(Kim's Perspective)
Woke up to rain today. Not a big deal considering our biggest priority for the day was getting some laundry done. Stupid chores while on vacation. :(
The park ranger paid us a visit around 9 am to see if we were going to stay another night. Bill chatted with her a bit and got some good advice on local dog parks (since the trails here are useless from a doggy exercise perspective) and when to attempt Pike's Peak.
We had some breakfast, loaded the laundry into the truck and paid for another night at the registration kiosk. A thunderstorm was moving in so we went back to the trailer and got the Boys since Merlin over the years has grown scared of thunderstorms.
I asked him if he wanted to go for a ride and he started whining, jumping around and running to the door. It cracks us up that a dog who previously freaked out and usually puked every time we took him somewhere now whines and carries on like a maniac if a truck ride is pending. Adventure dogs. :)
We did laundry (a pleasant experience I must say - not a single problem with the machines - SHOCKING) and then had lunch at a Korean joint called San Chang House. Jap Chae lunch box for me and Kal Bi lunch box for Bill. Yum-O. While we were eating, I started to have some kidney stone pain but it never got bad and I was able to thwart an unpleasant afternoon with a couple of Aleve. (I'm saving the Percocet for a hard core attack - which I'm hoping will never come.)
After lunch we headed back to the trailer where I promptly curled up in my sleeping bag. Bill did some catching up on STN while I slept and then went out around 5pm for a mountain bike ride. I stayed in and took care of some bill paying and budgeting (which we won't discuss). :(
He got back as it was getting dark and told me about his ride and his near gnarly crash. He always has "near" crashes. I just crash. ;(
He heated up the roasted veggies I had made for dinner last night and we discussed our plans for the next few days. Things are getting ugly on the budget front so we contemplated bagging RMNP and South Dakota and heading home. I did some mapping and looked up camping options at Rocky Mountains and at Wind Cave/Mt. Rushmore area and decided that we should just do it anyway. The sensible thing to do is to go home and start working before we have to tap into emergency funds, but sensible sucks and I don't want to get home and regret not making it to our last couple destinations, so screw the budget and the time line - we're going anyway. :)
(Bill's Perspective)
It was a spectacular save really but a stupid stupid mistake that led to me being shot off the side of a very steep hill. I should have walked the bike but didn't and as soon as I got moving again I had to adjust my weight which led to me putting the inside pedal down and right into a rock. This acted immediately as a lever and shot me sideways and down over the hill. Somehow, I was able to get out of my pedals, off my bike and spin around and land on my feet several feet down the hill. But at that point I had way too much momentum to stop so I had to hop again and do another 180 (think steep slalom skiing without the skis or snow) where I came to a stop just before the thick stand of treebush things. Oh, and as I stood there wondering how I wasn't bleeding out like I should have been, I saw all the cactus around me where I would have rolled. Thank you...God!!! I need to stop taking stupid chances when I'm alone and so far from home and in such dire need of my bones being unbroken. There is a false sense of confidence that builds up when riding trails that aren't that challenging. Then, just when you think you've got it, along comes a butt kicker of a technical section and instead of walking it, you think...mmmm, I got this. Fail. Still a fun series of trails with a bit of elevation thrown in for good measure. I still have several miles of new trail to ride tomorrow and I suspect some of it will be challenging regardless of how easy the descriptions say they are.
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