Thursday12/5/05

Wow. Today has been absolutely astonishing. We rode out of Pueblo bound for the mountains at 10 after a large breakfast with Mary and Ruby and got to the top of the first hill at 11ish near a place called canyon city which is where the worlds highest suspension bridge is located (we did'nt see it though because it was 5 miles or so off route). The change in scenery could not be more dramatic. We don't care now if we have to haul our up mountains, anything is better than those plains, they were so dull. There is now a new and beautiful panorama beyond every turn in the road. I have to say this is some of the most jaw dropping scenery I have ever seen.

We were hoping to do some white water rafting on the Arkansas river as it is one of the worlds premier locations, however some of the guys we spoke to gave us it straight and told us the water wasn't really up high enough for really scary, dangerous rafting so we left it. We will be going when we hit california though because apparently they are in for some of the best rafting in 10 or 20 years. We followed the river from there all the way to cotopaxi about another 40 miles away where we stayed a a sweet campsite on the waters edge:

At the campsite we met an ex bull rider and all round nut job. The guy said he used to go off into the wilderness for months at a time with nothing more than a gun and a knife to survive, however his wife won't let him do that any more suprisingly enough. Alex managed to get a decent nights sleep in sub zero temperatures for the first time, that sleeping bag liner was all worth it.