Lads on tour… on bikes. Holmes, Dowds & Reid cycle across the USA.

Day 64 – We’re in bloody Oregon!

We haven’t updated much lately. Part of the reason for this is that we were passing through Wyoming and Montana – not much WiFi through places like Yellowstone. Lots of bears though.

About a week ago we met up with some other westbound riders and are travelling together to the coast. They are:

Matt from the UK – a fireman from Manchester. The first time we met him, his parents were with him carrying his gear for a few days. In the style of a true Mancunian his mum kicked off on the restaurant owner in Jeffery City, WY.

Lady Chris & Man Chris from Massachussets. We now have three Chris’s so we are using the nicknames that Callum has given us. Lady Chris works for the Department of Defense strapping dynamite to dolphins, Man Chris counts drugs and was born a farmboy in the UK. We found it amusing that he probably used some of Callum’s dad’s latex products when he was involved with the extraction of genetic material from sheep.

Sarada and Aaron from New York City. These two are brother and sister but somehow they get along well enough to ride across the USA – mental. They are a bit different though and it’s quite funny. Aaron spent six months hiking the length of the USA on the Appalachian Trail, fending off bear attacks with a penknife and living in caves; Sarada… didn’t. But she once went an entire day in Brookyln with a dead battery in her iPod.

We’re all gonna head to Eugene, OR before they all split off up to Astoria and we start heading down the coast to San Francisco. They’re trying to make us go up the coast with them and do a longer ride down the coast but we are politely telling them to “jog on”.

TATA

Day 47 – Lander – Dubois (78 Miles)

This is my first post. I will keep it sweet and to the point and only spend 5 minutes writing it. – unlike Chris who seems to spend an hour just to turn a computer on!!

We woke up in the City Park at our usual 6.30AM and realized that last nights leftovers of microwavable burgers and frankfurters from the BBQ did not look that tasty. I decided to head to the bagel shop where we went yesterday to buy a bagel whilst Dowds had phone sex with Tash and Chris took his usual 2.5 hours to pack up his tent and brush his teeth. I eventually found them outside the supermarket and Chris had bought a 3KG sack of Cheerios which he thinks will save him money as he will not have to buy breakfast anymore – Although that has not so far seemed to have stopped him consuming 17 times his bodyweight in ice cream and cookies!!!

We got on the road at about 9.30AM and we were expecting a 75 mile uphill day as the elevation profile on our map suggested. To our relief it wasn’t actually that hilly and this probably is what made me speed off and get shouted at by Chris & Dowds for going too fast in case I passed out with 20 miles to go. We stopped about 30 miles in to the ride to get some water and a guy told us that he ran a bike hosted where we could stay the night… for $15 a night!! He said we couldn’t have any dinner or a shower or breakfast for that matter but we could sleep on a mattress in his garage. We decided that he was just trying to make some dollar out of us and gave his garage a miss.
About 15 miles from Dubois, it got very very windy. We had to lean pretty much our full body weight to the left to stop us being blown over. We saw a small twister at the side of the road and Chris was stopped dead in his tracks, Dowds had the sense to unclip and then I took the full brunt of it and was blown off my bike into the shoulder of the road and ended up sitting on the concrete with my bike about 5 feet away from me!
Just before we got into town, after stopping to fix Dowd’s 1000th puncture, we met an elderly couple from Alaska and we cycled with them for a couple of miles. Before we left the guy said he was going straight to the pub – we thought he was joking. He wasn’t. He came to find us in the café we were in and told us to come to the pub where he would buy us a beer. We spent about 2 hours chatting with them about their trip and sharing stories.
We camped in the KOA campground…. Who are daylight robbers. They charged us $29 just to pitch our tents and have a shower!!! I still do not have my passport, bank cards or driving license which I left at a campsite about 2 weeks ago… I am praying that the woman who said she has posted them to this town is not lying!!

