August 6

Today I took a vacation from Pac Tour. I've mentioned before about the 'tyranny of the schedule,' starting early every morning, getting in. cleaning up, eating, getting ready for the next day and then dropping off at 9. So this day, we didn't leave until 9am, a real luxury, so I got up at my usual time, walked a block to the coffe house, had a couple of double espressos over an hour and typed my blog of yesterday's ride, Then I went back to the hotel we were actually served a real breakfast, omlettes, pancakes, etc. Yum. Finally, I walked across the street to the library, sat on the steps, and used their wifi to post my blog and read the opinion page of the New York Times.

The ride was only 50 miles so I stayed on the same theme, riding very slowly and easily down route 40. Whenever my heart rate hit 100, I'd back off, and so I expended very little effort. I rode right past the first sag, as I didn't need anything, and continued my slow and steady pace toward Rangely. I also rode past the second sag, having this fantasy that Dinosaur, Colorado, would have soem tourist facilities; I and had visions of a nice bakery dancing I’m my head--alas, it was not to be, so I returned to the sag, had a snack, then rode the last 15 miles into Rangley on route 64, which I felt was the most dangerous stretch of road we'd been on (most did not agree with me, BTW). There was no shoulder and big trucks, including trucks that I'd never seen before. Thankfully, this was a fairly short stretch of the road, and then it widened out. The last few miles were mostly downhill, and I violated my easy rule when the Lon train went roaring by, and I jumped on the back for the last few miles into town. Lunch was in a City Park, and we had to kiill a bunch of time before the motel was ready for us. I played guitar for a while, cleaned my bike, then went inside and got cleaned up. I also took a vacation from blog writing. Joel and I didn't trust any of the three restaurants in town, so we bought some prepared food at the grocery store, which was pretty good, and salt at a table in the pool area and had our dinner. This also broke the routine.Then, of course, it was back to the schedule, getting ready for tomorrow, which was to be our first taste of the Colorado Mountains.