Days 36/37 Pueblo and Lamar, Colorado

I probably should have done this to the day in Wyoming that did not really have anything really exciting, but I am combining the last day cities into one to make the blogs more bearable.  When we left Colorado Springs, Bruce Rogers joined us for yet another ride-along.  If you are a first time reader, Bruce is the first man to do Journey of Hope and kind of created the event.  Every time a team gets to have him as a ride-along it is a very special day.  The funny thing is that here is the man who has been riding with Push America from day one 25 years ago and he is the one who had the most flats on the day.  Just goes to show that it does not matter how talented of a rider you are, you can still get a lot of flats on the road.  I had Bruce’s son with me in the van all day and it was cool to talk to him about the bikes he races and what it’s like to have the almighty Bruce Rogers as a dad.  He had some cool stories to tell me about him and he is everything I expected him to be: a smart, loving, old-fashioned father that makes you work for everything and earn it.  Pueblo was a cool little town with yet another old-fashioned city feel to it.  We stopped at a place called the Gold Dust Saloon that fed us with some great burgers.  It was also a good stop because a lot of us wanted to watch the championship match of the Euro Soccer Cup.  We hung out at the saloon for a while and visited with Bruce and his family as we watched the game and waited for our rooms to get set up.  Yep, we stayed in a motel again last night.  We love when we stay in these places with actual beds. 

Today was miserably hot.  It was a pretty long day as far as mileage goes, and an even longer day as far as how it felt.  There were a couple times where we had to rack because of construction, so we had the vans stop before the construction and load the bikes.  If you are unsure, it takes a pretty long time to load the bikes on the vans and get everyone inside.  We carry everyone’s backpacks in the vans on the road, so we have to unload the backpacks for the cyclists to get in and then load the bags on top of them.  Once we got through the construction spots, we had to unload everything just like we loaded it.  Because we had to do that twice, even though it meant traveling the miles faster, the time it took to load, unload, load, and unload again made up for the time being in the vans.  We stopped at a small little town in a parking lot for a crew lunch of sandwiches and chips.  It was so hot that our water was not cold anymore, but because the water was not hot, some of the cyclists volunteered for a bath.  We poured the rest of the water in each cooler over a cyclist and got them nice and wet.  It was pretty funny.  To make it even worse, people from past trips have said that the lodging in Lamar is the worst of the summer and it did not disappoint.  It is by far one of the worst.  We were all relieved when it was dinnertime and we got to go to someone’s house in the air conditioning.  We were staying in an auxiliary gymnasium that is dedicated to wrestling.  The year on the bricks outside the front door say 1919, and I honestly think no renovations have been done to this structure.  The hour that we had before dinner was a relaxing time, but no one was able to relax because they would start sweating within five minutes of sitting down.  As hard as it is to believe, being outside in the heat was much better because of the wind.  I will be so glad to leave this place in the morning.   I cannot even imagine how bad it will be when we are all trying to sleep tonight.  Well wish us luck and pray we do not get dehydrated in our sleep! Night y’all.