Indigo Ride

Riding Day 55    July 27&28 San Angelo, TX To Austin and Houston, TX Ride Mileage :  395        Weather condition: Texas heat Total Trip Mileage :  11,147 miles  Not the most pleasant ride of this journey for sure! I just tried to make it as short as possible. I had a great day in Austin as I arrived early enough to have lunch and a great dinner with long time friends. Around Horseshoe Bay - Colorado river  Somewhere after Brady

Riding Day 53    July 26 Muleshoe, TX to San Angelo, TX Ride Mileage :  260        Weather condition: hot with gusty wind  Total Mileage :  10,752 Well I’m glad today’s ride is over! I left Muleshoe early because I knew it was going to be painful. I rode as much as I could in the morning and went straight to Big Spring. The road to get there hasn’t much to offer, for miles and miles it’s mostly cotton fields and feed lots, the smell could get pretty intense, I guess you can call that an immersive experience into the agricultural landscape…for free! As you get closer to Big Spring (and Midland area), you notice a lot of oil & gas activity with hundreds of pump jacks everywhere, some working and some not. The feed lots smell got replaced by this much more subtle odor of gas, which as a retiree from the oil & gas business had my clear preference. This area is also active in wind farming but not as much as Sweetwater and Snyder where you ...

Riding Day 52    July 25 Taos, NM to Muleshoe, TX Ride Mileage :  291        Weather condition: perfect morning then hot  Total Mileage :  10,492 I think I forgot a bit over the last two months how hot it can be in Texas and today I just got a friendly reminder.  I left Taos around 8am, temperature was just perfect for a morning ride on this  beautiful 518 road to Las Vegas, NM. Around 11am, no more mountains around just a flat desert and hot wind. Not fun to ride with all these heavy duty  gears but I really wanted to sleep in Texas tonight. I stopped about 30 miles after entering Texas in a little town called Muleshoe. 

Riding Day 51    July 24 Buffalo springs campground, CO to Taos, NM Ride Mileage :  205        Weather condition: fair with shower late afternoon  Total Mileage :  10,201 It took a bit longer to pack this morning because of the rain during the night but that was not too bad. Wet gears will dry up during the ride… Overall it was not a super exciting ride, a lot of long flat roads…until I got  close to Taos where I was welcome by one of these afternoon thunderstorm. I stopped at the first lodge in town before getting soaked, sometimes you can’t be picky, but the place is actually not too bad. My real challenge for the day is to find a good restaurant, last night was quite pitiful as I missed the last grocery store on my way to the campground… Mission accomplished, I went to Doc Martin’s restaurant and had a great dinner, not to mention a couple of awesome margaritas!! Cheers         

Riding Day 50    July 23 Silverthorne, CO to Buffalo springs campground, CO Ride Mileage :  93         Weather condition: fair with shower late afternoon  Total Mileage :  9996 It was a fairly short ride today, not because I didn’t want to ride more south but simply because it’s Saturday and it’s very difficult to find lodging. I booked this campground a week ago and there was only one spot available. I have also tried the first come first serve occasionally without much success.   Anyway today was good ride, not super scenic, with pretty heavy traffic in Breckenridge but the Hoosier pass at 11,539ft is pretty cool. I stopped in Alma, the highest town in North America (10,500ft), for breakfast and had a good chat with the owner of the food truck.  I took a 20 miles gravel road in the countryside, not bad and quiet. I arrived pretty early at the Buffalo Springs campground, but just in time to setup my tent before a short thunderstorm...

Riding Day 49    July 22 Meeker, CO to Silverthorne, CO Ride Mileage :  203         Weather condition: cool morning, hot afternoon  Total Mileage :  9893 Since I had a pretty bad dinner the day before, I spent a bit of time at locating a decent restaurant in Meeker for the night. I went to this Italian restaurant not far from the lodge with great expectations. Well the restaurant was open but it was To Go only…I wonder if I’m going to have a normal dinner before getting back to Houston. So far since the beginning of this trip I barely had decent food!! As far as  riding today, nothing really fancy as I stayed on paved road. Stopped by Kremmling for late breakfast, Steamboat was nice but too crowded and heavy traffic. Then I went around the Heeney reservoir and headed to Silverthorne where I had a night booked at the Peak One campground. Steamboat area Video of the day 

Riding Day 48    July 21 Dutch John, UT to Meeker, CO Ride Mileage :  153         Weather condition: warm morning, hot afternoon  Total Mileage :  9690 I left Dutch John  around 9am this morning as it was going to be hot again. I didn’t have anything booked for the the coming night so it’s always good to arrive early. I wanted to go to the dinosaur national monument on my way to meeker but was quickly discouraged by the heat. Overall it was a nice ride and I managed to find a room pretty quickly at the Trailhead cabins and lodge.  Tomorrow I’ll be camping near Silverthorne. The weather forecast is not great and I may get a thunderstorm late afternoon, quite typical in Colorado. Nice little cafe in Rangely and good breakfast. There is always interesting rock formations on the way