We woke up to a cloudy morning in Boone. Today we are going off the bike 76 trail to head south towards Durango CO and then Flagstaff AZ. I was nervous because those ACA maps were so good to us. They showed each town’s amenities and how far to the next convenience store, etc, as well as an elevation map. Now we will rely on gmaps. Mistake.
The “road” we took from Boone to Walsenburg was dirt and gravel. Granted, it was mostly flat and smoother than the gravel road we took the day I fell…but it was still challenging to keep balanced. The road took us though Red Top Ranch, a gorgeous 90,000 acre working ranch. We had to ride over a bunch of giant cattle grates almost big enough for me to fall into.

After 10 miles on this road, I start getting more comfortable and able to take in and admire the gorgeous scenery. I started to have fun again… Jacob whistled at some horses and they came right over to the fence for a photo op.

We were slightly worried when we passed cattle (no fence) and a giant bull went from laying down to kneeling and almost got all the way up…looking right at us. Avoid eye contact…does that work with bulls like humans? He let us roll on by.
A man in a truck stopped us and told us “You woulda been better off taking the highway! 30 more miles on dirt ahead. There’s one ranch house between here and the main road but that’s it. And it gets real slimy!”. Great.
Shortly after this encounter, Jacob starts getting flat tires. Like, a, lot of them. He took off the tires (and I pumped them up) 12 times. Needless to say, we ran out of tubes so he was doing “patch jobs” that were not holding. Glueless patches are useless. They suck!
We weren’t getting anywhere so I started biking ahead to see if I could find tubes or patches or something. Jacob started walking. My only plan at this point was to make it to Walsenburg (25 miles), check into a motel, drop off my heavy gear, find tubes (if possible), bike back to Jacob and hope he could make it.
Thank goodness Jacob  found a ride.
I rode about 7 miles and I hear “Heeeey what’s a pretty little thing like you riding all by herself in the rain?” Did I mention it was raining? Jacob was yelling at me from the front seat of Kenn(withtwoNs)’s truck. I scream “Yeeeaaaaay!” Kenn works at red top and have us a ride into town. After loading my bike, I hopped into the back seat and noticed a hand gun two inches from my left knee and a rifle behind the driver’s seat.
Kenn was so nice. He drove us to a tire store (to get some kind of better patches) and then a motel. We also found the “Walsenburg Walmart” which was a garage filled with junk. Lots of marijuana flags everywhere and crap piled up on top of other crap. However, the dude working knew exactly where to find bike tube patch kits. Hopefully they will get us to the next “real” Walmart or bike shop where they sell Jacob’s particular tubes.
We picked up Carl’s Jr for dinner. Jacob has been looking forward to the point when Hardees would switch to Carl’s Jr “cuz that means we’re out west”.
Jacob meticulously worked on patching his tubes while I showered and watched the news about Syria, etc. Wow there’s a scary “real world” out there. We are in a biking bubble most days.
Pleeeeease, patches HOLD!