It might be a national day of celebration, but there was no holiday planned for us, although we left the camp by the lake early enough to get breakfast in Leadville and catch the tail end of the parade down the main street of town.

Then we continued driving north of town, to where the CDT crossed Highway 91 south of Wheeler Junction. The plan was to ride southbound back to the same spot where we camped on July 1st after I picked up my mother in Silverthorne, on FR 714 off highway 24.

This was to be our last southbound day, and I am excited to be riding north (like a normal person on a journey to Canada!) once this day is over. I will be able to ride northbound until late August, when my mother has to go back to L.A. to begin teaching again and I will still be completing the last sections of trail through Montana to Canada. At that point I will once again be on my own, leapfrogging between the two truck and trailer rigs, so I will be driving north and riding south each time until the last part, when my mother will pick me up after I ride into Canada. This section of trail today was a fairly easy 25 miles, but it brought back a lot of not-so-good memories from last year, because it was in this area that the horses broke out of their portable corral and went racing over about 10 miles of mountainside before I was able to catch them at last with the help of the security staff at the mine complex that they got into! We passed along the perimeter of the same mine this time, and I was just grateful to be riding, not chasing them on foot (in my pajamas, even!).

#2018CDT