Leadville

Dan: It’s 7 am on Wednesday. The internet connection here is so good that I’m blogging again this morning. We woke up at 6, but it doesn’t get light until 7:15 and the icy roads are too treacherous to run before dawn. Speaking of running, it’s 21 degrees right now and a “feels like” 9 degrees. I decided last night, as I froze on the 3 block walk to the restaurant, that I wasn’t going to run this morning. But Alan wants the experience, because it will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to run at this elevation (12,000 feet, which is twice the elevation of mile high Denver.) I did walk outside and confirmed my decision – a run at this altitude would definitely knock me on my Dumas – but the dawn breaking over the distant mountains was spectacular. The annual Leadville 100 mile trail run is one of the reasons this town is famous. We’ll tour the town, stop at a grocery store, then head for Grand Junction, CO and on to Ely, Nevada. That will take all day. At Ely we’ll need to make 2 route decisions: 1) do we continue on Rt. 50 which even the Nevada Tourism Department calls “the loneliest road in America” or we do we take Rt. 80 which apparently is still pretty desolate but has a few more towns and gas stations. I’m concerned that Diablo’s 10 gallon fuel tank could let us down on Rt. 50, so we’ll get advice once we’re in Ely; And 2) we may not even have to make that routing choice because Thursday’s destination, Reno, is forecast to get a foot of snow tomorrow. We might have to drastically reroute and avoid Reno altogether. Again, we’ll get advice once we’re in Ely.