Beautiful stormy day

June 24, 2015

7am, I open the room’s door, which leads directly to the road; one step, two steps, it rains out of the eaves. I go from the warmth of my bed to be in the rain in a matter of two minutes. It is cold; South Fork is 2.500 meters above sea level. There are 199 kilometers left to get to Walsenburg, and La Veta Pass is right in the middle with 2.868 meters above sea level. I was on the road and got soaked and wet within just two miles. At around 8:30am I went to have breakfast at a local bar, Del Norte. The waitress, a small and lively woman who had beautiful long well-groomed hair, left me the role of the beast. She asked me if I was not annoyed by the rain. I shrugged a little bit since the answer was both yes and no. She thought I did not understand her and repeated the question slowly; I simply smiled back at her and that unambiguously convinced her that I spoke as much English as a monkey. This was the way the whole morning was, 50 degrees Fahrenheit, getting wet and dried back and forth; I believe as many as three times. The big challenge came with the ascension of the mountain pass. By the time I had made ⅓ of the tour, a lightning storm unleashed. Almost immediately, another lightning hit the ground at the left slope. I instinctively stared at the tip of my mast and the thoughts in my mind were not funny at all. The wind gusts became intensified and the thunder exploded right on top of my head. I took down the sail and placed it on the grass next to me, by the whike, and took off running towards an old abandoned wooden hut that was at the other side of the road. It was locked, hence I stood there for twenty minutes with my back on the wall in order to protect myself from the hail. It died down; I hopped back on the whike and resumed the ascension. After the wind had died down, it started to snow and I spent an hour and forty five minutes pedaling under the white flakes up to the mountain pass peak. My eyes were totally slanted, I was literally gasping and my throat was both dried and frozen; the snow had solidified in the fender, in the mast, in my facial hair as well as on top of me. As soon as I started descending, everything vanished; this springtime snow has no evil intention. I arrived to Walsenburg at around 7pm, frozen stiff and moved by the brutality of the beauty.