Denny – Fountain, CO Monday the 28th was my kind of Heaven. After stopping to visit with the Director of the El Pueblo Museum we headed out to begin our biking for the day.
I LOVE biking when I can just head out and keep on going. The Brilliant blue sky, gorgeous clouds, amazing scenery with Pike’s Peak in the background, and quiet dirt roads gave me plenty of time to drink in my blessings and revel in the chance to be out in nature watching springtime unfold. Baby calves, new green leaves, and gorgeous flowers I hadn’t seen before. I hope the Battalion women had as much joy as they left Pueblo headed north as I did Monday. I saw a painting of the types of homes they lived in during the winter and I think I would have been very happy to be out in the fresh air, open spaces, spring breezes, and gorgeous scenery.
We were on well packed dirt roads today that only had a few sandy spots (those were difficult to navigate through). I learned in the museum that morning that the Native Americans had called Pike’s Peak “Sun Mountain” because it was the first to be lit by the sun’s morning rays. It truly is spectacular early in the morning and has become my landmark on this trip. I’ll be sad when it passes from my view. The wind was strong and steady. Once again, I was thankful I didn’t have my pioneer skirt on and grateful for the breathable lightweight fabric of our t-shirts.
I got one of the longest hills but made it up without any problems. We had a rough time finding some place to park the trailer tonight. Finally Kevin called one of the Wal-Mart managers and they agreed to let us spend the night. I was grateful and it made me wonder how far did the women have to wait to find a suitable place to camp. I had it lucky – roll in, turn on the propane, heat up leftovers, and fall into bed. They had to find wood, boil water, set up camp, tend to animals, and … well let’s just say I didn’t feel like I had any room to complain!
We find more conical hills and these are definitely the ones the Battalion saw so it was pretty exciting. I looked up from my bike ride and boom! There they were big as life – much more impressive than the ones we found in Pueblo. Kevin will tell you about those but I wanted to share two beautiful flowers that we found at the base of the hills. I was able to record Kevin talking about the hills, but the video has a lot of wind noise even though we used the sound muffler and tried four times. The wind out here is incredible!
Yesterday, (Tues) we found a library and charged up our electronics, did some research for the trail up ahead, and I was able to post two videos to our YouTube Channel (Battalion Trek) I put them in a playlist named Trek 2025 for those of you who want to watch them. I have two more but our wi-fi hotspot is a dismal frustration so those may be farther and fewer between than I had hoped. I guess we should have sprung for Star Link for a few moths and saved ourselves a lot of grief. We’d intended to get a generator in May but now we’re thinking – third day without power, it may have been a good thing to get one of those earlier. All the things you learn as you’re on the trail. We aren’t suffering however. Just having to adjust and make do.
It was a wonderful day on the trail. We biked about 23 miles and every inch of it was gorgeous. I will say I did feel as if I was going uphill the whole way even though it was very gradual. When we walked in Kansas I was surprised to learn at the end that I had actually been walking uphill the whole month. But… Kansas doesn’t have hills like Colorado.
