Day 45 – Ordway, Colorado to Eads, Colorado

Can You Operate a Loader?

There are several things that can affect the day’s ride, such as wind, rain and hills. When you don’t have to deal with any of these, or better yet you have a tailwind, then there’s not much to worry about.

Saturday’s 63 mile ride from Ordway to Eads was pretty much a continuation of the ride the day before. It was nearly all flat, no chance  of rain and the wind was with me.  As I may have mentioned, it’s strange to go through all of the climbing and wind issues in the past six weeks and then all the sudden have nothing to hold you back. If the rain and winds stay in my favor, the next week or so could be very uneventful.

Seven miles into the day I passed through a town called Sugar City.  After that it was wide open spaces of absolutely nothing along route 96, with the exception of a town called Haswell, which seemed like more of a ghost town as I didn’t see any sign of life there.

Route 96 has very little traffic and I could ride for ten minutes without a vehicle passing me in either direction. It’s also the road that I’ll be on for the ride across Kansas. On lots of days on this trip I’ve had to look at the map to see which road to turn off on.  Now I’ll just be following this one day after day.

When you’re riding across such flat, open land you can see how those big storms of eastern Colorado and Kansas would be powerful, so you’re glad to be out on a day when it’s blue skies.

I was going along between 15 and 20 mph much of the day, thanks to a tailwind. Even if you don’t think you have much of one, when you do a test and turn back the other way for a tenth of a mile and feel the wind against you, then you realize how good you have it.

I made it to Eads in under five hours. I was considering going further as the next town, Sheridan Lake, was 28 miles ahead, but decided to call it a day.

Eads is not exactly the nicest looking place, but they do have a city park you can camp at, as well as a restaurant and a store. So late in the afternoon after getting settled in I went over to JJ’s Restaurant for dinner. As I’ve mentioned, I love stopping in these diners and talking to these people. This looked to be a family run place with a couple of the daughters working  as waitresses and a lot of conversation going on between employees and customers.

At one point, a customer came in to pick up a to go order.  He shouted back to the cook in the kitchen and the conversation went like this:

“Dave, can you operate a loader?!” (I guess that’s a forklift.) “No, I don’t know how to operate a loader. But I think Mike can operate a loader.”  “Well, the guy I’ve got doesn’t know how to operate a loader.”

Every sentence ended with “operate a loader.”  It was as if it was a game and you had to say it at the end of each sentence. Customers around me began joining in.  Seriously. “Doesn’t Frank know how to operate a loader? He’s trying to find someone who can operate a loader.”  “Oh c’mon, Frank doesn’t know how to operate a loader.”

The people in these towns are interesting.  Eads is miles from anywhere and not particularly the most prosperous looking place, but those here seem happy.  The population is just over 600.  I don’t know how many of them ever leave the area and move on.  I couldn’t imagine living in such a small town without any big city nearby, but I guess it’s what you’re used to.