August 4, 2014 – Ordway, CO- population 1,080

Post date: Aug 4, 2014 9:04:13 PM

We spent the night in Ordway. The only overnight options were a private campground and a Hotel. They had a couple of nice city parks, but they don’t offer those up. I drove through the campground and it was sketchy. Maybe if you had an RV to park and stay in it would have been okay. But your RV might have got stuck in the loose, sandy ruts. The camp sites were little patches of tall weeds and dirt. One trailer that was there had a satellite dish and a lot of junk outside. I think that person lives there. When Doug and Jon pulled in, they had already talked to a cyclist and heard about the campground, so we headed to the Hotel.

The bikers you meet along the way give you information about where you are going- things they have heard or experienced. It’s a great communication line all along the way. Doug and Jon met 2 guys heading the opposite way and they told them where to get a good piece of pie in Sugar City, right before Ordway. I drove through Sugar City and all I saw were small closed up houses and houses for sale.

I thought this morning would be a pretty boring, routine 50 miles to Pueblo, but I was wrong. I knew I was taking highway 96 all the way in. We have been on Highway 96 forever. I got to a place where the highway 96 joined highway 50, but there was a split off to the right. I thought my GPS was telling me that 96 went off to the right and I knew I needed to stay on 96. My GPS is always wanting to put me on the major roads, too, so I don’t always follow it. I didn’t know that 50 and 96 joined for a while. (I would have known if I had studied my maps but I thought I knew what I was doing.) So I decided to take the split to the right. After about a mile there was a sign that I was entering a “Military Reservation.” Then there was a sign about all the things you can’t bring in or do, like take pictures or draw pictures, or basically look suspicious. There are notices that you can be stopped and searched while you are in this area. Then there was a more official entrance of stone on both sides of the road. I thought about turning around, but then I thought, well sometimes the route takes you through cool areas you wouldn’t normally see, so I kept going. Up ahead there were big cement blocks in the road that you had to drive back and forth between, then finally a guard station with a beefy military guy and a barricade in the road, like a backwards ramp that raised and lowered. It was in the raised position, so I couldn’t go forward. I stopped and asked the guard if I was still on the Trans America bike route. And he said no- he didn’t think so. I asked him how to get back on 96 and he told me and lowered the ramp for me so I could drive forward and turn around. It was a really interesting place, and I would have loved to take some pictures, but I didn’t want to get detained and stuck in Colorado when we are this close to home. Now, my hubby wants me to take video of them going past a Pueblo sign, so that is my next assignment. I have already driven up and down this stretch 3 times to figure out where I can turn around and pull off for this couple seconds of video. I thought I might be driving straight to Pueblo and shopping in an air-conditioned mall for a couple hours, but here I am at the ‘Loaf n Jug’ gas station waiting for this photo opportunity. Looking forward to my own bed, shower, washing machine, dryer……