Junk Fuel

Day 15: day of rest in Fauquier, and I promise I’m not swearing. I was able to watch Church from Pueblo and relax, but not eat much, as I’ll get into below.

Day 16 Fauquier to Nelson. 65 Miles. 7532 feet elevation. Weather melting.

This post is dedicated to my grandson Galeb. He climbed 14, 14,000 ft peaks in Colorado before he was 14. I was fortunate enough to climb a few of them with him. He, and anyone else who’s climbed to 14,000 ft, will best appreciate this post.

The day started out with Gumby. Some people mentioned they missed him standing in front of my new camera. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to download the pictures yet, but I’ll try to get them in tomorrow’s post. I wish one of my five-year-old grandkids were here to help me.

Sadly, on many levels, when I got to Fauquier Saturday night, I had hoped to begin my day of rest and feast. Unfortunately, the local store had closed, and the town was so small that there were no other places to buy food. The motel had picked up the slack a little and had some junk food available, which I promptly bought up. So today my adventure was fueled by Oreo cookies, Doritos, and a leftover pizza. Breakfast was a hot pocket. Hardly the kind of fueling I wanted before a very big day.

One website indicates that the typical elevation gain when climbing a 14,000 ft peak is between 4,000 and 6,000 vertical feet. Having been there and done that, I know it’s difficult, and undoubtedly, the high elevation makes it more challenging. However, today, I did 7,500 vertical feet. Caleb, I’d like you to go to your garage and put 40 lbs of weight on your bicycle. Push it around for a bit, then think about taking it to the top of one of the 14ers by literally pushing it up the trail. That’s what I got to do today.

From 8:00 a.m. until about 2:00 p.m., I basically hiked a bike up what Google Maps referred to as a very steep hill. They were correct. It was incredibly remote, and I literally didn’t see anybody except for one guy doing road maintenance. I did see a moose and a black bear with two cubs. Fortunately, none of the wildlife were very interested in me, but it was fun to see them, especially when they ran away from me.

The weather was quite scorching today. The high elevation didn’t help, especially since most of the way up, all of the trees had been logged, and the sun exposure was intense. As I continued up the hill, I began stripping off my clothing. By the time I was about 2/3 of the way up, I looked like a vagabond with clothes draped over all parts of my bike. I probably could have been arrested for indecent exposure.

Typically, getting to the top is exciting because you can coast down the other side. Unfortunately, this road was made either by a moron or a masochist. It was so steep and rocky going down the other side for the first several miles that, in multiple places, I had to hike a bike down the hill. Oh joy. Eventually, I got to the point where I could pedal and enjoy some downhill sections. Unfortunately, I literally spent the first 6 hours going about 40 km, and by 4:00, I still had more than halfway to go. Oh well, it’s what I’ve chosen to do.

Now, as I’m getting ready for bed, it’s quite late, but I’m trying to finish off a Marie Callender’s lasagna, a pint of yogurt, a quart of chocolate milk, and a Slurpee. Hopefully I won’t wake up hungry 🙂