The Conqueror Inside is Out to Lunch
Let me give you an idea of what Highway 94 is like. Spacious; and when I say spacious, I mean that the state of Colorado didn't plan their development around this stretch of road. Now, I knew the way to go and that it would take me to where I needed to be; but, I like to spice things up a bit. After conquering the first hill that just about pulled my spirit into the mountains that I was just about abreast to, I could see another one looming ahead of me about ten or so miles down the road. I stopped at a honky-tonk to refuel on water just before the hill; and when I honky-tonk, I'm not talking about the one's you might think of when you walk into a VFW, I mean a middle-of-nowhere, nothing-but-a-bar-and-chairs, Cowboy Up honky-tonk. It only helped seeing a Coors Light truck sitting out front. The woman and her daughter inside were kind enough, the daughter telling her mom, "This is the guy we seen on the bike." Cute. Getting back on my bike, I stood and looked at the hill. Now, I want you to follow with me on a demonstration. Take your hand and put it in front of you, palm facing away, just parallel to your face as though you were about to wave at someone. Tilt it away from you about two degrees. That's the hill that was taunting me; the road that rolled out like a tongue sticking out, teasing me. There was nothing red-carpet about it. While looking at this hellish hill, I noticed a four way intersection just before the it started to rise. At that moment, all of the doubts in my mind about making it up that hill without death tickling my spine outweighed any sensible logic and as I made my way into the intersection, there was a brief moment that I was actually going to go straight and eventually save myself a lot of hassle, but I turned right, giving in to what I thought might be a short cut. These were the thoughts running in my mind as I made my way down this newly found highway(Ellicott, if your following my labyrinth route on a map): The highway goes south and that's where Highway 96 is. It'll take me there just the same. Looking back on it now, I feel that this was the point that the sun started having an effect on me.
Mother Nature doth not have a sense of humor or any sense at all. Mother Nature just. . .does. She is the one constant that never stays the same. That day, my first day out, was full of sunshine and blue sky and not a stitch of cloud sewn into the sky. And before you go against the direction of the wind, you really don't think which way it's blowing. When I turned south on Ellicott, I found out real quick which way the wind was blowing. North. If I had to invent a new way of saying it, I would say more northiest than south; though, it may not have been that much of a head wind, but I think that the lack of substance in my body at the time and the weight I was carrying really made the force seem a lot. . .northier than your normal north. So, with the thought of pushing through the wind and hoping that this highway really made it all the way down, I didn’t think about the sun, only that it was out and had the same sun-like qualities as it always does; however, the sun thought a lot of me. It really left an impression on any exposed parts of my body that I had offered up as a sacrifice. In the end, where I am now, I went from soaking up the sun to the sun soaking up every bit of energy that was left in me by what little amount of substance I had been able to obtain.
By the time I made my first rest stop on Ellicott, I realized that I was in no way prepared for this adventure, or at least this first leg. I’d pretty much broken this leg of my journey by not thinking ahead and not realizing that I was going through desert where water and food was very far and few in between and just relying on hope and a hand full of “we’ll see’s”. I also had my first offer of assistance at this stop. A young boy pulled over.
“Do you need a ride,” he asked.
“No,” I started, “I’m alright. It’s just been a long ride. Just taking a rest.”
He did sort of a half-laugh, surfer-dude nod of his head and got back in his car to leave.
“Wait,” I shouted and ran up to his window, “does this highway take me all the way down to Highway 96/50?”
He looked down the road and cocked his head a bit, “Yeah,” he squirmed out, “I’m pretty sure it does. Yeah, I think so.”
I stood there, staring at the uncertainty that was colored all over his face like a paint-by-number done by a toddler. “You’re throwing in a lot of ‘pretty sure’ and ‘maybes’. Are you sure?” I asked him one last time.
“Yeah,” he ended.
“Does the wind stopping blowing north further on down the road?” I asked in a serious manner.
He sort of half-chuckled and surfer-dude nodded his head saying, “Yeah.”
“I’m just kidding, bud. Thanks for the offer. Have a good day.”
I shook his hand and with that, he was gone. The rest of my journey on this highway laid in the hands of a sixteen year old that had no clue where I was, more so than me.
I took that in full confidence and hopped on the saddle toward Highway 96 out of Pueblo. Then, about fifteen minutes down the road, Ellicott Highway ended. I could see it coming from a couple of miles away. Squirrel Creek Road. I hit a temporary end to my southern journey. I stood there with my mouth open, trying not to let out any of my pride which had dwindled to a boiling pea. To my left, there was a foot left of paved road until it turned to dirt and to my right, west, from where I had just traveled miles before. I was forced to go west, knowing that a dirt road would only take me deeper into this scarcity that lay so dense around me.
My next encounter with a desert local was just twenty minutes after the kid. I stopped a lady for assurance that going west was better than going dirt-road east. She called her boyfriend, who’s house we could see, so I felt a little awkward talking to him knowing that I could wave at him and he could see me waving with a big arrow over my head that said “Wondering Idiot in Tights Here” He told me to keep going west until Peyton Highway, which I would turn south on. Go down that until I hit Hanover road just past the church. It all sounded simple, and it was. I took the slightly rolling hills of Squirrel Creek and turned on Peyton Highway where I passed my first tumbleweed on my journey out here in the west. That’s for you, Grandfather. Going down Peyton, I was starting to realize the full effect the sun was having on my skin when I looked down at my legs and could see the very distinct line where it went from very white to purple. “Not a good color for me,” as someone put it. And it isn’t. That’s when I started looking for trees of some sort to offer me a little shade for a little rest. I finally spotted some two to three miles on down the road and when I came upon them, a full fledged high school presented itself to me. I pulled into the parking lot of the district building next to it and laid down in the shade, all the while looking around for signs of any kind of life that might attend such a school. It was a decently sized school, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine where the kids came from. That’s when I figured I was in one of those towns they build just for horror movies. Back to me on the parking lot, I was asleep. When I woke up two minutes later, I knew it was time to set up camp and sleep.
So I set up camp next to Horror-town Hanover and as the afternoon waned, the evening rolled in along with a hefty amount of clouds that brought on some rain and thunder. I was blessed to find rain and held my water bottles under the drain pipes, finally collecting the much needed water, looking around wishing that someone could see me pulling off this survivor-man-like adaptation. I laid in my tent, thought about home and people in that home-part of my memory, and fell asleep to the rain thumping off the tent flap.
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