Even though Utah had its fair share of wild personalities and chaotic bike rides through ski towns, I felt relieved to finally make it to the Colorado border.
100 miles on highway 40, the scariest road I’ve ever biked on, just for this moment. Totally worth it. Oh, and the sign didn’t lie. Colorado is to Utah/Nevada as HD is to silent films.
Just knowing that I made it past the heat waves, desert roads, and barren landscapes of Nevada and Utah gave me a good feeling. That, coupled with the anticipation of the most intense climbs in the most thin oxygen, made me pretty freakin’ psyched at the time that Amanda snapped that picture of me.
That night, we camped in the Dinosaur National Monument in Dinosaur, Colorado (so called because of the dino quarry that lies between it and Vernal, Utah). I drank far too much water before bed and, groggy and stiff, woke up at 4:00am to go to the bathroom. We had set up camp miles from any big city or town and, as I answered nature’s call, I looked up to see the milky way and hundreds of thousands of stars twinkling in the sky. It was the clearest night sky that I had ever seen, and if I had more time I would try to write my mental image from that night in such a way that you could see it to. The next morning, I watched the sunrise over our campsite wrapped in my favorite fleece. It was cool.
Sunrise over a mesa in Dinosaur National Monument in Dinosaur, Colorado.
We made our way through mining country the next day on our way to Meeker, Colorado. It was a pretty short and uneventful day through one of the least visited parts of CO.
I’m not sure how many coal miners in Colorado actually feel this way about Obama, but it was one of the few exciting things that I found on my way from Dinosaur to Meeker.
After we ate our fill of rice and beans at our campsite in Meeker, we watched the sunset from the top of red sandstone rim rocks with an ecology bro from Oklahoma State University. According to him, Meeker is home to the largest number of Americans living under the Witness Protection Program. 90% chance that he made that up, but it didn’t make me want to spend too much time there.
The valley town of Meeker, the sunset, and Dana’s luscious locks.
With few people to talk to and lots of camping, our days in Dinosaur and Meeker didn’t lead to any of the swash-buckling adventures or scintillating bicycle rides that I’m sure that you, dearest reader, have come to expect. Fear not! Tales of the bougiest manses, suavest hosts, and summer shenanigans await in Glenwood Springs, Vail, and last, but surely not least, Silverthorne! A new blogpost awaits you in the coming days!
4000 Miles 