Strong headwinds and crosswinds made riding very difficult today. I took a break in Sterling, CO because west of there it is basically no services until Fort Collins 100 miles away.
Past Sterling, the road had a lot of large trucks, which create their own wind patterns and complicate riding. I found one type of truck that was vented and use to transport livestock particularly troublesome. Something about their geometry made an extra intense air front that felt like belly flopping into water and smelled strongly of cow.
In the afternoon I lucked out and the Pawnee Station restaurant was open for 10 more minutes when I got there and let me use their bathroom and refill water.
After that I made my way to the National Grasslands. As I got close, a thunderstorm started to develop. This was a bad place for a thunderstorm because it is quite literally a giant empty field. I found an entrance to the grasslands and took my bike up a walking path. I put on my rain gear and went back down the hill to crouch and wait out the storm. It took a little over an hour to pass.
I considered camping in this location, but there were a lot of cactuses around which would have made pitching my tent difficult. I decided to continue to the second section of grassland.
It was surprisingly hard to find areas that were not fenced of. The grassland does have an official paid campground, but when I checked them out I got swarmed by so many bugs before I could figure out where campsites were I decided to continue to an entrance the forest service website indicated was open. Perhaps it was allowable to enter … but there were cows grazing and a closed gate. At this point it was getting dark and I ultimately decided to pitch my tent next to the gate, still on national land but much closer to the highway than I would prefer.
