Day 26 (September 9): Colorado Prairie

Our day began, once again, in sub-50 degree mist-rain and high winds. Mark really deserves a lot of credit for riding with me this morning. After 25 miles, and many declarations that the weather forecast of 79 and sunny could not possibly be true, the sky cleared, and we got our first sunshine since last Thursday. Nearly simultaneously, the landscape began puckering a little more, and the ground was speckled with sagebrush instead of crops. And the road began curving around the little hills. A dramatic change from Kansas! (These photos are later in the day, when it flattened out again for a bit). Mark rode 40 miles with me before taking precautions for his Achilles tendon. I finished 44 more through beautiful terrain, with very few human sightings, a couple of rude-ish tractor trailers, plenty of birds and one angry groundhog. This morning, I really wondered how I would ride very far in the cold, wet wind, and I never would have believed that the day would turn out this lovely.