Miles: 79.9 Steps: 25,370 Vertical gain: 1,838 feet Liquid consumed: 120 oz. Wildlife: Birds, cattle, dogs, horses, alpaca, prairie dogs Faith in Humanity: John Stewart and his family, again! So awesome!
Ahh what a day! A long bike ride! I estimated 70 miles but it turned out to be 80!
I slept in a little which felt nice as road biking can be the coldest sport ever! Had a tasty cupcake for breakfast that Tracy made, packed my daypack they were nice enough to let me borrow, and I was off!!
Ahh, cycling is so smooth and much faster than walking! It felt great! Somehow the bike actually fit my 6’4” self, which was amazing and great! My butt will likely hurt for days, however!
I reached the spot John picked me up at the day before and crossed the street and turned around. Fairly uneventful. Back to the center of town I jumped on a beautiful bike path along the Colorado River! The first part of my ride was a super busy 65mph Highway so the contrast with the beautiful no cars bike path was large! Ahh, it was beautiful.
I passed a family with fully loaded touring bikes and chatted them up: they were from the Netherlands and 11 months into a bike tour with no set end date! My kind of people! They also had their 6 year old and 3 year old with them! How insane is that? They were so cool. They gave me their card, I hope I still have it. Thanks for inspiring me!
So I reach the end of the bike path and ride the roads a couple more miles to my destination: the Kokopelli Trail! Done with Riad walking for quite a while, so excited! Today is a big milestone!
Ok so the. I look at my phone and have a ton of messages. A bunch of reporters wanted to meet me to cover my story. I called one back and setup a meeting time.
I hopped on my bike and ride the final miles back to John and Tracy’s house. Exhausted but still felt great after pushing myself 80 miles! I hopped in the shower and got ready for the reporter.
She pulled up and immediately said she wanted to go to the Kokopelli Trailhead where I just was to do some filming. I hopped in and off we went. Camila was pretty cool and easy to talk to. She shot video of me hiking, setting up my tent, some of my gear and interviewed me. It was fun!
End result is here: http://www.westernslopenow.com/news/local-news/hiker-treks-3-year-journey/848589829
Yay! 1st TV appearance! I was greeted back at the House with a tasty dinner and news I’d present for Tracy’s class tomorrow! I scrambled to prepare a PowerPoint!
What a day!