After a long, hot day of cycling, the La Junta police were waiting.
That sounds a bit ominous. Perhaps I should back up.
Pueblo-to-La Junta should have been an easy day. No climbs, just a nice steady 62-miles, mostly gently downhill through high desert ranching country. After two days of hills, everyone looked forward to a chance to cruise and recover a bit.
The calm, cool morning lasted a couple of hours. Then the wind arrived.
It began as a cool breeze washing our faces. As the sun rose, the breeze became a 15-20 mph headwind that wiped out the advantage of that “gentle” downhill. Lunch in Fowler was cool, shady, and difficult to leave.
The afternoon brought a difficult grind with increasing temperatures and that nasty wind. The team didn’t know the police were waiting.
Our teammate Patti is from La Junta, and she contacted old friends to arrange a warm welcome. So in addition to the incredible hospitality we received from Patti’s friends and the folks at La Junta United Methodist Church, our team received a police escort into town.
That’s why the police were waiting, and it was a wonderful conclusion to a hot, windy day.
One of the officers talked about his department’s work to defeat local traffickers. He hoped folks would see our mini-parade and wonder about what we were doing. Another man told us about a detective who rides trains, on his own time, to look for trafficking victims.
Just one more way people surround this adventure. A grand entrance into town, lights flashing, people pointing, might not seem like a big deal.
When you see the smiles after a long day, and you add all of it to everything else in the circle surrounding our 22 kids, it’s pretty amazing.
We’re grateful.