dude... I am, like... SO high right now

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Boulder (Colorado) with a stupid-assed grin on my face. Just got into town, it was getting late, so the first thing I do is find a bike shop to ask where to go riding. The guy draws me a little map, and on the way to the start point, I find a hotel, drop my shit, put the bike together, and off I go. It's about 7:00pm, so I'm hurrying to beat the sunset. Turns out it gets cold in the mountains, but it was a short ride.

I'm so enthralled with my little GPS thingy that I immediately got back, plugged it in, and here's the track...


Let's not focus on the fact that on the climb there are spots where I was sucking wind at 5 mph, and two clip-out-and-stop-for-a-second-before-my-heart-pops-out-of-my-chest spots. Let's focus on the ass-puckering 47mph downhill. We ain't got none o' dat in Michigan.

I kid you not, the thought "OhHolyShitDidILockDownMyStemAndSkewersTightEnough" went through my head more than once. And brother, I am not ashamed to say that I was on the brakes more than my manly ego would like me to admit to. I had no idea where this road went or if it suddenly became potholed, oh yeah, and I have approximately ZERO descending skills. So yeah, it took a while to un-pucker from those spots.

So yeah, I'm riding high on some endorphins right now, for sure.

And get this - on the hairy-assed descent back to the hotel, this motorist in a burgundy Ford Expedition passes me really closely right before a tight turn (yes, I was out in the middle of the lane, but I'm sure I was going at or above the speed limit). So I'm thinking "what an asshole" and then I see him stopped 300 feet ahead, blocking the lane. Asshole, right? Turns out there were 3 deer crossing the road. Around a couple more hairy curves and he's stopped again - but he's even with (splitting the group) of three more - the two on the left shoulder and one on the right. And as I come up on him, it seems like he was totally stopped and started going when I caught up. He could have driven on, but it seemed like he waited for me to make sure that I saw the deer.

How cool is that? I felt like he was escorting me a little bit. It might have just been coincidence that he was trying to not hit the deer, but the optimist in me would like to think it's people looking out for other people. Thanks, Mr./Mrs. Burgundy Expedition Driver.

So yeah, am I going riding tomorrow morning? You bet your ass. And am I coming back here after the Utah backpacking? Looking that way - I just might make a side trip out to here on the way home.