Day 16: Montrose to Gunnison; Some more Rockies!

We started out this morning in Montrose. We were at Rob and Robin's house who we had met through Couch Surfing. We were served pancakes and home made coffee for breakfast which was a great way to start the day. We are all starting to get addicted to coffee because it seems to give the most bang for cost. We left and started right away with mountains. The first became a challenge because we had a 15 mile an hour headwind. When we got to the top we met Jim and Mike, two guys also crossing the country. They were from Chicago and they started in San Francisco and they were ending in Boston. They are independently raising money for Habitat for Humanity through their website bikeforhomes.com .  It was a really neat opportunity to ride and talk with some fellow cross country adventurers.  It was a lot of fun chatting about touring styles as they had chosen touring bikes and carried their things in panniers versus the trailers that we pulled.  While resting at the top of the second climb Mike told us about a great pie place he had heard of that was coming up in the town of Cimmaron.  Upon reaching the bottom we found Pleasant Valley and immediately pulled in to sample the famed pies.  We decided to get a whole pie for the three of us and were not disapointed with our purchase.  After one more short climb we flew twoards Gunnison propelled by a strong tailwind and relattive downhill grade.  This leg of our journey granted us beautiful skies and spectactular views of tghe Blue Mesa Lake.  The greenish water backed by snow capped mountains was definitely a feast for our eyes.  Gunnison turned out to be quite a town and we learned that it is home to Western State College.  Since we had arrived around 4 oclock we rode to Mcdonalds in hopes of finding wifi, but instead were entertained by the conversation of a few middle school boys who had just gotten out of school for the summer one day earlier.  We backed tracked about a mile to pizza hut where we were satisfied by the "best value" large pizza, while Steve insisted on getting the salad bar to make his sister proud.  Our search for wifi ended at Sonic where we were able to pick up the visitor centers wifi called Gunnison guest.  Lyle had made previous arrangements via couch surfing for a place to stay but they had fallen through and we were desperately trying to find a new contact on CS, but after much trying we decided to go back to the basics and began our usual door knocking.  This brought us to Rusty and Yvette's home where we were offered a place to tent in the softest grass we've ever had, showers, and good conversation.  Rusty, a former river guide and now hang glide pilot entertained us with many stories and detailed information about our ride to come.  We went to sleep in Gunnison, anticipating the continental divide and our much dreaded Monarch Pass.

65 miles, no flats, great day