Starting off with sandals for the day brightened my world up quite a bit. Seven miles in to Lindon my feet sprawled out in their new airy encasements. I had heard in Anton that there was nothing in Lindon and the only place to eat between Anton and Byers (a 55 mile stretch) would be in Last Chance at a Dairy King that closes either at 2pm or 6pm depending on business for the day. Of course I held my hopes up that perhaps they were wrong, thinking of the several other times I’d been told there’d be nothing and found very nice places, such as outside of Weston, MO at the steakhouse there.
Well they were right. I saw the closed café everyone told me of that died out a month or so earlier and then turned to the Post Office that was open for AC and company. It was just a little hut and inside was just a ten foot corridor to the window and a bench, but it was cool inside so I sat down as the unseen postal ladies sorted their mail on the other side of the wall. I got to talking with them and got an OK to sit and have lunch there. One asked me what I was having and I figured I’d eat the raw hot dogs I got in Anton before they went bad. It turned out they had a microwave so she nuked ‘em up for me and on top of it gave me her spare Pepsi that she had in the fridge. The other lady took off to deliver the mail so I sat and had a hot meal of six hot dogs with the Post Master lady.
She was a real nice gal and we talked about my trip and the people out there in the country that I’d met, and then it segued some how into talking about the 11th and the war abroad. After a little while I finished my lunch and down the road I went to try and catch the Dairy King.
I decided to take just one break on the ten mile stretch so as to make it by 3pm. My only hope was that the Dairy King got some sort of hunting traffic from the long holiday weekend and that she’d keep the place open past 2pm. Lindon’s postal lady told me that hope was slim, but I held on to it anyway. I got in at 2:40, the restaurant was closed. I had missed my last chance at Last Chance. Fitting, I suppose. There was a park down at the bottom of the hill so I had a few oranges and laid out on the picnic table.
I wasn’t too concerned about my water since I’d filled it to the brim in Anton and still had at least four liters of my six left. After resting for a good half hour or so I set off again. A mile out of town I ran across a guy coming out of a field in a pickup. He got out to close the gate as I was passing in front of the truck and we got to talking. I told him about just seeing things around the country and meeting people, an idea he really liked, so he told me about an old prison cell under a bridge from the Old West days about three or four miles up and gave me a bag of zucchini bread. I thanked him and headed off looking forward to resting in that prison if I could.
I don’t think I ever found it, at least nothing that looked like a prison anymore. Four miles later I came across a bridge and figured that was it so I went under it to relax. It was an old wooden thing underneath set in some vile, bird poo laden mud that had flies zipping about. I’d already crawled under there and was tired so I rested and had the zucchini bread anyway, but was not in the most relaxing setting despite the shade. I stayed only about fifteen minutes, if that, then made my way out achieving a splinter under a fingernail on the way.
The rest of the day got a bit more interesting with the weather. Since I’d gotten into Colorado the clouds became an active part of the sky and sprinkled a few times, like after Idalia. I planned on going nine miles west of Last Chance to get a good dive into the 35 mile stretch it was to Byers and as I approached my last three I watched as a broad dark rain cloud stretched over the whole of the western sky ahead. On either side of the road were those wispy clouds that let you know its raining under there, but there was a hole like a tunnel that went right over the highway.
Quickening my step a bit I hoped to make it through that hole as I watched the wispy curtain of rain slowly close in on either side. Up and over a hill I went, and as I crested the top of it lightning flickered far off to the south and the winds picked up incredibly. I started wondering about tornadoes, but it didn’t seem like it, just windy. Then the rain came in little drops and drizzles about a mile from where I wanted to stop.
Dropping my pack I donned my rain gear quickly and loosely figuring I only wanted to get one more mile before I could just take cover in the tent. With this in mind I just threw on the pants over my suit and shed the socks from my sandals sticking them between the rain cover and my pack not even bothering with the parka. I put my pack on without cinching the strings on the rain cover as well and did that as I started walking again, pulling at the sides to get it on straight as I moved along.
The winds decided this was a good time to have some fun with me and really picked up their howling. Not having my cover cinched acted like a parachute and blew the bottom out releasing my socks across the street. Off I went chasing my left sock like a fool with the saying from Miller’s Crossing running through my head that “only a fool chases his hat”. Well I like my socks and I’m keepin’ ‘em, damn it.
I caught the little run away not far off and scampered back again trying to cinch down the rain cover sticking the socks in my pockets. The drizzle came and went but the wind was fairly continuously in my face trying to push me back. Fields of sunflowers averted their eyes to the winds’ bullying and for miles off my only witnesses stared at the ground as I fought my way through natures fury. After a good fight, an energizing fight really, I spotted my mile marker and threw down the tent.
As I pitched it, the winds still battered and blew the canvas around not wanting to stop playing, but once the little hut was up I bid my friend adieu and stepped in for the evening. It was a beautiful night to be in the tent. The rain never came down hard, just occasional hellos to wet the appetite of my rain fly. The mesh of light and dark gray clouds colored by the setting sun was beautiful to watch as I had a nice flat view of the horizon before it dropped down a hill a mile away. On either side of the road I had my sunflower army to stand watch, but my favorite part came after the sun fell.
I lay down going over my maps and had some oatmeal for a bit after watching the sunset. After an hour or so of that, and then another hour of writing, I turned to look out my portal created by the full donning of the rain fly. Only the front door flap was open and out it was the long stretch of road under the night, the fields on either side, and giving those textural clouds above some color was the broad orange glow of Denver’s city lights spreading out from below the horizon, around the Earth’s curve. It was my promised land and I stared at it for at least an hour or two before retiring for the night.