Rocky Mountain High

My final home stretch started today. Five more days of riding. Today I spent a relaxed morning with Melissa, who I met in New Orleans and who had kindly offered me to stay with her while she was in Denver for work. This is one of my favorite parts about this trip. To make friends. Not just the brief encounters you have but actual friends. Because the people who can really  understand and appreciate what I am doing are usually people I would like to be friends with. By now, I have more than a handful of people who I am staying in contact with. And would love to meet again sometime. 

After 100 miles of riding westwards and upwards I arrived in Leadville, a small and old town at about 10,200 feet elevation (3.200m). The ride was beautiful. The Rocky Mountains, a deep blue sky and lots of bright white clouds. I remembered the road from last year when I drove to Copper Mountain for the Ragnar Relay Race. http://thirteenthousandfeet.blogspot.com/2015/08/run-rockies.html?m=1. Back then I had wanted to come back to ride it on my motorcycle. And here I was. And I'm only a few miles in. A lot more beautiful roads along gorgeous and majestic mountains are ahead of me. All this with beautiful weather. Anything that concerns me, any worries, anger or sadness that are currently in my life just fade away when I'm on my bike, riding through beauty like that.

Now I'm taking it slow in this elevation after I struggled to carry my heavy bags up two narrow and steep flights of stairs only to end up in one of the creepiest hotel corridors since The Shining. 

Outside, however, I found this beautiful little town surrounded by mountains still patched with snow.