The grass is greener

We left this morning from our host's house in Denver well fed on a big breakfast of eggs and chocolate cake. We spent a goood part of the morning on a bike trail next to the interstate, eventually turning on to country roads. As difficult as the Rockies were, I didn't realize rolling hills and headwinds could be worse.  We spent a good ten miles on "Inspiration road" which was anything but inspirational.  Watching the cars crest the hill in front of us, and expecting a descent only to be met by bigger, steeper hills was completely disheartening. Luckily we turned after 10 miles or so and settled in on roads that were a lot less hilly and headwind-y.  After you leave Denver, you're still in Colorado, but you might as well just call it Nebraska. Once you leave the Rockies it gets flat pretty quickly, and the scenic highways quickly become county roads through corn fields. Some people find it boring, but to me it finally feels like I'm home. Being from the Midwest riding through corn fields (and soy fields and grass fields and all sorts of other fields) is where I feel most at home riding.  We pulled up for the night at Fort Morgan, CO a surprisingly large rural town with a nice public park open to campers.  We had a dinner of left over pasta and were given the leftovers of a chocolate cake (second time today!) from a family having a birthday party at the park. Most of us called it a night under the stars and didn't bother to set up tents below the clear skies.   Unfortunately for us the forecast might have been clear, but the public park sign that let us know we could camp neglected to also post the sprinkler schedule. Although the lush green grass in the middle of a summer drought should have served as a warning, we were all unpleasantly surprised to be pelted in the face at 12:30 in the morning by the sprinkler system. In a sleepy daze we dragged our mats a hundred feet away and went back to sleep.... until an hour later when the second wave of sprinklers turned on and soaked us for a second time.  In the morning our departure was delayed by the collective need to wring out our sleeping bags and dump the standing water out of our bags. From here on out I think we will all be a bit wearier about sleeping on well manicured lawns.