Day 2 Strasburg to Agate

The time was just slightly after 1am. The ever-present hum of traffic from Interstate 70 was suddenly broken by the lazy gush of air fleeing the camp pad that was beneath me. This, was becoming a long night.

The KOA of Strasburg seemed a lovely place for Matt and I to post up on our first night of bike touring, but as dusk turned to night that illusion was slowly shattered. The constant whine of car tires flying past, the sound of some bar back throwing out seemingly tons of glass, and the occasional east bound train all conspired to trigger my restless sleeper syndrome.

In the best scenarios I use an eye covering and ear plugs to not jump awake at every single thing that goes bump in the night. It's a hangover from my colorful upbringing in South Kansas City, a part of town that the local paper once described as "having a serious and quickly growing homicide issue." I can quote that to you because it's a phrase my middle school aged mind fixed on. I reacted in a characteristically irrational fashion. Lots of double and triple checking window latches, a sudden interest in sticks and knives, and most importantly my self appointed charge as household night watchman.

My adolescent paranoia has died down now, but sadly my brain's encoding for night watch duty has not. I jump at the smallest noise, never really sleeping, and so it was tonight.

The KOA conspired against me and gave me a vast quantity of things to start at, and after every instance I determined we were not being eaten by bears and would flip over onto another barely comfortable side of my air camp pad. Finally, something I was wearing snagged the release valve and deflated the whole thing. Not just the pad I mean, my mood as well.

I lay there, feeling the cold, hard, earth sucking the warmth from me. I would not yield, if this is how this campground wanted to play, then so be it. I'd just lay there and take the best that this site has to offer and ask for more!

Which was a terrible mistake come sunrise. I ached and was very grumpy. Food was shoveled into my face, coffee slurped down, and legs thrown over bikes. Good riddance to this one horse town, I do not recommend.

My mood improved as I got miles underneath my belt. I began to appreciate the cool morning air. Heading in to the sun I quickly passed through Byers. About halfway in between Byers and Deer Trail I came upon a peculiar sight. On the south side of the road I noticed a massive sign that read "Oath Keepers Firebase 123 Medical Evacuation Station."

The complex is huge. Bulldozed berms make a firing range that is easily three football fields long, which stands to reason because the effective range of most civilian deer rifles is best at 300 yards. Various shacks on the property are most likely the medical aid stations for casualties of the coming civil war that for so long lived in these people heads, but thanks to their hard work and perseverance appears to becoming reality. If you build it they will come, as the saying goes.

I noticed distance human shaped specks looking at me as I looked at them and their property. Best to get a move on, I was only 150 yards away, well within sniping range.

I rolled down to some open space trail head just outside Deer Trail and awaited my compatriot Matt Harmon. He was quiet this morning, but he's a man of few words in general, so I thought nothing of it. When he arrived I began to think more seriously.

Harmon was flush from exertion. His two water bottles, completely drained. He had the look of a man in serious pain.

"I'm cracking," was all Matt said as he rolled up to the public tables, "Need a minute."

The words I said we're something along the lines of yeah, sure, whatever you need. But my thoughts were along the lines of "whoa, whoa, uh, whoa, this guy doesn't look good."

Harmon is the type of friend you want with you when you're staring down another fella in a dingy bar somewhere, bar stools already scooted back, hands tightening into fists. Harmon can usually diffuse the blossoming conflict, but if unsuccessful in that will quickly and with great conviction follow your lead in to a fist fight. I feared that in the fist fight of this bike ride, Matt Harmon is taking a pummeling.

The wind had been steady. A consistent 15-20 miles and hour, brutally out of the east. Exactly where we're headed. Evaluating his capacity, I recommended we call this day in Agate and make the long shot for Limon tomorrow. Harmon agrees and unsteadily throws a leg back over his bicycle.

We reached Agate and Matt collapses on the green grass of a school yard. I began to setup camp noting that he is already asleep.

We were approached by a man wearing basketball shorts, a gray shirt two sizes to big for his tall lanky frame, and flip flops with the strapping frayed for fashion not from usage, barbed wire and tribal tattoos peaked from under his shirt sleeves, and the buzz cut hair style told me everything I needed to know. This fella, was in charge around these parts.

"What the fuck are you two doing?" the stranger demanded.

Pleasantries already dispensed with I explained just the facts:

1. On a bicycle tour

2. Friends exhausted

3. Camping here cuz it's safe, soft, and quiet.

"Well, I'm the security officer here and that's not gonna work. I can't have two out of towners spreading COVID to our teachers and children," he replied.

I assessed the situation, we were clearly being told to move on. As I began to pick up my sleeping pad I said the only thing that came to mind.

"Oh don't worry about Covid, I hear it's a hoax. Some orange guy on the TV told me."

Barney Fife was not amused, clearly his mail in ballot was going orange this November. Sarcastic comment made I finished reattaching my panniers and rolled out with an extremely distressed looking Matt Harmon.

Harmon essentially picked the first grassy ditch out of town and out of eye sight and nosed his bike to sleep there. 

As he lay sleeping I wondered what had cracked him so bad, wondered how much further he had in him, and whether tonight's sleep would be better than the last.

I'm grimacing because Agate sucks, not because the bike ride was hard.