We left Flagstaff finally on Wednesday (7/11) at about 5:00 pm with a pizza and a completely loaded truck and arrived in Durango, CO around 2 am Thursday morning. We set up the tent at a free campground at Hermosa Creek and slept to the sound of rain sprinkling and a breeze blowing through the pines. Thursday we rode right from camp up the Hermosa Creek trail for a couple of hours until the rain poured so hard the trail became a river of mud. We sat out the worst of it under a huge pine and then headed back down. Where the trail was smooth and firm before it was now slick and I ended up falling two or three times, though it was more funny than alarming. As I continued on the wet bushes brushed off the worst of the evidence and by the time things dried out I was only half covered in mud. What fun!

We drove back into Durango to visit with Dave’s great aunt and uncle Paul and Ann, who generously allowed us to use their shower to clean up. They swapped stories and updates of family members from Colorado to Wisconsin. Once everyone was caught up, we all drove downtown to meet Dave’s cousin Sarah and her new husband Brian for dinner. After dinner Sarah, Brian, Dave and I walked around town and then sat in the Strater Hotel bar and chatted for a few more hours.

Another night at the quiet Hermosa Creek campground got us caught up on sleep, and the next morning we spent working on our brakes as the steep muddy trail did them in the day before. I learned that the really “crunchy” sound that I was hearing the day before was very bad and that I should check my brake pads more often. I had worn through the pads and was down to the metal, which was wearing slightly on the rim. This would be a really bad thing if we were on tour because I’ll need all the strength of my rims to carry a loaded bike on rough roads, and good rims are probably hard to come by in places like Africa. So, this girl learned a good lesson in keeping an eye on my bike components regularly.