Day 32-The High Dry Plains of Colorado

He said: Started out at the Colorado line. Colorado's roads so far are not as good as Kansas'. Not much in between the starting and finishing point, but about 6 miles from the end of the day caught up with Sharon at a little restaurant. Had some pretty funny conversations with the owner about bikers etc. The town's name is Sugar City. They used to have a population of 2000 built around a sugar plant that had been built in the early 1900's. The plant closed in 1967 and the current population is about 300. I got to Ordway (our final destination for the day) about 3 o'clock. Just as Sharon and I met up it started to rain. We are at about 4500' and the day after tomorrow will climb to 9400'. I guess we will be in the mountains. Alot of the schools in the area, because of the size of the towns, have 4 day weeks with longer days. It is strange to be in these towns with dozens of storefronts from businesses that no longer exist. At one time they must have had a thriving economy, and it doesn't look that way now. 104 miles.
She said: It has been fun sitting outside the small groceries and convenience stores and having people just strike up conversations with us. They are used to bikers coming through the area, and love to ask where you are from, what you do, etc. They also love to talk about their towns and have great pride in where they live. They call this area the dry plains, and I can see why. The landscape is very arid, not much for crops planted, and alot less livestock too. We rode along the rail lines for many miles, and at one point came across hundreds of rail cars empty on the tracks. You could tell they had been there for a very long time. I guess they don't use rail transportation around here anymore. There had to be at least 10 miles of those cars. We checked into our hotel for the night and inquired about a place to eat. Walked to the only restaurant in town only to find out they are closed on Monday. Luckily the next town was only 10 miles away, so we didn't starve. Went to the grocery for our breakfast staples and drinks for Paul for tomorrow. Will try to meet up with Evan and Andrew in Pueblo tomorrow, as they are taking the Western Express route to California and we won't see them again on the trip.

Pretty dry looking.

This was Paul's view pretty much the whole day. He likes to see a grain silo or water tower on the horizon-it means you are getting close to a town.