50 States Moab Utah to Cortez Colorado

Day 9, 185 miles

"The most important thing you can give someone is hope.” – Rudy Ruettigers. 

First, let me say something about Twitter. I said I'd eat nails or shoot myself with a water cannon or something before InTweeted. My friend Trevor patiently explained that Twitter is a great way to stay in touch, real time, with many others. So I'm Tweeting. Like for instance, yesterday we enjoyed honey chicken pizza at Zax in Moab. I shot off a quick Tweet. If you might be interested in this phenomenon, just go to twitter.com and it takes you through the setup. It's pretty easy. And if I say it's pretty easy, you know it's true. My twitter 'handle' (is that what they're called?) is @states50. Or look up my name. Please pass the nails and salt.

We stopped at a convenience store/laundromat/fishing license/pizza place/gas station and struck up a conversation with a farmer. After he regaled us with multiple stories of motorcycle wrecks and mayhem (why do they do that?), Quilter Girl managed to turn the conversation to farming. What are Anasazi beans? He told us that explorers discovered a jar, not too long ago, south of Dove Creek (where we were) and in it were these seeds. They were Anaszi seeds, left a thousand years ago. Clever people, they planted them and harvested the seeds, and now after ten centuries of extinction, Anaszi beans are back. And it's amazing how country people have so much more time to talk on their hands.

We set up camp at a KOA (product placement!) in Cortez, Colorado under dark and foreboding clouds.

No matter, let's go to Mesa Verde National Park! We rode up the hill with temperatures plummeting. As we arrived at the visitor center, raindrops spattered the ground, thunder rumbled and flashes of lightning lit up the sky. No matter, let's go visit Pueblo ruins.

Amazing. Neither QG nor I have seen Indian ruins before. I thought it wouldn't be interesting, but found it fascinating. Maybe being a contractor piqued my interest.

As we walked back to the bike, the rain accelerated. We donned appropriate gear and headed home. The rain poured, lightning flashed, and freshly fallen snow littered the landscape. I checked the temp. 41. My.

Today we blew the budget buying a year pass to the national parks. Eighty bucks. We should save a bunch of money through the year. The people at MV were most friendly, as we have found so many to be this trip. A Gold Wing with an Aspen trailer (double product placement!) parked across the way tonight. Hopefully tomorrow we'll strike up another conversation.