Day Fifty-Two - Downhill.

Another early start saw me on the road at around 9am, having fitted in a phonecall home during that time. I went to Sonic for breakfast, a fast food place that you usually have to drive in, but this one had an indoors. You still have to talk into a microphone though.

My route for today was simple - Highway 50 all the way. It was also a lot of downhill. This meant that I'd done the first 25 miles in around an hour and a half. I then had an uphill of about 5 or 6 miles, more downhill, uphill of anoter 5 miles and then a 14 mile downhill to the finish. I actually spent around a third of my riding time on the uphill even though they took up a much smaller portion of the distance.

You would think that this would have been a dream day, and you would nearly be right. The weather was nearly perfect, but the morning became fairly overcast and thus making it quite cool. The traffic was also a bit of a problem, in that there was a lot of it. Historically, Sundays have been good for riding because they have meant for quiet roads, but not today, in fact the opposite. This meant that although there weren't many commercial vehicles, there were a lot of massive RV's and Pickups towing trailers and caravans. I can't complain too much, there were some sections that had hard shoulders larger than the road itself, complete with rumble strips that could rattle my eyeballs out my head if I go over them, but enough to deter cars and the like.

I arrived in Montrose at around 3pm in glorious sunshine, and went to the campsite I'd chosen to stay at. $27.14. I thought camping was meant to be cheap!! Anyway, I paid and got my tent set up. The sun was shining and there was the unmistakable smell of barbeque in the air, so I was content. Montrose is in a massive valley, between the continental divide I've just rode over and a long, steady uphill slope in front of me. I feel tomorrow will be serious payback for all the downhill of today.

So I had a shower, and went back to my tent to wait until a good time to eat. I hadn't really thought that through though, and within minutes I was sweltering. By the time 6pm came, I could wait no longer and headed out. I ended up at a Thai restaurant, I couldn't resist as it's been the first I'd seen. I opted for a green curry, a good benchmark. I'm not sure if it's my tastebuds not being used to spicy food, but medium spiced had my nose running and gasping for water. It was very tasty though.

I'm now sitting outside at another Sonic, satisfying my craving for malts that has come on over the last few days. I'll miss this when I go home..