No more mountains?

When we arrived at Valley View Hot Springs, Loreen made us a delicious stir-fry (with vegetables (?!) which we haven't eaten in a long time). We went to the hot springs late a night, and Alex, who went to a tiny school in Waterbury, CT, coincidentally met a woman who also graduated from that school.

The hot springs were so removed from the light pollution of civilization that you could look into the sky and see the streak of the Milky Way. Pretty awesome.

The next morning, we weren't exactly excited leave the hot springs, so we spent most of the day there. There was a dirt road for about 7 miles getting out of the place (which is impossible to bike on with our tour bikes), so Arturo's friend Alexa helped shuttle them down to the paved road.

We started towards the Great Sand Dunes National Park. We were in a valley surrounded by mountains.




We also passed by signs for the Colorado Reptile Park. However, since we left late from the hot springs, we weren't able to go. People informed us that there are tilapia farms in the area, and to dispose of the extra fish parts, they started growing crocodiles to eat them. Eventually, this endeavour became the Reptile Park.



Everything in this part of Colorado is so "crunchy." For those of you who haven't heard of this term before (only 50% of the Coast to Coast riders this year have), crunchy refers to upper-middle class people who enjoy alternative lifestyles. The root of crunchy actually comes from a description of granola.

We came across a solar panel farm, which I think fits the crunchy atmosphere.



We set up tents at Oasis Campgrounds, which is about 3 miles down the road from the Sand Dunes.




Sunset from our camp site.

Arturo went to the University of Colorado, and lived in Colorado for quite a bit, so quite a few of his friends came to visit us at the Sand Dunes. Andy and Julie came with baby Remy (pictured below), and they made us a delicious salad (once again, we're having vegetables!) for dinner. At the dunes, we met up with Susan and Justin.

We loved playing with Remy, and we wanted to take us with him, but I don't think his mother would have appreciated it.

The sand dunes are a pretty cool experience. There are these massive sand piles on the west side of these mountains. These are the biggest sand dunes in North America (about 700 feet tall). We took a rest day at Oasis and explored the area.

The dunes at sunset.

We left Oasis early the next morning, and went over La Veta Pass. Little did we know, it's actually the last pass of the Rocky Mountains that we'll go through. I'll definitely miss these downhill signs.

We eventually made it to Walsenburg (the court house is pictured below). A motel kindly donated a room to us.

This morning, we left Walsenburg towards La Junta. We traveled about 73 miles without any services, and considering that it was hot (about 100 degrees), we were scared about running out of water. We bought about 5 extra liters of water and carried them with us just in case.

Here's Loreen biking past some farm. Notice how there's no mountains in the distance.

About 36 miles into the ride, we saw a Christmas tree, which was bizarre because there was nothing else in the area.

Today must have been the hottest day that we've biked since we started. Who knew that western Colorado was a desert?

Trees are a sign that we're near civilization.

Loreen biking into La Junta.

We're staying in La Junta today. They have a nice downtown area with shops and a movie theatre. The others are going around town looking for a place to spend the night.