Telluride, Colorado - Mountain Country!!

It's hard to sum up the last week - every day feels like about 6 weeks, and I have trouble remembering the details of the previous day, even down to where we slept last night. Today it's easy, because we have a rest day here in Telluride, so it's still Telluride :)

Southern Utah was so much more than I'd ever expected. The awe-inspiring red canyons made us feel like we could cycle forever. Well, almost forever, anyway. We had an amazing time in the town of Boulder, Utah, where we all got to go home with families for our first "homestay experience". Jim, Megan, Alyssa, & I stayed with Mike Nelson, one of the park rangers from the Anasazi Museum. We got to ride his Arabian mare, rode in the back of his truck to see the incredible house he's been building for the last year, and had a really enjoyable time hanging out with him, appreciating sitting on couches instead of our bike seats. When his wife Laura and 3 year old son Zach got back from visiting family in Salt Lake City later that evening, we got a kick out of having Zach show off for us, racing around the house pantless with his new light saber. I even got to help give him his bath. It was really nice to break away from whole group for a little while to get to know some members of a community. Particularly Boulder- all the people we met were incredible!

There's so much to say about Utah beauty, but I'll leave it for the pictures. 2 or 3 days ago we finally made it to Colorado, after the most frigid headwind EVER leaving Blanding, UT. I wanted to cry, it was so miserably cold. But, we made it after all, and were warmly welcomed to the quaint town of Dolores, CO (pop. ~700) by Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church, who put on a marvelous pasta dinner for us. And, I might guiltily add that we double-dipped that evening; a friend of one of the other riders invited us to the Dolores Brewery for oven-fired pizza and and open beer tab. That was also mighty enjoyable.

The next morning (yesterday, Weds. 4-19) we saddled up for the 65 mile uphill battle into the Rockies to the ski resort town of Telluride. It wasn't as steep as we expected - in fact it was a pretty do-able grade such that we barely even noticed we were going up as we wound alongside the Dolores river. Only the increasing amount of snowfall on the roadside and the difficult breathing at altitude tipped us off to the climb. We summitted Lizard Head Pass at 10,222 feet - our highest yet. But not for long... in a couple of days we'll be going over Monarch Pass, which I think is about 11,300. Whew.

Telluride is a fun mountain town and its liberal inhabitants stand in stark contrast to some of the communities we stayed in through Utah. We were on the front page of the daily paper here, as well as on the radio, and there have been several lectures today - some of our riders talked to local middle schoolers about HIV/AIDS, while this evening Karen and Thomas are giving the Global Health 101 lecture here at the public library.

This is such a fun way to see the country. If you haven't checked out our video blogs yet, you should, if for no other reason than to get a feel for the stunning landscape of Utah.

Much love,
Libby

Photos from Nevada

Erin Maynard and I are ecstatic to be done with this 3000 foot climb!

Pony Express gas? We WERE on the original PE route, but my fuel for the night was a veggie burger. Mmmm.

Sunset over Middlegate Station.

Katie & I waiting at another R4WH roadside cafe :)

I left my heart with this cowboy at the Old Middlegate Station in Nevada...

Ahoy from Cedar City, Utah

They call Highway 50 the "Loneliest Road in America". It's true, and it was awesome to bike with barely any traffic - probably about 10 or 15 cars all day! Nevada is much more mountainous than I ever realized, and while we were in the state we had between 2 and 4 climbs each day. By climbs, I mean mountain passes - the kind where you get to the top and there's a green summit sign featuring the elevation. As a biker, I've never been so relieved to see green :) It's hard to believe that we started out at sea level in San Fran and we've been going over passes with up to 7700 feet in elevation. I think the biggest climb we've had so far was about 3000 feet in 20 miles. That qualified as Category I for the Tour de France, which is the toughest category besides the "hors", which is just insane. It's really empowering to get to the top of a 10 mile uphill and realize you've accomplish something most people would write off as impossible.

Better yet are the sweeping descents that usually follow the climbs. On the stretch from Eureka to Baker a few days ago, I actually started crying while flying down a mountain at about 40 mph, greeted by a huge open valley and another range of mountains ahead. It was breathtaking, and my favorite day of riding thus far, in part because once we got into the valley, we had an incredible tailwind that kept us pumping along. After another challenging climb following lunch, we went to the Great Basin National Park for a tour of the Lehman caves, which was way cooler than I anticipated. The stalactites and stalagmites where incredible and we had fun clowning around in the back-lit passages.

