Trinidad to 3/4 of a mile from Kansas!

GREETINGS!

   What a time we have had on these past two days! We've just been encountering the nicest of people along the way!

   We all woke up a bit warm in our Co-op in Trinidad, but none the less it was a place to stay (a great one at that, thanks again Trinidad Community Co-op). After our daily yoga stretches we were all feeling sprite about the ride ahead of us to Kim, Colorado! 

   Just before leaving for the morning, Ed stopped by with some great news, LITERALLY! He stopped in to say his good byes and grab his keys when he broke the NEWS to us. We were in the paper! The Chronicle News of Trinidad, thanks to our friend we met the day before, had run our story! Complete with a picture of us and our blog as well (even though it was .blogspoRt. emphasis with the capital r... we hope Google knows well enough to just auto-correct it). So we thanked Ed for allowing us to snatch up our media and started off from Trinidad with a smile the size of a watermelon!

   The ride from Trinidad to Kim with our bikes at full load was a pretty intense day... This day nearly brought tears to my eyes from laughter and from beauty. We were about 10 miles out of Trinidad when we rolled up on a lone Prong-horn deer in the grassy field next to the road. Nate, being the muscle, turns to the deer and shouts, "Come on! Wanna race?!?!". BANG! OFF TO THE RACES!!! Right after Nate shouts at the deer, he jumps up and just guns it! Naturally, Nate being feisty got right on his high horse to race the deer down! From behind the race was neck and neck, neither of them loosing or gaining on the other, almost as if they were both just picking up speed with the wind at their backs! It's a solid downhill with an slow uphill right after, Nate sought the uphill as to gain the advantage. Speeding forward with his legs bursting buildings apart all the way in Rio De Janiro, he fought for and won the lead on the uphill! The deer however was not slowing so Nate had to keep a pushin' her! 

   The deer had finally admitted defeat.... Matt and I were shouting for America the Beautiful to have just won 1/2 mile race against a deer! Except, all of a sudden, the deer launches from haunches for a second wind! Nate nearly at the top of the hill, already exhausted, thrusts it into whatever gear comes after infinity! 5 seconds later, the deer slows to complete stop and with a last ditch effort yells out to Nate, "YOUR THE BIGGER MAN!"

   It is official, Nate has found his spirit animal, the Prong-Horned deer! He will forever be Nate the Wrangler, America the Beautiful, and the Muscle in our eyes!

   Shortly after our Nate becoming and unsung hero in our eyes, the most beautiful scene occurred. Every once and awhile we get to stroll on past a few horses. Yesterday was one of those days, except yesterday could have been for a documentary of why America is amazing. The horses, about 9 of them in all, including the little colt, just started galloping along with us, following their captive fence along the road. All of us had our heads turned as we cruised at 15 or so miles per hour watching the horses. With the grasslands stretching in the background, and the sun still glaring its beautiful morning light, the scene was a painted picture off of the past of America. I was nearly brimming with tears and its safe to say the others were as well. This scene will stay with us forever as something that is true to our hearts and if witnessed by all Americans, would be true to theirs as well.

   Whew, all that touchy, feely stuff... The road continued with rolling hills all the way to Kim. Our bodies were tired and the sun was HOT! We rolled into Kim around 1:30 in the afternoon and went straight to the burger place we were recommended to by our mid day water savior. We struggled in, tired and feeling beaten by our 70 mile ride, and asked for where the water was because we were nearly run dry at that point. We all filled up and since our ride was hard on the bodies, we all ordered food too! Nate got a Philly cheese steak with 3 eggs scrambled in it! Matt and I got the cowboys breakfast, hash browns, eggs, 2 meats, 2 cheese, and 4 slices of toast! UUUUUHHHHH DELICIOUS! How perfect after our ride! And as a prologue to that statement, to everyone there, we were dead tired so sorry if we talked quiet and slow, or confused, or sometimes not at all... 

