Greg writes:

Monday July 17th, Tuesday July 18, 2006
Okay, okay we give up! We’ve taken as much of this hardship as we can stand, and now it’s time to move on. A poolside room with the hot tub, lounge, pool and restaurant within a few feet and all indoors is just too much to bear.

On Monday, the heat wave finally broke that had been throttling the whole region like a chubby toddler shaking a rattle. Highs in the upper 80’s to low 90’s felt like… well, like 20 degrees cooler than it had been for days!

Alice, Matt and I rode the Iron Mountain Road again, looking for the specific spots for the pictures we wanted. I think we found them just fine! After the ride on IMR, we headed over to Custer for lunch.

In Custer, we found the Sagebrush Grille, and had a great meal. Matt had a bison burger, I had the elk burger, and Lady Alice, vegetarian to the core, tried a bite of each since they were both locally raised and injection-free. A pair of families were traveling together and eating in the Grille, and we gave the 5 kids kazoos. One of the fathers also took one, and they went outside to practice. A few minutes later, I stepped out to video them playing “She’ll be comin’ ‘round the mountain”. The kids were great… the father should probably not give up his day gig!

After Custer, we rode through more beautiful scenery up through Hill City and on to Deadwood, where we had a late afternoon break for ice cream. Then it was back to Rapid City for a farewell dinner with Fitch, who left this morning.

Nearly everyone has loved the idea of the kazoos, except for one extremely grumpy new bride who tried really hard to castigate me for supplying all the kids at our hotel with kazoos the other afternoon. She found it too difficult to talk to her family poolside with all the happy children (and quite a few parents) playing kazoos, which added to the noise of splashing water, running feet, air hockey, pool tables, shrieking giggling children… you know, “fun”. I thought it was quite amusing that she told me what I’d done would be revisited upon me 10 times. I guess that means that since we gave out 2000 kazoos on this year’s ride, we’ll have to make 20,000 people smile with a simple gesture next year. My condolences to her new groom, and I hope they don’t plan on having any children.

Alice, Matt and I are off towards Glacier National Park this morning. Hope to make it Red Lodge or Billings by tonight, but we’ll see how it goes.

This is it for this year’s entries from me. It’s been an absolute blast. Many, many thanks to all the people who’ve made this worth doing: the riders, the sponsors, the donors, Lori at Behind The Scenes and Joe at Broadway Cares, and of course special thanks to our own web-deity, Sarah Gowan.

Check back soon for details about 2007’s Act IV.

Warmest regards to all,
-=Chrome=-

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Bill writes:

Monday July 17, 2006
Mike & I left Sparta, WI early this morning to beat the heat and the traffic. Funny, but I had forgotten about traffic on the trip. It's a bit of a shock to have to share the road with everyone else.

The heat, as you can imagine, is oppressive. We do sprints for about 50 - 75 miles and then find a place to cool off. We stopped in Beloit to visit a good friend for breakfast and then back at it again. We went around Chicago via 39 and ended up on 70 out of Indianapolis. Every was going great till we ran into construction in Dayton. It took so long to get through it that
once we did we jumped into the first hotel we saw. Tomorrow should be the last leg.

I'm glad Greg and that group got the better place to stay and I hope the heat breaks before he has to get on the road.

Be well
Bill

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Loren writes:

July 17th found us on I-70 headed for Cedar City, Utah. The first part—the Colorado part—was seriously B-U-T full! We stopped for playtime in the river near Glenwood Springs before challenging the B-side of Utah. Given the scenic largess we had enjoyed for the last couple hundred miles, it was only just that we serve penance. That was 10 Hail Marys, 5 Our Fathers and Utah between the Colorado border and Green River. But after Green River, we climbed up the Spotted Wolf Pass onto a cool mesa rife with twisted and tortured rocks, clawed canyons and jutting carapaces all painted with the colors of a thousand sunsets. We soon dropped off the mesa into folds between the conifer-strewn shoulders of the mountains near Cedar Breaks. Wildfires crowned their tops and chewed at their feet. We saw the flames and rode through the smoke while the baleful sun glared red and angry in its fall into the west. I misunderstood something said on the radio and lead the group off the highway at Richfield. We decided to gas up, take a drink and get back to the road. In our absence, a car and van rolled with fatal results, right where we might have been had my hearing been better. “Karma,” says Buckeye. “Prayer,” thinks Grits. The fires close northbound I-15, but, thankfully, we turned south to Cedar City and our stop for the night.