Day 46 – Lander Day Off

The boys were woken up by Brent this morning at 6AM. I wasn’t because I am sensible and wear earplugs to bed. Although earplugs do not stop you getting cold when you have rubbish sleeping bag and it is getting close to freezing outside!! We eventually got up at 8.30AM… which actually feels like a lie in nowadays. What is going on??

We left our tents and went to the swimming pool to relax. There was no public swimming session on but they did allow us, for $2 to have a shower which was quite nice having not showered since cycling 130 miles the day before! Then we went to the library so Dowds could watch some porn, I could take a nap on the comfy chairs and Chris could talk to his online cyber friends for several hours. We also put up a few photos on Facebook. Dowds then went back to the pool to do a swimming session with no goggles and now his eyes look like they are about to burst! Subway was the choice for lunch, where we now know the menu off by heart! We were then obliged to take Chris for his daily 10 cones of ice cream at the shop down the road before heading back to check on our tents and relaxing in the sun for a couple of hours. It feels like we have nothing to do when we aren’t cycling anymore!
Dowds and I later decided to take a ride to the supermarket to buy a disposable BBQ and some burgers & sausages for dinner. They took ages to cook and whilst we were waiting, a weird guy from a tribe came over with three plates of leftovers and some drink from his dinner. It was actually pretty good food. We were all tucked up in our sleeping bags and roll mats (which I have had a puncture in since the 2nd week!) by 9.30PM… which is a late night for us nowadays!

Day 45 – Stupidly Long – 130.8 miles

This morning we got out about 8, just as the staff were arriving – before they could charge us.

the day started with another Continental Divide race. I won this one standings are: 2-1-0. we were going pretty hard the whole way up it – 18mph most of the way!

We stopped at 33 miles at a grotty cafe for breakfast. It wasn’t too bad.

the next continental divide was a lot closer than we thought – less than a mile up the road. Cal saw it coming first and won it pretty comfortably – 2-2-0.

At the top of the hill we met a Manc called Matt riding alone. His parents were out for a couple of weeks sight seeing so they were taking his panniers for him this week – Lucky Bast*rd. We rode with him for a bit but we planned to stop 60 miles short of where he was going to so he pushed on.

We stopped at split rock for some…interesting photos then headed onto Jeffrey City – Our planned destination.

We had heard mixed review of Jeffrey City all we knew for sure was that it was a ghost town. An old Uranium mine closed just down the road so the population fell from 5000 to 50!

We got there to find that the Mancunian family had kicked the door to the toilet down and the owner of the towns only restaurant wasn’t in a very happy mood! We ate lunch there with her moaning about the foreigners and how she could barely understand their accents. Not sure if she realised we were within earshot or not!

The waitress from the restaurant only had one eye, which i have no problem with normally but this was starting to look like the beginning of a horror film!

The local Madman – a potter from across the road offered us to camp in his ‘garden’. We headed over to his place – an old petrol station complete with Exxon sign and pumps! He gave us a Whisky each and told us to make ourselves at home. He was a genuinely nice guy but very odd!

Also staying at his place were 2 guys from Belgium touring on Segways. They had tried to get sponsored by Segway as one of the guys is disabled and uses them to get around all the time but Segway insisted this would not fit with their image! As far as I know hardly anyone knows what a Segway is so any advertisement would help wouldn’t it? Anyway the guys were more than happy to demonstrate the Segways to us and let us have a go.

We decided then that we were feeling OK and with nothing much else to do we would ride the next 58 miles to Lander. We had heard it was a very nice city co on our bikes we hopped!

We didn’t really know what time sunset was and we got caught out in the dark a little! We did get some awesome sunset views of the mountains though so it was worth risking life and limb!

We rolled into town at 9.30pm and went to the only restaurant still open – Tony’s Pizza. This place was a gem! We had the best pizza I have ever tasted!

We also met Matt and his parents in this restaurant. He told us where we would be camping – yet again pitching in the dark! When we got to the campsite/city park it was brilliant. One of the best campsites we had been to and it was completely free!

