Colorful Colorado!

At the visitor center of Monticello (where we did our last blog update), when we were leaving, we saw that there was a sign with pictures of about 30 people. These were pictures of people who all had leukemia, and they believe that there's a cancer cluster caused by pesticides in the area.

When we left Monticello at 12, we saw rain clouds ahead and behind us. (Afternoon showers seem to be the norm around here). We left, and enjoyed the sandwich between thunderstorms for a little bit. After 17 miles, we finally reached our next state, Colorado! We had a quick lunch next to the sign (you can actually see the approaching rain clouds coming from behind in this picture).

As we went into Colorado, it started raining on us, so we put on our plastic ponchos for a little relief. Luckily, there was a gas station about 12 miles into colorado.


We ended up staying in Dolores, which is a pretty trendy town. We had dinner outside of a grocery store, and across the street we heard some life music at a cafe. That night, we camped at the park, and were surprised to have the sprinklers go off at 1 AM. We had to get up and move our stuff (which was already pretty soaked).


DOLORES TO TELLURIDE

From Dolores, we climbed up a 50 mile hill (that's not an exaggeration) that climbed an altitude of 3,000 feet. It wasn't a steep hill; it just kept on going, but we eventually made it to the top. There were some pretty neat ranches as we climbed.



The road followed the path of the Dolores River, which looked gorgeous in the rising sun.


We're almost in Telluride!!!


We finally made it to Telluride, which is a bourgeois-hippie ski town (former gold-rush town) full of coffee shops and restaurants, surrounded by mountains on three sides. They had a bike shop, where we stocked up on chamois cream and had our bikes tuned up. For our first night, the Aspen Inn donated a room to us, and the room had a queen-sized bed and a king-sized bed. We want to thank Heather White and her husband Bruce for helping us out. The rooms were so comfortable, and we got some much needed rest.


REST DAY IN TELLURIDE
Considering our aching knees, we decided to take a rest day in Telluride. After we thanked the Aspen Inn for donating a room, we decided to ride the gondolas over the mountains.


After our scenic view of Telluride, we got another hotel donated for our rest night! The Ice House had very comfortable beds. We had dinner at Smuggler's Brewery (which is the only brewery in Telluride, by the way), and then went to The Sweet Life to have some ice cream and fried Oreos.

On a side note, we constantly discuss how our cholesterol would be affected by this trip. On one hand, we're exercising a ridiculous amount, so that should help lower our bad cholesterol and raise our good. On the other, we're also eating ridiculously horrible food like fried Oreos, so it might go up.



BYE-BYE, TELLURIDE!
We were reluctant to leave the enjoyable ski town (everyone there seemed so happy!). Before we left, we checked out the real estate in town, and the prices for houses averaged around 2 million dollars per house. So I'll probably never be able to live there, but I'd love to visit, especially during the winter.

On the way out of Telluride, we had a nice 16 mile downhill to Placerville.


Then we climbed up a 12 mile hill to the Dallas Divide. Here's a picture from the top.


From the Dallas Divide, we went down to Montrose, which is the first commercialized haven that we've reached in a while. There's a Target, Wal-mart, and McDonald's, so we're enjoying the fruits of American capitalism while we still can.


We still have another 26 miles to go before resting tonight in Cimarron. Wish us luck!