Miles: 24.9 Steps: 48,791 Vertical gain: 998 feet Liquid consumed: 140 oz. Wildlife: Birds, cattle, dogs Faith in Humanity: John Stewart and his wife Tracy have provided tremendous hospitality! Thank you! Another interesting day! I hit the Road fairly early and knew I would be walking the highway all day long. Original plan: camp somewhere in the BLM land on the North/East side of the road approximately halfway to Grand Junction. I was really optimistic about this plan for the first half of the route: there were no fences, no houses, looked like there were good places to kind of hide and be out of sight of the busy highway, so I figured this would continue... Nope! I got to a high point and looked ahead: uh oh, looks like fences on both sides of the road for quite a long time. “I’m sure it’s just private property for a ways and it’ll stop”, I thought... nope. “Oh great a road entering that doesn’t have a no trespassing sign, I’ll go up and explore there and it looks like I can kind of hide in one of those tiny side canyons.” Nope! The side canyons were an optical illusion from the road and provided zero hiding. Maybe if I climb over the canyon? I climbed to the top and it’s just a huge, very exposed plateau. Really not ideal for being right next to a busy highway at all! I walk back to the highway and keep walking. Next a truck pulls off the road, a bit past me and a guy gets out of the passenger side and starts walking towards me. I walk a bit faster as he’s certainly not waving or saying anything. I look back again and he’s still coming, and is still coming after 30 seconds or so.... hmm, that’s really weird. Thankfully my fast walk stayed ahead of him and after a couple of minutes he returned to his truck... that was really weird! Not sure if i should have been worries or anything as nothing happened, but it was weird. Nothing fell out of the truck or anything like that, and typically nice people who pull over will yell or wave or something.... things aren’t liking the best for camping. Oh it also seems like every house I Pass is shooting guns! Haha. Hmmm. I texted my friend John who I was planning on staying with tomorrow and relayed the situation. He was nice enough to come pick me up on the road and take me in early! And man it’s been awesome! A nice bed, shower, took me out to a huge incredibly tasty meal at Texas Roadhouse and out to ice cream afterwards! And cupcakes! And they’re letting me use a bicycle all day tomorrow to make up the miles I’ve missed! And I can stay again tomorrow and they have cool dogs! John,Tracy, and Anne: thank you so much! You’re awesome! Another thought from today: I’m in the desert. The next phase of my trip is here! Back to trail! A whole new climate zone! I’m super excited! Well, I’m off to bed and am going to try to ride a bicycle 60 miles or so tomorrow to cover the rest of the Road sections! Here’s hoping for the best!!! An interesting day!