We got to bed pretty late ~ 11.30pm but decided that tomorrow we would have a day off after today’s stupidity!

Day 44 – Easy day – 41 miles

Today we started pretty late. I realised in the night that I had left the battery charger on charge at the launderette so headed back to town to get it. I got back to the entrance to the campsite and couldn’t be bothered to ride the dirt road back so I waited for the others there.

I waited and waited and waited. 44 days in and Chris still can’t get ready quickly!

We decided that it would be best to head back into town and have breakfast there before doing the 40 mile ride in one go rather than making it drag along into two 20 mile sections with breakfast in between.

When leaving the restaurant we saw a weird guy who had stopped to talk to us last night as we were being thrown out of town by the police. He was talking of how this town was cursed! Didn’t really understand what he was saying but he gave us his website to look at;

http://karma-dharma-bhutadaya.blogspot.com

Read some of the entries! That’s the sort of people we keep meeting!

We finally left town at about 10 am. the first 25 miles were good. A few nice hills but then we had to go on the interstate for 13 miles. The should was being used by traffic as the road was being resurfaced. Chris was leading and decided to get to close to the side of the road and fell off! I then went in front and decided we would ride on the freshly laid tarmac on the other side of the cones.

the final few miles really dragged but we were in Rawlins for half of a day off by 1pm.

We had a pub lunch, went to the pool for a shower, to the supermarket for supplies then to the library for a bit. We were bored by 4 pm and needed something to do. We went back into the center of town and found that there was nothing to do there. We then headed to the cinema but nothing that we really wanted to see was showing. We decided we would just eat dinner and get an early night.

After dinner we went round the campsites looking for prices – they were extortionate so we waited until the receptions closed and sneaked into one. As long as we leave early enough in the morning we would escape being charged.

We pitched our tents in the dark yet again and spoke to a nice motorcyclist in the site next to us.

Day 43 – Across another Border – 68.2 miles

Today we got up early as planned. We left the crappy motel and went to breakfast in town as there was nothing for the next 50 miles. Had and OK breakfast in the bikers cafe then left town just before 9.

We had a couple of hills that weren’t too bad and then the race to the border. The others are getting better at sprinting now and me just bombing it off doesn’t work any more. They are still a little eager to prove this though so I upped the pace a little and Chris decided he would sprint the final 3/4 mile. Very naive of him to think he could outsprint me over that sort of distance! I won the race as usual I think the land border race now stands at 5-0-0.

We took some photo’s briefly at the border and then headed off to Riverside where we had been told there were some nice bars for lunch. The food was actually pretty crap. Had a good hot chocolate from the grocery store opposite afterwards though.

The riding had been cold all morning but whilst we were eating it had started to warm up. A lady at the bar had told us of the free hot springs in Saratoga, the town we were headed to. This made the ride to town worth doing. The final 17 miles or so were fine and when we got to town we headed straight for the springs.

It was called a hobo pool but we didn’t see any hobo’s! The main pool was roasting. only a few of the locals could stay in it for any amount of time. It flowed into the river where it was somewhat cooler and very nice for us.

We went and did some Laundry, then went to a restaurant for dinner. Opposite was an ice cream shop which Chris obviously had to go into! We ate a pretty massive ice cream each then headed back to the hot springs where we planned to camp for the night.

After about an hour in our tents we saw a flashing light and an American accent telling us it was the Police department! I got out to see what the problem was. The copper told us that we were camped in the wrong place and had to move a couple of miles down a pitch black lane out of town.

Me and Callum Couldn’t be bothered to completely pack our tents away so we rode 2 miles in the pitch black with one hand, carrying a tent filled with our sleeping bags, roll mats and pillows in. It wasn’t the brightest thing we had ever done but it save us 3 minutes in packing and unpacking our tents!

On the ride to the campsite we had to go down a dirt road with a junction. With no idea which way to go we blindly followed Callum – once again the Reidy luck prevails and we found ourselves at the campsite.

We finally got to sleep, at the correct campsite, by about 11pm.

