the excellent hotel continental breakfast and departed in the cool Colorado morning with some clouds threatening overhead. The weather stayed dry for our first challenge of the day, a slow steady 15-mile climb to the top of Cerro Summit, where we celebrated with some refreshing watermelon (thanks for carrying it the whole way up, Russ!).

We called this first climb a nice "warm-up" for the day ahead of us. On our way up, we looked on with envy as a number of riders in similarly clothed uniforms sped down the hill in the opposite direction, en route to San Diego - key point: they were not carrying any gear!

After a nice descent into the small town of Cimarron, we began our second and steeper climb of the day. The sun had begun to beat down, and we were feeling the burn!

Finally, we made it to the top, and we had another celebration - this time by eating some of the snacks we had been carrying with us for a few days now - still tasty!

We enjoyed the downhill into a gorgeous valley with Blue Mesa Reservoir as a nice backdrop. Unfortunately, it began to rain a bit, which postponed our much needed lunch break. During lunch, we were lucky to run into Ann and Dave, who were heading in the opposite direction with all of their gear, in the middle of a nice 2-week bike tour of Colorado. It was so nice to chat with them - they told us about their hometown of San Diego, and their previous bike tour experiences. Dan was excited to hear that they met as students at Kalamazoo College in Southwest Michigan! We hope they have a great rest of their trip.

We finished the last flat 25 miles quickly, arriving in Gunnison, Colorado around 4 pm. We are fortunate to have a room donated at the beautiful Waterwheel Inn, where Coast to Coast riders from last year stayed.

We are excited about tomorrow's big climb up to Monarch Pass and for the beautiful views that will surely come! Let's hope for good weather.

Thanks for reading!