Time of departure:  6:55 A.M.

Temperature:  55 degrees

Elevation:  6019 feet

Total Mileage:  246

“Bear, bear, bear!” I yelled, and slid to a stop, pointing and screaming. 

The bear, a hundred yards away by this time, was a very large black bear, not black in color, but cinnamon brown.  He crossed the creek, running parallel to our direction of travel, and started up the steep incline.  It ran for a hundred more yards, then turned and gave us a dirty look, as if to say, “why did you bother me?” 

And I don’t blame him.  The grass along the road was knee deep.  And it was true grass, not just weeds.  Moisture has been abundant to Colorado for the past six months. 

He lingered a few more minutes and disappeared into the brush.  It was, by far, the largest bear any of us had ever seen.  We felt lucky.  Earlier in the morning, we hadn’t felt lucky. 

To be honest, it had felt as if the Keystone Cops were going riding.  We left the motel in Trinidad early in the morning and drove down Main Street.  Meredith said to me that some of my luggage on bike needed to be strapped down better.  No big deal.  I’ll just pull over and strap them down.

I pulled over to the curb on Main Street.  Instead of getting off the bike to secure my stuff like a normal person would do, I decided to fix the situation while staying on the bike, rotating my torso a full 180 degrees.  In the process, I lost my balance, and, instead of falling towards the curb, I end up rolling out into Main Street on my back.  A car had to drive around me.

After I picked myself up, Dad gets off his bike to help me right my bike.  In the process of righting my bike, dad’s backpack came open, spilling most of the contents, including toilet paper.  I looked up to see the roll bouncing into the middle of the street. 

Also, an entire bottle of Powerade came out, hit the ground on top and shattered the lid, spraying Powerade all over Main Street. 

Needless to say, we were all a bit awestruck.  We picked up the toilet paper and got out of town as fast as possible.

After seeing the bear, we all felt better.

We stopped to eat in Silver Cliff, CO and continued on.  Later in the day, we crossed the Arkansas River.  It was up and rolling. 

After several more mountain meadows lined with aspens, we were faced with a rather large thunderstorm, but luckily, we were able to make it to Salida before the rain started. 

See y’all down the trail.

Ron and Meredith

July 6