Day 42 – Time Drags on – 63.5 miles

Today we had a lie in as we needed to go to the post office before we left town. Callums stuff hadn’t arrived so he got Chris to pay for it to be forwarded onto a later destination.

We went to the Glory Hole for Breakfast. Again it was a very nice meal – Colorado can do Breakfasts! Last night got pretty cold and I wasn’t really in the mood for cycling today. Callum seemed to have a rocket up his backside and raced up the continental divide leaving me and Chris crawling up. We met Blake at the top of the hill, took some photo’s and rode down the other side. On our way down we met a Dutch couple coming the other way who told us that Walden, our destination for the day, had a nice city park where we could camp for free. The also told us that there was “a nice place for shitting in the park”. Maybe it was their accents or maybe they really liked the toilets?!

We got to town, after another uneventful ride which just seemed to drag on forever, at around 4pm. After looking at the city park and being told that the sprinklers had a tendency to turn on at 3am and soak our tents, finding that our only source of a shower; the pool, was shut and looking at the weather telling us we would once again be freezing we decided on a motel. $60 later we were in a dump that had a bathroom much like that of a caravan – complete with mould and mildew stains!

We found a nice bar/restaurant to eat in. It was fairly pricey but very nice food. We went to bed early to be fresh for an early start tomorrow.

Day 41 – Hitting the Summit – 105 miles

Today we knew we wanted to do a pretty long day so we started early. We were just short of 10,000 feet up so it was pretty damn chilly when we arose from our pits!

We rode to the top of Hoosiers pass at around 9.30. We were at about 11,600 feet so it was pretty tiring to climb the final miles and still it was freezing!

After the Photo’s of us at the peak I saw an awesome view and wanted to try for some action photo’s of us climbing. I think the Reidy luck prevailed again as this was probably the best pic.

We rode down the other side of the mountain to Breckenridge. This was about 10 miles of switchbacks and fast sraights. not quite as fun as the Appalachians but a lot longer! Breckenridge was a really nice town, Ski resort in the winter, Mountain bikes in the summer. As was to be expected, very expensive throughout! Breakfast set us back $10, probably the most expensive so far but definately the best so far!

The next part of our ride took us through some nice bike paths. These were OK at first but they got a bit annoying. They were really badly signed and Chris got us lost. To be fair to him getting lost once in 2500 miles isn’t too bad. If Callum or I were navigating we would probably be in Mexico, Vegas or prison!

The bike path did produce some awesome photo’s however;

We stopped for Lunch near a reservoir with a pretty awesome view. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that Colorado is the nicest state we have visited, in terms of scenery anyway!

We got to Hot Sulphur Springs and found that to our disappointment they were not free and actually cost $18! We decided to chop it and find somewhere to eat in town. On our way we found Blake, Chris and Chris. Our long day had meant we had caught everybody up! They told us that the Springs only cost $11 after 8pm so we all went to dinner together before the springs. We decided that after cycling 105 miles we could really do with a shower and $11 wasn’t too bad for a shower and Hot Spring.

The hot springs were good – dinner wasn’t! We ended up finding a place to pitch our tent right next to Blake. Tight as a fishes a**e but all 4 tents fitted in somehow!

Day 40 – Odd Day – 66.5 miles

Today we woke up to an awesome view. We hadn’t really appreciated this due to the adverse weather of last night but Chris snapped this pretty awesome photo from out tent site.

The ride started with a pretty tough climb. We knew that the whole day was going to be uphill, we were just praying it wasn’t too steep the whole way! Me and Cal got a bit competitive and decided that we would race up every hill. Chris decided to be a girl and pansy his way up.

We got to Guffey, 22 miles up the hill, where we were to have breakfast. Guffey was a place well known to us before we set off as this town is pretty much owned by one person and the town mayor is a Cat! One of the many strange towns on this route!

