According to the sign there are 1201 residents and a couple of soreheads living in Howard.
Fortunately the owners of the Sugarbush campground are not soreheads, plus they have wireless. We had considered going further west and camping at 10,000 feet but we don't have the right gear for anything under 40 degrees which is the forecast for 6,500 which is right about where we are.
We had another great day, if you can call riding Kansas great. I've done Kansas a few times and this was the first time it started to get to me, perhaps it is the constant push or pull required to keep a hack going straight for a few hundred miles. We've covered almost 2100 miles since Friday afternoon and I'm a bit sore up top, it's time to start the Advil routine.
We both have been ready to spend a night outdoors for a few days now, we're even ready to give up wireless. While our original route was a bit ambitious, no matter how you slice it 10 days is not a tremendous amount of time to go from Bristol to Portland when you want to avoid interstate, see stuff and stop to smell the roses. We're starting early and ending late with little energy to cook.
After dinner down the road we had a sunset discussion about the rest of the trip. The original itinerary was based on the three points of interest I got out of Dillon last winter. I've tried to make it clear that this is his trip, we can go any direction except east and of course we must get to Reed (college in Portland) on schedule. My only request is that we be in Marin Friday night to visit one of my best buddies and his wife who has hit little rough patch with her health. I can't bear the thought of not seeing her and making sure they both know how much they mean to me, plus I want to show off my son. Dillon doesn't know about the show off part but he knows I want him to meet my friends and he's game for the visit. We're going to cut out the Sequoia National Forest and General Grant's highway. This will give us three sub 300 mile days to Marin and a chance to relax the pace some. I'd like a couple of nights where we get to camp early enough to enjoy happy hour and cook together, that doesn't happen after a 500 mile day although with a plan to visit the Arches at sunrise a room in Moab is in the plan.
Before heading west from Pueblo on US 50 the most interesting sight of the day was either a few massive wind farms in Kansas or the sign on the back of a semi that appeared to be a hog taking a dump along with some slogan about not eating chicken or beef. That's a photo to be posted when we have the bandwidth. I'm psyched at how much better it will be from here.
It's apparent that Dillon loves the outdoors which is no surprise, he and his buddies have been camping in the woods behind the house for years. At one point I couldn't find him at the campsite until he told me to look up. My hack monkey is a tree climber too. I'm looking forward to sharing Northern California with him, after Marin we have three nights and four days to get to Portland and I'm looking forward to every one as well camp "for real" after Marin.
Just so long as he doesn't try to scale a redwood.
