Day Fifty - Half Century.

Today was an energetic start, but I managed to stall over breakfast and ended up leaving at 9:30. I went for breakfast at the place I ate at last night, where I had an unexpected ridiculously large breakfast. It came with a pancake that was about 9" diameter, and about 1" thick. (Amercan Imperial measurements seemed to have rubbed off on me...)

The first part of my day was easy going, I was continuing down the same downhill I finished on last night. It gave me time to take a good look around at the scenery, which was a lot clearer in the bright morning sun. It was along here that I spoke to two guys called Mitch and Stephen, who were headed to Pueblo today. They were the first riders I'd come accross on this part of the route, and painted a better picture than how others had described it. They were heading home to Indiana, and today was their 20th day on the road. That sounds quite ambitious to me, but it's still in the not-too-distant future. They also told me about a festival thing that was happening this weekend in Salida, and reccomended I stayed there.

Onwards I headed onto Highway 50, a road that I'll be seeing a lot of in the coming days/weeks. Further up it is famously known as the 'lonliest road in America'. That definitely wasn't the case here, and I was being overtaken by cars, HGV's and RV's at ridiculous speeds. It became apparent that drivers assume it's safe to overtake unless they see otherwise, rather than vice versa, leading to some near misses for the cars and me being forced into the verge.

I arrived in Salida at around 2pm, and decided that this was where I was going to stop. It wasn't immediately obvious where 'downtown' was, as all the globalised places had set up camp along the highway. I found my way, and all of the fesival things that were going on. I stopped in two shops in search of a buff (as is the norm nowadays), and in both I had people asking if I needed somewhere to stay. The choices were camping in someones yard, or staying indoors. I opted for the second, and was told I had to wait an hour to see if it was okay. It was, but in the meantime I sat and watched some people playing in the white water in kayaks. I was approached by a couple who were interested in what I was doing, and after a chat, they gave me $10! It was soon time to go over to where I was staying, in a terraced house that looked a little greek from the outside. My tenants names are Jack and Patty, and are very hospitable. They live up in Minnesota, with this as their retirement holiday home.

I went in and chatted to them for a bit, before showering and heading out to Taco Bell for food and WiFi. I'm not sure why I hadn't been to one of these before, I'd never really fancied it. It was good, but not filling enough. I think I'll head over the road for a mcflurry, and then to bed for an early night. I've got Monarch pass to do in the morning, which is roughly 20 degrees farenheit cooler than where I am now at over 11,000ft high. I can't remember what Jack said, I think he said it was three miles above sea level.. but after that it's plain cruising to Gunnison I think it's called, 65 miles away.