We ate breakfast at Lisa’s Cafe. Where we met Ian, a Scot riding from Vancouver, Canada to Boston Massachusetts. Breakfast was good until Callum went to pay and realised he had left his wallet/purse/credit cards/life back at the campsite! He than had to call the campsite who had luckily found it and were more than happy to send it forward to him.

Guffey seemed like a very nice place if a little strange!

The next part of our ride took us into South park – something Chris was getting very excited about. It didn’t stop him climbing like a girl though! On the way we met a lady called Donna Byrne. She was riding her horses around America looking for a job. We stopped firstly because from about 50 yards back Callum thought it was a bear! After filling his pants we rode closer to find Donna and her two horses. She had been on the road since February, riding about 20 miles each day. She had recently run out of money so was eating the horse feed! Our good deed for the day was to donate a few cereal bars and packets of porridge to her. She took a liking to Callum, I think he has found a very special person in Donna. After telling her how awesome she was she told him how gorgeous he was – It was like watching two besotted teenagers!

We ate lunch in Hartsel. After eating me and Callum fell asleep for a good half hour, leaving Chris to pick up the bill! Chris woke us and immediately got us onto the road. After about 2 miles it started raining, Me and Cal stopped to put on some warmer clothes – That was the last we saw of Chris! I guess after fannying his way up all of the steep hills he still had some energy left – Me and Cal didn’t! Into the headwind we were only averaging about 11mph!

We got to Fairplay where we found Chris calling Campgrounds. Not fancying camping in the imminent storm I went to the motels to find a room $100 was the best I found – Looks like camping isn’t so bad after all!

We hid from the storm in a local bar, then got chucked out because we hadn’t bought anything! Went to Pizza hut for dinner and then headed to a “free” campsite near the reservoir.

Day 39 – Off to meet Yogi ~ 60 miles

Got up early and packed the very messy room we had made in the last 2 nights! Whilst Chris was packing and taking forever as usual I went to Walmart to buy a cheap camera to replace the one I soaked a while ago.

I met the others at the zoo.

On the way out of town we met two old ladies who told us of some young nice looking girls about a day ahead of us. We hadn’t heard of these girls so they are either the old ladies having us on or very slow indeed!

We arrived in Wetmore very hot and thirsty after quite a steep climb. The town doesn’t live up to it’s name; no water to be found anywhere! I found the post office and the nice lady behind the counter was very happy to refill our water.

We got to Florence and found a nice little Cafe called the 2 sisters cafe. We had a good lunch there and headed out for the final bit of our days ride.

the ride to Canon city was uneventful. We stopped at a petrol station to refill the water again and met a posh kid from Stroud who had moved to Colorado. He tried to tell us that the weather out here was worse than at home – 37C outside – I don’t think so!

From Canon city it was a short 10 mile ride to the Jellystone Campground – Yogi Bear’s house. The campsite looked ok and after some haggling we got a $21 site for $12.84 – Bargain.

We headed to the pool to coopl down but as soon as our tops came off the clouds came! It got quite chilly then the heavens absolutely opened! It rained all evening. We wanted to go to the Canyon bridge but didn’t fancy a 5 mile soaking ride. Instead we hung around the reception until the lady behind the counter offered to drive us to the restaurant a mile up the road.

We had a good dinner and then had to walk back down the busy road in the pitch black! Good job me and chris bought high-vis raincoats!

Back at Yogi’s we got on our bikes for the 200 yard ride from reception to our site. On this ride, Chris got lost and then to the amusement of the family next to us, Callum decided to ride into a small ditch created by the rain and go arse over tit over his handlebars and pretty much land at my feet!

Day 38 – Day off in Pueblo

Today I got up earlier than the others so decided to clean my bike rather than take it to the bike shop for them to do the same in exchange for a few dollars. I finished this and surprise surprise the others were still asleep so I headed down to the bike shop to buy some inner tubes and some brake pads which probably should have been changed about a thousand miles ago, but hey student loans mean you have to risk your brakes not working down the odd mountain or two!

