day 28/29

day 28- after a good night of hard sleeping, we got up and ate some breakfast then headed down to the library to hit up some internet. dolores has a beautiful library that sits right next to the river and has big windows to gaze outside. we spent a handful of hours there updating the blog, sending out requests to stay with people, and catching up with the world of the internet. we then headed to the grocery store where we bought spaghetti and chips & salsa (our favorite these days). we had a feast (1 lb of noodles!). as we were waiting for the noodles to cook, we read national geo magazines and other backpacking mags that mollie had around the house. i finished my book, wild at heart, and started reading dharma bums so that was nice. two other cyclists were supposed to get in today so we waited for their arrival. mollie was off working a 24 hr shift helping disabled people so we had the house to ourselves, which is so nice of her! jeff and geoff (joff?) arrived around 7ish and we sat around chatting about our trips. they are traveling from east to west but jeff is only going from colorado to utah area while geoff (joff) is going cross country. they were great guys and they made a feast as well and we shared some spaghetti with them. that night we just hungout and told stories of travels and our bike trip then retired to bed.

day 29- awoke to hail soaring down from the skies and rain following it; luckily we were inside! we begrudgingly got dressed and packed our things. ate some breakfast and kind of waited for the storm to pass. we were planning on biking up to rico from dolores which wasn't too far away but up some elevation but this storm wasn't very inviting. mollie got back home from a 24 hr assisted living watch and it was nice to chat with her for a bit, but she's super busy! we hungout with jeff and geoff (joff) for a bit then we all went down and started packing up our bikes and talking about bike gear. they were heading to utah (moab) where the weather seemed to be a lot better than the dark black clouds looming over the mountains where we were headed. we said our goodbyes to mollie (as she was cutting a dogs hair) and to jeff and geoff and headed to the grocery store to get some last minute foods for the day. bagels, hard boiled eggs, banana chips, and dried papaya for us. it didn't rain on us for a while until we went around a bend and it started to dump, so we ducked under some trees and covered our bikes with our tarp and just waited. a guy in a van waiting for his friend to go canoeing showed up and harassed us for a bit, so that was nice. the weather cleared and we kept heading up the canyon to the mountain. off and on rain would hit us and we were wet but we made it to rico in no time and the elevation gain wasn't bad at all. sadly not many pics since the weather was so crappy and clouds covered everything! we got to rico and were trying to find a place to pitch our tent when we came across a hot spring that people were telling us about; when we wandered over to it there was a couple, "doing stuff" so we ducked into a shack to get out of the rain. thats when evan found another broken spoke, not more than 400 miles and a new rim and he broke another spoke. the rain died down and we headed to the road to hitchhike to telluride; after a couple of cars, a great guy, eddie, picked us up in his truck and took us to mountain village. he dropped us off with our gear and it was pouring rain on us but we ducked into a little overhang to figure out our next move. we were cold and near frozen since we were up about 9,000 ft or so. the bike shops there were closed for the day so we caught the free gondola down to telluride. they crammed us both with our bikes into the gondola and slammed the door, not telling us when to get out for the town. after a couple stops we arrived at telluride and we struggled to get our bikes out of the never stopping gondola and evan's bike got stuck in the door and was getting manhandled. they shut it down and they got his bike free and we wandered around main street looking for food and warmth. telluride is like the next aspen, super ritzy (not as much as mountain village, sheesh) but it is not a cheap place. we found a pizza place where we consumed a large pizza in no time and caught some of the world cup. that was nice. we struggled for a long time to find a place to stay but finally in the last moments, jeremy, texted us his address and we were off in search of his house. we almost broke into a historic house thinking it was his! ha. we found his place and waited for him to come back from shooting a wedding. he's a super cool guy, just got back from backpacking asia for 4 months! we talked for a bit then he had to get back to the wedding. his house is sweet, small but neat. we wandered around town looking for more food but nothing was open so we went back and went to bed.