Oct. 9 – The Desolation

I slept well in Haswell and got going early with the plan to have breakfast in Eads, about 20 miles east. It was a bigger town, so surely there would be a place to get breakfast….,right? Well there was a restaurant, but it was closed on Sundays and Mondays…..bummer. Even worse – just think how cool it would have been for me to eat there!

There was a small supermarket in town, so I cobbled together a little breakfast and talked to the old guys that always seem to hang out at the supermarkets in small towns. Then I rode on. I went through several small towns and was struck with how desolate things are in Eastern Colorado. Just nothing going on. In Sheridan Lake, where the lake is dried up (of course) – there was a little convenience store where I had a snack. I asked the clerk if I could fill up my water bottles, but she recommended that I buy a gallon of water as the tap water was, as she put it, “contaminated with some sort of radiation” – I don’t know – maybe they just tell out of towners that to sell more water. Oh, and here is the sign in their restroom:

I just got on my bike and kept riding! I thought I might cross the Kansas border and stay in Tribune, but a persistent head wind slowed me down and when I reached the town of Towner I thought I would check it out. It was another little town with no businesses and lots of boarded up houses, but they did have a nice little park. I stopped and talked to a young guy who lived down the street from the park and whose sister had raised the money and built the park as a service project for their school. He gave me his blessing to stay there. I also chatted with a couple, Linda and Monte, who lived across from the park. They said that cyclists often stop in their town and camp and they leave the church (which was right next to their home) open so that we cyclists can use the restroom there. Very nice people and a friendly town. Linda did lament the decline of the town though as it had shrunk from 60+ residents 20 years ago to about 20 today. Most of the young people are leaving for bigger towns or cities and a lot of the farms and farm related business are run by out of town companies. Kind of a sad state of affairs. The park was a nice place to camp though.