I got back to the room and the others were just about ready to drop their bikes in for a service and head to breakfast. We were recommended a dodgy sandwich shop, Cal didn’t fancy this so with the limited distance we could go with no bikes we went to Subway for brunch.

Most of the day was spent waiting for the bikes. It’s a big city but like most places over here there’s not a lot to do without transport and where we were staying only seemed to have banks and insurance companies!

We did some laundry then we went back to the bike shop to check if Cal’s bike was ready and found out that they’d have to replace the bearings in the headset. A few weeks ago Callum found that he couldn’t turn his handlebars at all; we were worried, but he wrenched them round and suddenly they were OK! We just put it down to Reidy luck and carried on. When we noticed that the guys on the bike shop in Pueblo really knew their sh*t, we asked them to have a look at it. This is what was left of the piece of metal which holds the bearings in the headset of Callum’s bike:

Knackered. The bike techies sorted it out for a very reasonable price and they then recommended a pub to us just down the road where we could get some dinner and a nice real ale, on the way there Cal saw happy hour at a dodgy place so we went there first. We did get to the recommended pub and had a nice shepherds pie for tea.

Next we were off to the cinema, however on the way for almost the exact duration of our ride the heavens opened. Not looking forward to sitting in an air conditioned room soaked and freezing our Jacobs off; we went to Walmart to buy some cheap T-Shirts, then headed to the cinema.

After the film we headed back to Walmart for some bananas etc… and went back to bed

Day 37 – PUEBBBBBLO (~115 miles)

Usually we try to get some miles under our belt before stopping for breakfast but sometimes there are no breakfast stops within a reasonable distance, so we just have it first thing. Callum ordered breakfast in his usual way:

“Hi there, can I get the 2 eggs and hash browns but instead of hash browns can I get toast?”

The waitress usually relents because of the Reidy charm.

“OK thankyou and can I get two extra orders of toast please?”

On the ride we passed the Arkansas State Penitentiary, so we stopped to take a picture of Dowds, his chav tattoo, and the place he would be living if he had been born in the USA:

Today’s ride was quite hot. There was one point where a headwind came out of nowhere which felt exactly like sticking your head above an open oven-door. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was HOT. Dowds figured out that he drunk 8 litres of water and only…visited the bathroom/peed on the side of the road…once.

We weren’t sure where we would stop today, a headwind or a tailwind can completely change your plans, but we ended up having some reasonable winds, so we headed to Pueblo. As we headed out on the last stretch from the last service stop to Pueblo, a ridiculous side-wind started to pick up. I found it quite funny but there were some scary moments. One thing we’ve noticed is that to the unprepared British eye, every type of weather over here seems like it could be a tornado – but the photo below looks a bit…tornado-ish doesn’t it?

It wasn’t, and the weather wasn’t too bad, but when we arrived in Pueblo we were told that a week or so ago they had a hailstorm with hailstones the size of golf balls, breaking car windows and concussing bears.

Dowds got a puncture on the road into Pueblo so while I wore the high-vis jacket and hurled abuse, Cal headed off to find a motel for the night. Dowds swapped his inner tube out for one which had a dodgy valve so we had no idea if it would hold up for the 3 miles or so to Pueblo. We met back up with Callum, who hadn’t found anything yet, and as we got closer to the centre, Dowds had to keep re-inflating his tyre so often that he told us to go ahead while he walked it to the bike shop. Me and Cal spread out to find the cheapest motel and Cal found one for $39 inc. tax. Bargain. I was a bit apprehensive at first because while Cal was booking the room I saw a shirtless guy with a massive tattoo of a naked lady all the way up his back and a 70-year old jibbering incomprehensible man attempted to talk to me – I did the old smile ‘n’ nod. It turned out to be an awesome place. Quite a few of the people we met lived in the motel; they were all really nice, and helped us find a good all-you-can-eat buffet a couple of miles north of our motel. It was bloody fantastic.

