Today was one of our more memorable days for many reasons. We departed the Abbey in Canon City which in itself was a lovely stay. The Abbey was super nice with it’s sandstone carved architecture and the Baptist Revival which occurred adjacent to the Abbey was interesting.
One opportunity I think we missed out on was the Museum of Colorado Prisons which would have been super interesting but when we planned to visit a storm-front came through which was a bit unnerving. Anyway, the photo below was taken the next morning on the way out to Guffey.
From Canon City, the next memorable stop was the Royal Gorge suspension bridge and dinosaur experience park. First of all, we didn’t actually get into the Dino Park but we can attest they had both Brontosaurus and T-Rex…yep, we saw them and it appeared the T-Rex was poised for feeding.
The bike ride to the Royal Gorge suspension bridge reminded me of the scene in the movie, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World where the little kid coaxed them to cross the stream, “yea Mister, it’s fine!”. We were told it was about 3 miles each way which turned out to be about 4.5 miles each way with both elevation and wind. So, here’s the photo of the gorge and bridge which was truly spectacular…
From this point we hunkered down for a 21 mile ride to Guffey. While normally 21 miles is not a big deal this 21 miles included 3100 feet of climbing. It was beautiful but challenging.
So, then we progress to Guffey where we meet with our host, Bill who is the unofficial Mayor of the town and has been hosting cyclists on the TransAm trail since 1975. He shared a story with us that his first hosted cyclist showed up with a handlebar bag filled with weed for the trip…Bill said this expression of gratitude convinced him that cyclists were good peeps.
We just happened to show up on a day that Bill was sadly bidding adieu to a loyal co-worker (Ken) who had been working side-by-side with Bill for the previous 5 years. Bill had the bbq (work of art) fired up and served us delicious ribs, elk steaks and other delicious items. Ken graciously showed us the shop refrigerator which was generously stocked with beer, water and other drinks and Bill said “my casa is your casa”…
Ken turned out to be a Jack of All Trades and even shared his corn based moon-shine with Eric.
Bill has somewhat single-handedly tried his best to retain the history of Guffey but purchasing significant numbers of antiques to include many buildings. Our bunkhouse for the night had previously been the Guffey Assessors office to process gold mined from the area. Eric and I pried up a few floorboards but didn’t find and nuggets of appreciable size. Bill then gave us a key to the restored City Hall which he restored from a old caved in building to one which now houses the greatest treasures of eclectic treasures I had ever seen.
Leisa writes:
My day to Guffey was my hardest day and one of my best days so far. At 8,000 I was wiped out and could no longer pedal. I had to stop on the side of the road and recover. Eric stayed with me as Bill and Angie rolled on. We determined that I had some altitude sickness. It was slow going the rest of the way to Guffey. In time I recovered. Guffey was such a unique experience. I joined the Guffey Garage Gang with a salut of moonshine!
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