Day 43 Fort Collins CO to Laramie WY

Day total 68
Trip total 2,365

Last night we stayed in Fort Collins.  It was a really short day (40 miles), many of which were downhill, at the largest descent we were cruising at 35 miles an hour which is as terrifying as it is thrilling. We took advantage of the short day, and the last one accessible to good local beer and hit up some breweries; Left Hand and Coopersmith.

We camped in the backyard of Allen and his lovely fiance Maria, who we serendipitously at my cousins bbq last weekend in Denver. They were so kind to us and we enjoyed an entertaining evening watching the Republican debate. We want to thank them for their generosity and putting us up in Fort Collins and wish they them much merriment on their special, rapidly approaching day September 12th.
  
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On the road again this morning we prepared for our biggest ascent of the trip starting at 5,000 ft and pedaling our way up to 8,000 ft. I have been talking about this day for months.  Previous to our trip people would always ask about what kind of elevation we would have to cross. How we would manage in the Rockies? I can remember saying so many times the day we leave Fort Collins for Laramie will be our most challenging.

Needless to say I woke up today with some nerves. It has turned out to be a fortunate irony that our days of biggest climbing that I anticipated being the worst have turned out to be the most spectacular and some of my favorite days of biking. I love the feeling on insignificance I get from mountains and desert (Wyoming has some of the most majestic of both).  Surrondesnvy by these landforms I am overcome with the feeling that I am not that signifgant in terms of time and space. It might sound depressing but I find it a great comfort.

What slowed us down today was not so much the elevation as my constant stopping to take pictures. As I have told Mary Lou many time, "Pictures are just humans way of trying to hoard beauty." (That is a Barbara Kingsolver quote). Well today I was a hoarder.