Days 48-53, Flipping to Wyoming

After being stuck on our phones most of the day sorting through bus schedules, we were ready for a dinner break. Appropriately enough, The Break Room Brewing Company was within walking distance, so we went there.

After we returned to our motel, I chatted via text with Baguette. She told me she left the trail because of a foot injury and had gone up to the Denver area with Sunshine. She was now unsure what to do next, but she was thinking of flipping to Wyoming.

Our driver picked us up promptly at 11 a.m. and dropped us off at our motel in Alamosa at 12:45 p.m. That left the rest of the day to kill. We discovered that wasn't easy to do in this town on Memorial Day. We walked a few blocks to the downtown business area but found almost no businesses were open.

Square Peg Brewerks was open, so we went there for a beer. Then we discovered Purple Pig Pizza was across the street and was also open. A light rain began to fall as we walked there for dinner.

By the time we finished our meal, the rain had turned into a heavy thunderstorm, which dropped the temperature noticeably colder. We didn't have our rain gear with us, so we called a cab.

Later that night, Baguette and I continued the conversation we started yesterday. She told me trying to figure out how to flip to Wyoming had left her feeling frazzled. She was also worried about her injury, which wasn't healing as fast as she hoped.

That's when we hit upon an idea to help her. Maybe Gilligan and Captain had room for one more hiker. It was too late at night to ask them, but I told Baguette I would find out in the morning and let her know. In the meantime, Baguette said she would try to find a doctor to look at her injured foot.

The route from Alamosa to Pueblo didn't go near mountains, but we saw them from the bus windows, including Pikes Peak. I couldn't say for sure, but it seemed like yesterday's storm dumped more snow on them.

I sent a text message to Gilligan and Captain to see if Baguette could also stay with them. They said she was more than welcome, though they had run out of beds. If she didn't mind sleeping on a couch, she could come.

At the last stop before Pueblo, a man boarded who wanted everyone on the bus to know Joe Biden was trying to take away our guns. To be sure we knew that, he continued to rant about it most of the way to Pueblo.

After the bus pulled into Pueblo and the door opened, we heard a man on the street curb yelling something unintelligible. It didn't seem his tirade was directed at anyone in particular.

“Welcome to Pueblo,” the driver said to us while rolling his eyes.

We found a fast-food restaurant for a late morning meal, then walked about the town to fill the time before our next bus. That led us to Brues Alehouse Brewing Co., which was in a building that at one time was Pueblo's police station and jail.

We boarded a Greyhound bus at 2:45 p.m. to take us to downtown Denver, where we transferred to another Bustang bus. It dropped us off at a park-and-ride stop in Loveland. Captain picked us up shortly after he picked up Baguette.

We had a 30-minute ride to Gilligan and Captain's house in Longmont. Just Awesome was also there. It was just like being on the PCT again with my tramily friends.

We enjoyed a spaghetti dinner, then stayed at the dinner table talking late into the evening.

We checked with Gilligan and she said she didn't mind, so Just Awesome drove us to REI's Denver flagship store. It had the shoes I wanted in my size.

We stopped at a grocery store on the way back to Longmont to pick up some food for dinner. That led to an alarming moment later in the evening.

Gilligan said she thought their dog Miles had eaten a chicken bone. We all searched in the yard and house but couldn't find any remnants of a bone. Gilligan remained worried the rest of the night.

Gilligan drove Top O' and me to the bus stop in Fort Collins later in the morning. After we thanked her and said our goodbyes, we thought we had only a short wait for the Greyhound to Rawlins, Wyoming. The bus was two hours and 20 minutes late.

We didn't yet have a motel room reserved in Rawlins for the night, so I went online to take care of that during our ride. That's when I discovered most of the motels had no vacancies or were surprisingly expensive.

Then I read some positive comments from hikers in the Guthook app about a small motel called the Brickyard Inn. I was able to reserve the last room there.

The bus stop in Rawlins was at a truck stop on Interstate 80. We had a two-mile walk from there to get to the motel. For half of a mile along the way, we followed the CDT.

We knew we were on the trail when we went through a railroad underpass. Posters of local sights made by school students were hung on the walls of the underpass, and one included a message of encouragement for hikers.

We were hungry when we arrived at the motel at 7:45 p.m., so we asked the desk clerk if he had a suggestion for dinner. He told us about a steak house, but the average tab there was $50 per person. We were kind enough to not burst out laughing at his suggestion. I don't know what he thought thru-hikers typically eat, but it's definitely not $50 steak dinners.

We chose instead a restaurant called Buck's Sports Grill. From the looks of the decor, the primary sport of interest around here was hunting.

At last, after nearly a week off, we were back on the trail. Admittedly, we only walked a half-mile of it through Rawlins. We will add more miles tomorrow, though just how much remains to be seen. We plan to hitchhike to Landers, South Pass City, or Atlantic City. Where we wind up depends on how successful we are at getting a ride.