Sue Sponte (Of our own accord)

We are in La Junta (the junction) Colorado. We biked for total of 72 miles today. The last 3 hours were 95 to 100 degrees with a stiff head wind. So much for the myth that the winds are primarily from the west. Betsy survived with her cooling collar and an ice bag in her jersy pocket. We got a late start out of Pueblo to allow time to mail home the last package of stuff we no longer needed with the cold temperatures of the Rockies behind us. We were initially directed to a UPS center only to find that it was a distribution center and they were unable to directly accept any packages, so we then navigated through Pueblos morning rush hour traffic to a post office to mail the package. After all that we had 15 miles on the bike before we even made our way back to the bike route. Speaking of the bike route. Route 96 and route 50 shared the same road for the first 15 miles after you leave Pueblo. When route 96 split off from route 50 the surface turned to crap to ride on and we were unable to secure any motel rooms for the next 2 nights. Neither Betsy or I were enamored with the idea of sleeping in the desert in a tent once again so we elected to stay on route 50 with a great surface and shoulder (and many more services)and rejoin the Trans America route when the 2 routes cross paths once again in 3 or 4 days. Hence the title of this post which is part of the Ranger Creed. We are taking route 50 for a 55 mile ride to Lamar, Colorado in the morning and on to Kansas on Sunday. The bike is working great by the way thanks to Vance of Vances Bicycle World.