Spiders, Rattlers and Tarantulas

Friday .....

Missed a bunch of blog entries as we have not had any wifi.   Today was a ride from hell.  It was rain, wind and real cold for 83 miles.   

The ride took a good 6 1/2 hours.  Everybody had full rain gear on including rain hats, rain booties and gloves.  I had everything but gloves and would have died had I not bought the last pair of work gloves at the local convenience store leaving Trinidad.  

Before leaving Trinidad a large storm front moved into the region first with a thunderstom followed by 10 minutes of hail.  

Luckily I was in the hotel as it was rest day.  When it started raining all the local critters started heading for cover under the hotel covered walkway.  I quickly noticed huge spiders heading to my room.  I thought no problem... I will just close my door.  Except for the fact that there was about a 3/4 inch gap under my door - clearly enough for these little crawly things to invade my sanctuary.  Not knowing if they were poisonous or not - I took the law in my own hands - grabbed my wastebasket and started crushing the ones heading to my room.  God these things were huge!

This was not a close encounter I wanted to have.  The day before on our ride, Kyle and I were tooling along when a rattlesnake reared up and got in the strike position.  Kyle was closest to the rattler (thank god) but even I could hear the rattle.  Luckily we were going fast enough that we got by it without incident.

Colorado has some weird stuff.  On yesterday's 83 miler we kept riding past tarantulas crossing the highway (why did the spider cross the highway?). We had to have gone by 5-10 of these things - they were very large and ugly.  Some guys stopped to check them out - I decided if I wanted to learn about tarantulas I would Google it.

It was quite desolate where we rode today.  There was not a store or house for the entire 83 miles.  The only respite we had was the support truck at about 40 miles and the following building which people took shelter in and to warm up.

Last night the temperature fell down to the mid 30's.  We spent the night at a Junior College and because it was Friday night the campus was deserted.  Our crew took over the Cafe and given the cold and wet - they had to throw us out at closing time.

We had the option of sleeping in one of the college's building - but stupid me elected to set up my tent and sleep outside.  Yikes.  I froze my ass off.  I have a 3 inch air mattress which about half way through the night turned into an ice slab.  I slept with all my clothes on - including my down jacket.  Worst in the morning our tents were wet from the night dew.  

To add injury to insult just after I fell asleep (at 7:30 pm) the lawn sprinkler system went on where we had tented.  Couple of tents got soaked but we were able to get the the rest of the sprinklers turned off before they reached my tent.

Today we have a short 60 miler and the temperature is supposed to head back to "normal".