We managed another early start this morning, leaving our garage campsite shortly after 8am.
The weather was overcast, but the rain seemed to be holding off. It was a pleasant start to the day and the terrain had leveled out. We made great progress before finding our second breakfast stop: The Double L Grocery. This cafe, store, occasional music venue and campsite has been hosting cyclists for years. We signed the guest book, then enjoyed a couple of cheese and ham sandwiches and had a chat to Lucy and Arnold, the proprietors.
The roads continued to be flatter than we had previously experienced and our progress was swift.
Until we dropped down to Rough River and saw the climb back up on the other side. It was extremely steep and our muscles weren’t quite prepared for the sudden onslaught. It was a bit of a sweaty slog to get up the hill.
Luckily, we quickly forgot about that with the help of a chocolate chip cookie each and the excitement of our first timezone change! At the very top of the hill, we entered Breckenridge County and wound our watches back one hour. I also got the chance to tell Tom that I had cycled a whole hour ahead of him!
Now that it was back to about 10.30am, we SERIOUSLY felt like we had made progress. So a few more miles down the road, after catching sight of a barbeque trailer parked outside, we visited Peter’s Cave cafe and had a lunch of pulled pork, coleslaw and fries (vegetables are hard to come by at the moment). We also had a really nice chat with a couple of the regulars in there who were curious about our trip. One guy, Jason, even invited us to his wedding, which was taking place later that afternoon!
Our dessert was some fresh strawberries we found for sale at a house a few miles down the road. The family have a small strawberry patch and they pick and sell them each year in May. We bought a quart from them and ate them on the way to our next food stop.
We’d planned to make it to the Falls of Rough State Park to camp that night. What with the early start, the new time zone and our easier progress on the flatter terrain, we were there by early afternoon and started hunting for some food for dinner. We stumbled upon a place selling fresh eggs – we dropped in for a dozen, including one duck egg, all for two bucks. I cooked up the duck egg as an egg sandwich appetizer when we got to the campsite.
It was then time for some evening chores before walking over to the lodge for dinner (we’d abandoned our own cooking plans when we found out it was buffet (!) night).
We made our way to the lodge and sat in the comfy armchairs, writing the blog while watching the X-Games on the TV and wrestling with the lodge’s WiFi setup. At six, we thought it a good time to check out the dining arrangements. The waitress had obviously seen cyclists eat here before – shortly after we filled our plates with course number one, the chef popped out to see what damage we’d inflicted.
With very full bellies, we felt that an evening stroll was in order. So we walked down to the lake. It had been created in the fifties when the river was dammed. It’s a beautiful spot and lots of people come for the weekend to fish, jet ski and boat around. At 8pm on a Saturday night, it was really calm and still.
Then back to our campsite as it was getting dark. Tom informs me that I was fast asleep in our tent at 8.30pm. I’m going to use the time change as my excuse!
Tomorrow, we make our way to the small town of Utica and an overnight stop that I’m particularly excited about!