Day one for me was all about getting to Ridgway and getting my dogs safely housed at the Que Sera Sled Dog Ranch. I opted to head through the San Louis Valley, over to Gunnison and down into Montrose Colorado. The route is a pleasant drive that seems to spend most of the time heading in directions you don't ultimately want to go.
Somewhere around Alamosa the sky started to darken and the western monsoons looked like they might start firing off rain, hail and lightening. Given how little rain this region has seen in the past year, the storm was a welcome sight.
After what started as a slow drizzle, the rain increased. Lightening flashed in the distance andan occasional strike was close enough to the car to generate a good booming sound inside the car. From Gunnison onward it got tricky. The rain started to pour. My bike was getting soaked and the dogs were getting a bit nervous. They are not fans of thunder.
It wasn't till somewhere in the middle of nowhere that it got a little interesting for me. The semi that was ahead of me came to a quick stop angled somewhat across the road. To my right, I saw rushing brown water flowing off the hillside and onto to highway. Dirt and rocks from the size of a softball to the size of a basketball were strewn across the roadway and flowing off the downhill side. Somehow, we all waited a few minutes and the flood passed. Someone got out of his car and moved some of the larger rocks and we picked out way through and around what was left after the flood. Another mile or so and another rock field appeared along with a few flooded sections.
This morning, 2 of my teammates and I left Ridgway for Iowa. This is the "you cannot get there from here" moment. From any point in Colorado, Iowa is east but from Ridgway, the only practical way to head to Iowa is to drive west until you are just miles from the Utah border. Only then can you hop on a major highway and finally head west.
The drive was long and Leroy the camper van prefers to run at a slow but steady 62 mph.
That gave us a chance to watch all the other RAGBRAI folks cruise by us with all kinds of bikes. A tiny car with 5 super high end bikes, a pick up truck with a touring bike with butterfly bars and a MiniCooper from Flagstaff with a couple bikes on the roof and a sign in the window,"From Flagstaff AZ to RAGBRAI or Bust."
What a beautiful trip west it is! From Grand Junction to Denver over and through the Rockies, across the continental divide and onward out onto the Great Plains!
That's the RAGBRAI adventure ... day one! We have a comfy hotel and about 5 more hours to drive tomorrow.
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