Today we rode from Durango to Pagosa Springs Colorado. It was an "easy day" consisting of 87 miles and five thousand feet of climbing - much less dramatic than yesterday but still very beautiful. For me and several others that were coming in later, an extended thunderstorm suggested convincingly that we should take a SAG (get a ride in the tour vehicles) to the finish from the last rest stop, resulting an even easier 70 miles. Besides the rain and hail, the SAG also made sense because the final leg of route was on US 160, the main arterial in and out of Pagosa Springs. And I was able to make myself useful by helping to break camp and pack up at the final SAG stop.
The southwest corner of Colorado is very similar the land around Santa Fe, except there is more water in Colorado. Similarly, the place names largely reflect the original Spanish settlement of these parts. Our route took us up, across and down the south-flowing tributaries of the San Juan River on beautiful back roads.
Video of super clear Pine River heading the only way it can: down
Before this video was filmed I was having problems with my bike shifting - it wouldn't drop down to the smallest sprockets. After a fast stretch drafting the big boys, the shifter cable gave up the ghost at about mile 19, breaking altogether. I always carry a spare shifter cable in my seat bag, and luckily there were no complications in fishing the cable head out of the shifter mechanism. So I was back on the road with working shifters, having occurred about a 15 minute delay for the roadside mend.
We saw a lot of open country:
Nature does a better job of recovering from tough times than do people:
After lunch riding along Stollsteimer Creek
Rachel is ready for rain and most everything else:
A field of purple flowers:
The route went by many stately Ponderosa Pine trees:
After taking the SAG into town, we were off to the eponymous hot springs:
On the way to dinner at the Lost Cajun restaurant, the weather was clear enough to highlight the ridge of the South San Juan mountains. Tomorrow we ride to Wolf Creek Pass to the left of what's shown in this picture and I expect to see snow close up if I get there:
On a more tragic note, we lost one of the strongest riders in our tour when he struck a vehicle that turned right in front of him shortly before the end of the stage. I won't get into more details in this public forum.
But its made me think about how time flows and how water flows. With the flow of time, everything can change in an instant, and there is no going back - no "do overs", no rewind. Water also flows in one direction as illustrated the movie clip above. But water has a cycle, replenished by evaporation then precipitation. Susan N today described a life as a circle, sometimes a small circle, sometimes a big one that encompasses many years. What is the cycle of life? Its hard to say but my intuition is that if there is a cycle its a lot bigger than we are. What I want to do with my life is express the same kind of frolicking joy that I saw in that creek below me when I took the video.