Sat Aug 23rd, Eads, CO -> Pueblo, CO (119 miles)

Riding through Arlington... Colorado, that is.

I bought a book on identifying wildflowers and trees. Staring at the same trees and flowers all day, it would be kind of embarrassing to not be able to name even one of them by the end of this trip.

One of the zillions of sunflowers in Eastern Colorado.

The sunflower family is one of the most evolutionarily advanced flower families in North America. The "petals" are actually rays, and the brown center is actually a collection of a whole bunch of mini-flowers, each with their own petals and ovaries. The sunflower is a compound flower. Bet you didn't know that!

Nice lady who gave us RO water and free electrolyte thingys.

Is it getting little cloudy?

It started to get cloudy in the distance near the end of the day, as we were approaching Pueblo. We began to see some major lightning, and when we were about 11 miles from our destination, I said to Aaron "You think we should put our rain gear on now?" "Not yet, we'll get too hot in it. Let's wait till it rains." Approximately 12 seconds after this exchange, raindrops the size of my saddle sore begin to pound us, while the raging winds from hell blew us over and made it nearly impossible to walk our bikes - let alone ride them - to the shelter of the abandoned house across the street. Under the shelter we put on our rain gear and waited out the storm. There was some intense cloud-to-cloud lightning, which kept us entertained while we waited. It was bad enough that cars were pulling off the road as well. Once the rain died down a bit we biked the last 11 miles - make that 15 once you count riding around town looking for our motel - to Pueblo Colorado. By the time we showered, ate dinner and went to sleep it was 1:00am. What a night!