Day 141

Woke up around 4 am and had to pee. I stepped outside and used the gender neutral bathroom while looking up at the stars. If it wasn’t so cold I would’ve stayed there looking up until the sun came up. Instead I retreated back to my sleeping bag for another couple of hours. 
I sensed that the sun was coming up and opened my tent to wake up and get ready. There was a cow standing less than 50 feet from me. The sun was rising in the horizon. Not a bad start to the day. 
The wind was really blowing hard which made packing up kind of difficult but I managed. The wind was an issue for the next couple of hours. It was blowing right at me and I had to use a lot of extra energy to keep Lieutenant Dan rolling. Not to mention I’ve been repairing the front tire about 4 times a day due to flats.
Anyways, I kept going. The views were stunning. I saw some antelope running fast as hell. There were lots of cows too. They had so much space out here that they seemed happy. Way happier than the cows all bunched together like in Kansas. 
Every hill that I climbed had stunning views waiting on the other side. I am loving this part of the country. Walsenburg was the town I was headed towards. It was a total of 24 miles from where I started this morning. I did them all pretty easily. 
I ran out of water with about 5 miles to go. I was drinking like a fish. I suppose it’s the dry air. I was really really thirsty but I knew I could get water in town. After 3 miles of pushing through I was really needing a drink. Right when I was about to take serious action to find water, a car pulls over and they hand me a half gallon of cold tea. Boom! They said they were from La Junta and they heard about my cause. I thanked them and they could see how happy I was. I chugged half of it as they drove away. La Junta looked out for me again!!
I make it into Walsenburg. A pretty neat town. The gateway to the west as they would tell you. I was planning on meeting someone there. A family from Denver who is affected by the epidemic. Jeri, Bruce, their son Brett, and their spirit son Ryan all came to visit. They paid for my hotel room and bought me dinner. It was cool to hang out with another Brett. We’re all pretty much amazing ya know 😉
During dinner, they asked about where I was planning on going tomorrow. Good question. I hadn’t thought about it yet. My current mission was to get to Walsenburg. I looked up my map and realized that I was already at 6,000 feet elevation and was going to be climbing mountains the next few days. I was in the Rockies and didn’t even know it. 
It totally explained the need for water and the fact that I was feeling loopy. I made sure to take it seriously from here on out. The last thing I want to do is pass out on a busy mountain highway. 
After dinner I was exhausted. I forced myself to shower to get the 3 days of desert off of me and then I laid down and was down for the count.