   The kind citizens of Kim then told us where we could find the preacher of the church to ask if we could possibly stay there. After a walk across the street to the preacher and a go ahead on the church basement (the coolest place in town, not like "I'M SO COOL", but like "Ohhh ahhhh, it's just so cool in here") we then crossed back past our eatery to the next building over in the other direction... the church. (Do you get where I'm coming from... Kim is very, very small). We found our way into the basement and sure enough, COOL, COOL FREEDOM! 

   After our 3 hour nap session in the church basement merely minutes after our arrival inside, it was time for dinner. Set with some tea, tuna was great for Nate and I, while Matt enjoyed a nice PB&J. Then after probably an hour and a half at the most, sleep was inevitable right after a quick look at the sun setting over the plains. 

   The next morning was an early one, as we had learned our lesson from the day before to try and beat the heat. We awoke at 4:15 and actually started moving at 4:45. We knew it was going to be a long day with a scheduled 68 miles, mostly downhill. Our morning was dark, cool and fantastic. There really is nothing like sleeping in a basement while it is over 100 degrees outside.

     We had a hearty breakfast of trail mix, oranges, chocolate and coffee. I (Matt) enjoyed a second cup of coffee with half a Hershey bar in it. It was quite delicious. We got all sunscreened up and threw everything on our bikes and lugged them out of the basement and out of the church onto hundreds of bugs that had gathered outside of the church door. Don't worry they were slow and mostly dead so they posed no threat to our chiseled legs. 

     We started biking at 6:01, one minute behind schedule. The morning was cool and crisp and the sunrise was just peeking over the seeming-less endless horizon. Our biking day was wonderful and basically all we could ask for. The wind was at our back and we all felt great as we were crushing out miles like breadcrumbs for a pie. (Simile for all yall readers) Sidenote: While typing just now I walked outside and it was very windy and for the first time in over a month.........   I FELT RAIN!!!!!! Anywho, like I was saying the ride was great and we cruised from Kim to Walsch, a total of 68 miles in just over 4 hours. We arrived in  Walsch at 10:20am just in time to beat the heat. Mission Accomplished! 

      We sat down at Ben's Cafe and pounded some water. Nate got a pretty good looking chicken sandwich and Joey got a pretty weak grilled cheese. One piece of cheese between two pieces of wonder bread. While at the cafe a wonderful man named Steve Doner walked in the front door. He had seen our bikes outside of the cafe and came in to see what we were doing in town. We told him our story and why we were biking across the country and that we were looking for a place to stay. He said that he would love to have us stay at his straw and adobe house that he had built. We instantly said yes and he told us it was about 14 miles out of town, but 14 miles on our route. So we went to the grocery store and looked around before we started out for the end of our day to Steve's house. Too bad the wind had shifted and now was a headwind instead of a tailwind. With ease we busted the last 14 miles to Steve's road and waited for him to come get us because the last 3 miles to his house was on a dirt road. A little over 15 minutes later Steve was there with his truck and we threw our bikes in the back and drove to his super duper sweet house which I will describe.                                   

    The house is built out of hay bales that are covered with adobe mud and finished with colored clay. The house was initially just adobe but then he added on a few more rooms and built them using the hay bale adobe technique. This is a really cool way to build a house and it is also sustainable . 80% of the worlds population lives in mud houses. Only us few developed countries don't. 

   We want to give a huge thank you to Steve and Jan Doner for letting us stay in their lovely home and use their shower, kitchen, basement, living room and basement. Also for letting us play with their dogs Mattie and Koshi. Currently the storm just blew through and it looks like they got about 10 drops of rain and a bunch more dirt blown in. 

    For the second night in a row we will be staying in a nice cool basement. Tomorrow we are taking a nice 44 mile day to Ullysess and we will be saying goodbye to Colorado which has been so nice to us for the past  ten days. We will truly miss you. 

   Don't forget to tell everyone you know, especially all those people you haven't told. And as always tell Nick Wustruck to donate to the arthritis foundation. 

DONATE HERE

http://jointsinmotion2012.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1002344&lis=1&kntae1002344=0147288286B748DB9E48255837762E52&supId=355267381

 Epic days on the plains

 just wicked

Flying them colors

AMERICA

Hmm.... resembles our business cards