Mike's Journal

The Great Divide

In Denver it rains. Thunderstorms strike without warning and gutters overflow with murky brown water. The Mountains become memories as roller coasters and skyscrapers stake their claim on the grey horizon. It takes thirty days to ride ones bicycle 1800 miles, from San Francisco to Denver... Of course it can be done faster, but then things would be missed, wonderful things…

Day 23
Hanksville to Blanding 135 40 by truck and 95 by motor home

Jeff is still feeling quite ill… His vomiting has stopped but the diarrhea continues. There is simply no way he can ride the 128mile stretch without services past Lake Powell so we hitch a ride to Blanding Utah. The sick one sleeps for 14 hours. I wander down Main Street at nightfall. Thirty high school kids hang out at the Sinclair gas station eating nachos, drinking Mountain Dew and listening to car stereos. The Sinclair is only place in town open after 9:00pm; this is where they go when they “go out”. Do they know this is strange? If I had lived here during high school would I have done the same? After the walk I finish reading Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. The story seems slow at times but the writing is brilliant. After I turn the last page I ponder the fragility of life, knowing someday I will die. For the first time I am comfortable with this.

Day 24
23 Miles
Blanding Utah to Monticello, Utah

Jeff and I cook diner in nothing but our boxer shorts. The Westerner has laundry facilities and we want to wash everything. Jeff spends 1/2 hour at a time in the bathroom with the door locked. A nine-year old boy hears the racket from inside and repeatedly shakes the handle and asks if Jeff is done… From inside Jeff calls out, “Nope, as you can hear I’m having a bit of trouble in here!”

Day 25
67 Miles
Monticello Utah to Delores, Colorado

It’s amazing how different Colorado is from Utah. Bean and Alfalfa fields stretch out for miles. The Rockies are in plain view. They grow taller throughout the day.

Day 26
65 Miles
Delores, Colorado to Telluride, Colorado.

The Delorese River and I spend the entire day together in the Colorado Rockies. She knows the way to Lizard Head Pass and offeres to show me the way. Almost immediately we become the best of friends. For hours we whisper intimate secrets and sing songs without words. I hum melodies over her unique percussion (stylistically rooted somewhere in between jazz and experimental electronica). Sometimes, when our path is only slightly uphill, I can sing entire phrases without taking a breath and Delores plays rhythms that sounded like a combination of wind through the leaves of an aspen and a bird ruffling it’s feathers. As our grade increases Delores beats her drums harder and harder. In a fantastic display of range she creates a deep and deafening roar. I am no match for this sound. It becomes instantly clear that which gives her all of her power also robs me of mine… so without tone I sigh loudly like Jeff Buckley in the opening seconds of Hallelujah and wait for the hill to let up.

Telluride can be described as a funky neo-victorian mountain village. It is beautiful! The town sits in a small canyon surrounded on three sides by 12,000 foot mountain peaks. Just outside of town a waterfall drops down to the valley floor creating the perfect backdrop for Main Street. We visit bookstores, cafes, and art galleries. This feels somehow like home, comfortable.

Just before leaving town we hear that the author Wallace Stegner will be reading at the Telluride library. We almost stay to hear him speak but decide instead to leave the following note:

Dear Wallace Stegner,

Sincerest apologies for missing your reading tonight; we happen to be riding our bicycles from San Francisco to Maine and have some form of a schedule to keep… Off today for Montrose. We would like to invite you for a cup of tea {the fine loose-leaf stuff} in Gunnison on Tuesday Night. Perhaps there we could share some of our stories and hear some of yours. We are keeping a website {see attached card} and would love for you to check it out. We’re also offering Amateur Roadside Haircuts quite cheap. If you wish to get in on our transcontinental Wiffleball game, we’d be glad to provide the equipment, but it will cost you $5 per inning.

Hope the reading goes well,

All the best,

Jeff and Mike

The note drop at the library is awkward to say the least, the staff informs us that Wallace Stegner’s work is going to be read but that he will not be personally reading the material since he is dead. For obvious reasons this is sad: a great voice has been silenced and we’re not going to play wiffleball with Wallace Stegner.

Day 27
Telluride to Montrose
67 Miles

It is our first day with a tail wind. We leave Telluride at 3:00pm and arrive in Montrose less than four hours later. We feel miraculous gliding away from the San Juan’s. the range is lit by sunlight against a sky of dark clouds. The view is far more breathtaking than I had imagined one of Mountains in the lower 48 states could be. By comparison the Sierra Nevada’s in California are just hills.

Day 28
Montrose to Gunnison
65 Miles

In Gunnison there is a magical beginning… more on this in time…

Day 29
Gunnison to Poncha Springs
61 miles.

With adrenaline in my veins and joy in my heart I ride with Jeff over The Continental Divide. Monarch Pass is 11,300 feet in elevation but for some reason seems much easier to climb than I had expected… Breakfast has left me with much more energy than any climb up a mountain requires… Thunder-storms chase us up the mountain. Dark clouds and rain surround us on all sides but only occasionally do we ride in the rain. Our timing is perfect! From this point on creeks rivers and streams drain to the atlantic…

Day 30
Poncha Springs to Jefferson
72 Miles

I secretly hope all day that we spend the night in the town of Jefferson. I watch the map and am not sure if it is going to happen. I know it’s silly but I am hoping that I can convince Jeff to knock on someone’s door to explain that his name is Jefferson and he needs a place to stay in Jefferson. I think about this a great deal of the day but realize as night falls that sleeping in a field is a much easier thing to do.

Day 31 Jefferson to Denver
78 miles

Good god cities seem strange when they’ve become unfamiliar. For 25 days I’ve been riding through relative isolation; passing through only a few cities with a population over 10,000. For most of the day we ride through the rain excited to reach our destination. Jeff gets the first flat of the trip riding over a broken bottle on the side of the highway 25 miles outside of Denver. We stay ride past tourists clogging crowed streets and under the shadows of tall buildings. We stay with our new friend Lisa, her fiancé Dean and Lisa’s two sons Zachary and Jacob in Wheat Ridge (10 miles out of down town). Their family is a joy to watch. Lisa and Dean make a beautiful couple and the boys are fantastic. I play poker with Zach; then dodge ball, and wiffleball with Jacob, Dean and Jeff. The day off to dry out, play, and explore is welcome.

Today we are back to the road. Our goal 700 miles in one week…

Posted by Mike at July 18, 2004 09:34 AM