Heading East

Today marks my departure from Colorado and the start of my long journey home, this time through Oklahoma instead of Kansas. Since I don’t have much in terms of activities planned for today, I opted to sleep in to the late hour of 8 and hit the road from Alamosa shortly thereafter. 

Coming out of Alamosa I got my last looks of the mountains, including the spectacular Spanish Peaks to my south. Eventually I came to interstate 25 which would take me south to my lunch stop of Trinidad. 

Trinidad is a fairly nice old town with red bricked streets in the downtown area, and many old brick buildings lining the streets. Since it has a state college campus, there’s also a bit of a youthful energy. 

I walked around downtown before checking out the college’s free archaeology museum. It was small, but engaging, and provided interesting information about local discoveries of fossils and remains from human settlements. 

After the museum, I got back on my bike to go south briefly in to New Mexico, before turning east. The desert shrubbery gradually turned in to grasslands with grazing cattle, and the small mounds and ancient mountains disappeared until it was just plains in every direction. At one point I remember looking around and not seeing any mountains, trees, cattle, structures or even other vehicles on the road. It was just grassy plains in every direction. 

With such a flat landscape though, what I had abundance of was wind. I had to lean my body forward on the bike in an effort to become more aerodynamic. As it happens, this route closely parallels the southern arm of Santa Fe trail, which is fitting because on the way to Colorado I closely paralleled the northern arm. The southern arm was more direct, but also crossed through some perilous native American territory. I can personally attest that today that danger no longer seems a threat. 

It took me over two hours but I eventually I arrived in the shining metropolis of Boise City, Oklahoma (population 1200). Two motels, three gas stations and 2 restaurants (one of which is Dairy Queen, the other a Mexican restaurant). There’s really nothing to see here, so I checked in and got some dinner.