Day 36 – Hot Day (79 miles)

Sometimes we are slightly…dishonest in the number of people who we say are staying in a motel room. This gets slightly confusing and worrying to the motel owner when the three of us all rock up to the complimentary breakfast at the same time. It got quite awkward this morning as the guy tried to stealthily check the numbers on our check-in form while making polite conversation. We managed to avoid getting charged the extra cash by being super-nice and talkative, something which doesn’t come naturally to any of us. The guy had an interest in electrical engineering so I fielded some questions as part of our whole being nice thing, while at the same time managing to trip a fuse by running the toaster and the microwave at the same time.

Outside we met some really nice people from Portland, OR. who were just passing through. One of the guys asked us about what we think of when we are riding. I asked the boys this ages ago and this is what we’ve generally been thinking about while riding:
Dowds – Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He just switches his brain off and watches his pedals go round.
Me – Singing little songs in my head – really random music.
Callum – Cal had been using the time wisely by thinking about what he was going to do for a job when he finished the ride – pondering his future. When I asked this question we were about a week into the ride, so I asked him what he’d come up with. Here’s the strange thing: he wasn’t actually thinking about what he was going to do, he was just thinking this: “I need to start thinking about what I’m going to do”. Callum Reid’s mind – a very very mysterious place.

The chap from Portland looked at us strangely.

Off we went, back onto the 96.

Today we had a stretch of road with no services for 58 miles. We stocked up on water at Tribune, KS and headed off to the Colorado border. On the way we met some younger eastbound cyclists who were doing a supervised trip across the USA. One of the laws of the tour so far is that whenever there are kids to laugh, one of us will fall off our bikes. As we stopped, Callum crashed into the back of my bike and fell slowly into the ditch. We all have our ways of coping with the flatness and dullness of Kansas – audiobooks and stuff like that- but Cal told us that he has been actively trying to hypnotize himself by staring at the gears of mine or Dowd’s bikes. As I said… a unique and mysterious mind. The eastbounders were asking if he was alright as we cycled up to meet them seemingly ignoring Cal in the ditch, but we weren’t worried cos we know the sounds that Cal makes and “oh…oh no” means he’s just done something silly but he’s fine.

We eventually got to Eads where there was a nice pool where we reckon they must have had a surplus of blue paint:

Day 35 – AMERICA Day (81 miles)

Yesterday we turned onto State Route 96. The maps that we bought come in sections; 12 in all for the Transamerica Trail, plus two more for final cheeky nip down the coast. Each section lasts about 300 miles, but it depends on how much they can fit on the maps. Section 7, from Alexander, KS. to Pueblo, CO. is 292.6 miles and it is all on ONE road – the 96. One of the things which has kept me sane so far on this trip is needing to keep an eye on the maps and not get us lost or miss a turn. For the next 300 miles there is only one direction – west on SR 96. Despite this, I’ve lost count of the times that Reidy has asked which way to turn after we stop for some food. Callum is truly brilliant at some things, but sometimes he…lacks awareness, bless him.

So, we headed west on 96, stopping in Dighton for breakfast at the only restaurant that was open – a bowling alley – and continued on to our planned stop for the night at Scott City. We got a call from Blake on the way, who had found out that there was a rodeo in the next town, Leoti. It was only 20 miles away so we decided to continue on.

We were glad we did. After the baseball yesterday we didn’t think we’d experience anything more stereotypically American, but the rodeo was… incredible.

The only restaurant in town was packed so we were forced to eat food from the stalls at the fair. I was trying everything, no matter how disgusting and ridiculous it looked. In fact I was deliberately choosing the most strange stuff – corn dogs, funnel cakes, whatever.

Funnel cake

The announcer requested silence for the Cowboys’ prayer, which was immediately followed by a tragically tone-deaf girl singing the national anthem.

Then loads of people in big hats fell off horses, threw cows around and, when the crowd was fully warmed up, fell off some big bulls as a finale. It was pretty much every American stereotype thrown into one big display. It was spectacular.

Buck Earnheardt Jr. shows us how it’s done

Intermission – redneck clown

This guy fell off