Once we got settled in Baker, population ~300, the town had a potluck for us at the town hall where we were sleeping (as usual, on our thermarests and sleeping bags - it's funny how you adapt so quickly to this lifestyle). My friend Mark (med student from Kansas) and I were sitting with these 2 elderly sisters who've been part of the community for quite a while and they were a kick in the pants to chat with. The homemade food was a huge bonus, too :) Andrew Suchocki presented our Global Health 101 lecture (I gave the same one last week to a high school in Fallon)

After dinner, some of us split off with different members of the community: some folks went to shower and have homebrew with Loren, our awesome park service ranger who led the cave tour. I had the incredible fortune of walking with 4 of the guys to check out the home of a woman named Laurie Crookshank. I knew Laurie seemed interesting from the moment she walked into the town hall because she looked like the mountaineering type: beanie, hiking pants and boots, and fleece jacket. In contrast to the flannel and viking-horn hats of some of the other community members (I'm not kidding), she stuck out. Turns out Laurie built herself an underground adobe house with a Hogan roof adapted from the Native Americans - with her own two hands. From the wood beams of the ceiling, hand cut and dragged down from the mountain, to the composting toilet set in her plastered floor, to the carefully placed abalone shells that acted as candlelight-reflecting wall sconces, every inch of her house was created with the utmost intention of simplicity and self-sustainability. The 5 of us riders sat crosslegged in her round one-room abode, listening to her tell of how she came to live in Baker as the moonlight filtered in through the salvaged french doors and gently illuminated the white-washed adobe floor. Eventually she pulled out her handmade didgeridoo (of pvc and epoxy putty), and got us practicing on that while she picked some incredible tunes on her 10-string (12-string minus 2 broken) guitar and I played the little bongo she had. Laurie said to us, "here's an easy song you can sing as you're going over the mountains", and lifted her melodic voice with the lyrics "This too shall pass..."
What an incredible night.

Then next day (Monday) was my group's day to run support, so my legs got a break from climbing and I helped with cooking and sag wagon all day. We made the transition into Utah about 7 miles out of Baker, and after the riders tackled two horrendous climbs, we set up camp at the top of Frisco Pass near an old mining ghost town. Paul made incredible vegetarian fajitas and we all huddled in a tight pack to keep us warm from the wind ravaging the mountaintop. There we stood under the tarp we'd strung between the roof racks of the 2 vans, listening to Deathcab for Cutie and making jokes over a couple beers in our little penguin huddle. I haven't laughed so hard and so non-stop for so long, and we all had aching bellies. Deirdre and I shared a tent and shared her headphones as we drifted off to sleep in our cozy REI Halfdome.

The next morning (yesterday), Thomas woke us up at daybreak honking the van horn and we reluctantly crawled out from the warmth of our tents, slipped into frigid spandex and biked down the mountain. It was a quick descent into the little town of Milford, where we broke out of our usual routine by stopping for a cooked breakfast at a cute little 50's style diner. I must say, there are some impressive appetites on this trip :) The rest of the day was probably the most grueling and unpleasant we've had since the torrential downpours of California, because despite the lovely scenery of Utah, we faced the most atrocious headwind thus far. It was unrelenting as we climbed a 10 mile pass, and even once we got over the hump, it kept beating us back for the remainder of the day, which was short in mileage (65) but took forevvvvvvvvver. Once we finally got all cleaned up here in Cedar City, we hit the town for some tasty Mexican food and karaoke. More laughing, more bellyaches, and more getting to know these fine people. I feel so blessed to be having this adventure and already am dreading re-entry into the normalcy of life. I'm actually thinking of just spending the rest of my life travelling around on a bike... once I figure out how to beat saddlesores, that is ;)

Today is our rest day so I'm at the Southern Utah University library getting a sense of what's been going on in the rest of the world and updating this. Mark's giving a lecture on access to healthcare in the Student Union Bldg in about 5 minutes, so I'm off to support him for that, but thanks for all the continued support. I'm safe and healthy and having an incredible time. Much love hasta la proxima...

Achieving goals

I realize I just posted a blog about 2 minutes ago - I had to cut it off because the library does things in 30 minute stints, but I wanted to mention a couple things about dreaming. A year ago, I never imagined I'd be biking across the country with a bunch of charged, passionate, outdoorsy people. 6 months ago, after I'd been selected as one of the riders, I thought to myself that I'd like to raise DOUBLE the amount required of every rider;$5000 rather than $2500. The thing about setting goals that limits us is fear of failure. I felt like it'd be embarrassing or disappointing in some way if I made clear to everyone that 5000 bucks was my goal and then fell short, so it's something I've kept inside. But yesterday changed my mind. Climbing up the mountains was the most stress I've put on my body in a long time. At times it was so difficult to get my legs to respond and to do what I needed them to that I worried I'd just tip off the road into the raging flooded river beside it. Nevertheless, the higher I climbed, the more badly I wanted the finish.

