"Bicycling unites physical harmony coupled with emotional bliss to create a sense of spiritual perfection that combines one's body, mind and spirit into a single moving entity. Bicycling allows a person to mesh with the sun, sky and road as if nothing else mattered in the world. In fact, all your worries, cares and troubles vanish in the rear-view mirror while you bicycle along the byways of the world: you pedal as one with the universe."
- Frosty Wooldridge
Sleeping at 9,500 feet allows you to breathe the clearest, cleanest air from the night sky. Of course, after busting our butts for five hours riding up to the top of Towogatee Pass, a good night's sleep came quickly and easily.
After oatmeal, raisins and bananas cooked over a one-burner stove, we packed up the bikes for a long descent into the valley below us. It's delightful to use 'gravity-power' to cruise into Dubois, Wyoming. We stopped to ride what is famously known as the largest "Jackalope" in the world. It's a combination of a jack rabbit and an antelope.
(Frosty riding a Jackalope in Dubois, Wyoming.)
We ate a second breakfast at the famous "Cowboy Café" in Dubois. As cyclists, we are only temporarily full with each meal. It takes a few miles to burn off the calories and we're hungry again.
The road from Dubois to Rawlins on Route 287 pretty much defines "wide open spaces" and Big Sky country.
(From the picture, you can see pretty much wide-open spaces, around 500,000 residents and more antelope than people in the State of Wyoming. It's one of our biggest states and least populated. Why? Winters are brutal.)
We pedaled for two days southward toward Rawlins. We camped out on the vast prairie filled with hawks, deer, antelope, eagles, coyotes and grasslands.
After Rawlins, we hooked up with Route 130 toward Walden, Colorado. That's when the Continental Divide again gave us a corridor south toward Granby and Winter Park.
As you can see, we found many places to sleep. After a long day in the saddle, we stopped at a pavilion on a soccer field to enjoy a bathroom, picnic table and overhead protection. But around 6 a.m. the next morning, we heard a compressor making quite a noise. We looked out our tents to see balloon lifting into the air. It floats west with the rising sun, and as the air heats up, it picks up westerly currents and brings the people back to the soccer field. The owners charged $175.00 per person and featured a champagne brunch under the pavilion. They kicked us out!
We pedaled over Berthoud Pass at 11,307 feet. It took three hours because we were already at 9,000 feet in the town of Winter Park.
(You go to sleep under a pavilion next to a soccer field with bathroom and picnic tables, but wake up to a compressor and a balloon rising into the early morning sunshine. Such are the vagaries of life on a touring bicycle.)
At the top of Berthoud Pass, we enjoyed deep canyon views and enormous wilderness with pine trees, wildflowers and waterfalls all around us.
(Frosty at the top of Berthoud Pass at 11,307 feet and snow in mid-summer.)
"While bicycle adventure-touring turns from days into weeks and weeks into months, you turn a corner in your mind, your heart and your spirit. You tap into a wellspring of eternal emotional bliss. You push two pedals that give your body renewed energy with every stroke. You see things differently while gaining whole new perspectives. You transform from one person into a whole new individual every day. Ironically, no psychologist can figure it out. But you know! The energy of the universe charges through every cell in your body to create pure magic."
- Frosty Wooldridge
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Share these videos all over America:
In a five minute astoundingly simple yet brilliant video, "Immigration, Poverty, and Gum Balls", Roy Beck, director of www.numbersusa.ORG, graphically illustrates the impact of overpopulation. Take five minutes to see for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=LPjzfGChGlE&feature=player_ embedded
"Immigration by the numbers—off the chart " by Roy Beck This 10-minute demonstration shows Americans the results of unending mass immigration on the quality of life and sustainability for future generations: in a few words, "Mind boggling!" www.NumbersUSA.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=muw22wTePqQ
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-- Frosty Wooldridge
Golden, CO
Population-Immigration-Environmental specialist: speaker at colleges, civic clubs, high schools and conferences
Facebook: Frosty Wooldridge
Facebook Adventure Page: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World
Www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com
Www.frostywooldridge.com
Six continent world bicycle traveler
Speaker/writer/adventurer
Adventure book: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World
Frosty Wooldridge, six continent world bicycle traveler, Astoria, Oregon to Bar Harbor, Maine, 4,100 miles, 13 states, Canada, summer 2017, 100,000 feet of climbing:
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