Keep your Gluteus Maximus happy

Day 41. September 26th. 48.6 miles today for 1,619 miles in total. We climbed 4,436 feet today for a total 118,849 feet of elevation gain to date. We just calculated what we estimated to be our total feet climbing and are amazed it is so much. We’ve also across the continental divide about 16 times by our estimate. We slept in Radium last night and just as we went to bed a very loud, very long train proceeded to pass very close to us. About an hour later another very long very loud train passed but we were fortunate those were the only two all night. We woke up to a heavy frost and lots and lots of magpies on our table. Nothing lost to the beautiful crows of the west, just some holes packed into a couple baggies. We left camp around 8:30 AM and started with a couple of good climbs up to inspiration point. Saw red tail hawks, horses, cattle and passed a few log trucks. We saw one cyclist who commented (these are his words) that his perineum hurt. We talked to him for about three minutes in total and learned about the most intimate part of his body. Tara, as a nurse, offered to help (with ibuprofen) but he declined. Rode down to Kremmling, about 2 miles off route and we failed in our quest for more fuel for our stove. We’ll have to be careful tonight to save fuel for breakfast. We did have great coffees at shooters café. I attempted to have an ice cream but dropped it in the parking lot, and we chatted with a woman who did the first trans American ride in 1976. We also met a young woman, Mandy, who is doing the Transamerica ride now, pulling a BOB (beast of burden) trailer. We also picked up a few groceries for tonight and tomorrow. We made phone calls to make a new plan to meet Maggie, as we did extra miles yesterday and messed up the original plan. We also made a plan to meet a new friend Hollyanna in Breckenridge. (After first declining because we did not originally think we could make it that far……and stay on schedule.) Our friends must think we’ve lost our minds out here but it is really difficult to estimate mileage with the unpredictability of this adventure. Yesterday we added 20 extra miles because we did not want to sleep close to 10,000 feet and freeze our perineums off. We were at about 20 miles in Kremmling. About 10 miles later we passed a very low level reservoir, the Williams Fork Reservoir where we stopped for lunch. We wrote a book about the great GM on that climb up to the reservoir. For those of you who are wondering what the great GM is, go back to anatomy class, gluteus maximus. We must keep our GM happy just as you would your general manager. After lunch we had to pass by a grader and road watering truck and we wondered about……noooooo, not mud! Thankful for road maintenance that doesn’t generate mud with a little watering, but keeps the dust down. Before approaching the campground we passed a no trespassing section of fencing that had cowboy boots upside down on each post. There was also a rather phallic looking stone monolith in the field with a fence around it. We didn’t dare approach it afraid we might lose our biking shoes to the fence! We arrived at the (closed!?!) horseshoe campground around 4:30 PM. Needless to say, we are the only ones here because the campground is closed. There is a pit toilet but with no TP. There’s a beautiful river where we bathed and lots of lovely aspens all around in their fall color of golden yellow. We enjoyed our best dinner yet, of rice and beans and veggies in the last rays of evening sunshine as the sun disappeared behind the ridge. A good day.