I feel the same way about raising money for Partners in Health. They are acheiving what countless experts have disregarded as impossible: providing the highest quality of medical care we can to those who most need it. $5000 seemed impossible to me in January, but our Finance Chair updated me yesterday with the great news that over $4000 have now come in. So I'm going public: $5000. We can do this. Game on.

DAY TWO: from Sacramento to Carson City

I'm at the Carson City public library right now using the web, but unfortunately they won't let me put any of my photos onto the computer, so that'll have to wait for Cedar City, UT. Here are some highlights of Day 2:
- getting a police escort through downtown Sacramento to help us find the American River Trail
- getting on the trail, only to find that a section of it was flooded due to the record rainfall in CA this month, then FORGING the flooded part by carrying our bikes through the water, which came up to my knees. We all had water squishing in our cycling shoes the rest of the day, which really didn't matter since it rained all day
- saw a deer, some wild turkeys, and roadkilled skunk
- the most challenging athletic endeavor probably thus far in my life: the first 30 miles of our day to rest stop #1 were more or less flat and traffic-less bike trail. The next 25 were climbing 1000 feet elevation up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Any CITs reading this? Remember the infamous "4 mile hill" and "Big Bertha" from our bike trip? I'd have to say 25 miles of mostly climbing was slightly more challenging :) Several people, chilled and tired, opted for the sag wagon, but finishing that difficult leg was something I really wanted to do and with the awesome encouragement of the support team tailing me, I finally made it to our "lunch" stop at 5 pm. After 4 hours of climbing in the pouring rain, hot tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches have never been more satisfying :)
- We had to forego the last part of our route for the day due to time constraints and inclement weather - namely, a huge snowstorm in the Sierras that forced us to chain up the vans going over the passes near Lake Tahoe. Things are great, and I'll write again soon!

DAY ONE - Sacramento, CA - YWCA women's shelter.

DAY ONE. I can't believe we're finally off, but we are! After several days of preparation at Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, this morning we got up at 4 am (3 am with daylight savings - gross!), loaded our bikes onto the roof racks of our rental vans, and headed to a park just at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge to start this voyage from with our rear tires dipped in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. NBC news for the SF Bay Area showed up to do a live feed, so hopefully thousands of people in the area remembered the time change far enough in advance to be up and about for the morning news ... but it was only 7 am, and a Sunday, no less, so who knows?


Today's route was originally supposed to be 100 miles, or a "century" as cyclists call it, but in order to meet up with a group of high schoolers who had put together their own Ride for World Health here in Sacramento, and also to avoid being pancaked on the narrow-shouldered bridges linking San Fran to the East Bay area, we put in a short 10 mile stretch across the Golden Gate Bridge and down along the coast of Sausalito, then loaded up and drove over to Davis so we'd still get some riding in before Sac-town. One of the hilarious and notable moments of the day was that only a mile or so into our route from Davis, our bike trail linked with another being used for a triathlon on the Davis campus, and we confused their orange route arrows for our own (also orange). Pretty soon we found ourselves approaching a group of people lining the bike trail, blasting music, clapping, and facing... the other direction. Yep, we were on the tri course headed the wrong way. Luckily, we didn't take out any of the bikers or runners and eventually got re-oriented.

When we finally got to Old Sacramento (battling a pretty fierce headwind the whole way), we met up with the high schoolers and rode back about 17 mile with them to their high school, where we talked to them about Partners in Health. They'd arranged a potluck for us and it was quite enjoyable. I met the coolest high school junior and it reminded me how incredible kids are and how much we ALL need mentors.

This group has awesome dynamics, and maybe I'll backtrack at some point to talk about the first couple days, but suffice it to say that everyone on the team has a stellar outlook and a huge heart, and I feel absolutely euphoric about the whole situation, even though we're running on low sleep and working pretty hard. The weather's supposed to be awful tomorrow (California's getting record precipitation), and we have a 4,000 foot climb in the last 20 miles of our route, which should be fun times. Several feet of SNOW are predicted for Tuesday, so we're trying to beat the storm by driving to our next destination, Carson City, Nevada after we finish riding tomorrow. Thus we technically will have had some discontinuity in our cross-country trek, but admittedly, the biking is more of a gimmick to get people to pay us some attention so we can spread the word about global health issues and really get some good dialogue going about what we all can do. I have to be up in another 6 or 7 hours, so I'm off to finally get in a shower and sleep! I'll hopefully have a chance to get some photos downloaded when we get to Carson City. Thanks for all your support! Much love from the "Sunshine State".