day 27

after a great night of sleep, evan and i got up and started packing up our bikes. thankful for the motel. we have a 81 mile ride to dolores, colorado. today we would say goodbye to utah and hello to colorful colorado! we are ready to get out of utah; some wonderful people and places but we need a change. luckily between blanding and dolores there would be a handful of towns along the way to fill up water and to get some food. i swear the whole day we were going up and down hills. a little annoying because you'd get into a rythm then you'd go down and catch some speed then have to go right back up what you went down. also there was some significant sidewind that slowed us down a bit but kept us cooler. some give and take i guess. after about 21 miles of riding we stopped off at a diner and enjoyed some good burgers and then some amazing pies! the pies were on the house too. we rested for a bit and filled up on water and started for the colorado/utah border. we hit the border and had to take some shots with the welcome signs! we missed utah's because we had to catch a ride to cedar city cause of evan's broken back tire so we made up for it with the one on the border with colorado. i hope you enjoy them because it took some good planning to get them. its amazing how the landscape has changed from utah to colorado; utah is red rocks and desert canyons while colorado is greener but also has hilly red dirt agriculture. more up and down hills. i was going up a hill when i felt a little bouncy and sluggish so i look at my back tire and it looks super low. i stopped and it was only 3/4s full so i took off my bags and flipped over my bag to see if i could patch the tube. i found the hole and applied a patch and evan and i started back down this hill when i start to climb the next hill and i look down and it is back to being deflated. evan was just soaring at this point and his broken mirror was looking at the ground so he couldn't see me so i pulled off again and replaced that tube with a new one. my only problems have been popping my back tire tubes, so i need to probably get a few more at the next bike shop. i was a ways behind evan and we still had 20 miles to get to dolores and it was getting later; lucky we had a place lined up to crash thanks to warmshowers but i didn't want it to get too late for us to roll into town. so we came up on the town of lewis and took a left to finish the last 11 miles to dolores. the sunset (golden hour) was gorgeous especially we i passd a reservoir; it is surely a beautiful part of colorado. more ups than downs now and took another left to cruise down a hill into dolores, but evan was nowhere to be found. the town isn't that big and normally if someone is ahead of the other they will wait at the beginning of town and then go in together. i cruised up and down main street several times and even the back streets but couldn't find him; i called him and texted him but no answer and it was getting darker out. i called our host, molly, and got directions to her place but was still in search of evan. after some more wandering around i see him pull off main street and into a parking area. i guess he kept going straight at lewis and missed the dolores sign and once he didn't see me for awhile he went back and saw the dolores sign and finally headed into town. we cruised over to molly's house and met her and her "husband" (it's complicated she said. ha) she is super nice and he's funny; she owns the only dog grooming shop in town and she has 2 ferrets. we got settled into our room and got a rundown of the house and which ferret likes to bite. ha. so we steer clear of the white nosed ferret. we then headed down to a brewery to try and grab some dinner but their kitchen just shut down, so we headed home to cook some rice up. i read and fell asleep after a bit.