Almost Home, CottonWood Hot Springs

We are on the tail end of the Bluegrass Bicycle Tour. The festivals are now over (6 in 8 weeks) and we are bicycling back home to wonderful Crested Butte.
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After RockyGrass, we hit Boulder to visit our dear friend Easy Mac and Lizard and RedWood. Yes, weird names, but we all met on the Appalachian Trail. They call us Rigatoni and Angel Hair, if that helps any. After Boulder, we made our way over to Longmont (15 miles) and stayed with our cousins Jill and Kevin and their kiddos. So in over 7 days, we've cycled exactly 25 miles!
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After Jill and Kev's we saddled up the bicycles again and headed up and over Trail Ridge Road (12,100 ft.) in Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park. Lots of road cyclist on the road that would pass us as if we were standing still. I think the 7 days of non-cycling have affected us because today we only make it about 45 miles before we looked up at the looming switchbacks and decided to stealth camp on a flat piece of land hidden from the road. That's the beauty of cycle touring, good camping is only a small push of the bike away. We were lucky because exactly 20 minutes after getting up the tent, the skies opened up and we were experiencing a real Rocky Mountain downpour.
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The next morning we got to experience the major climb. The views in RMNP are well worth the effort to get up there on your bicycle. In fact, once you get to the pass, there is a cafe where you can enjoy some coffee. That's above tree line at 12,000 feet. Most folks are just excited to be in such a place and they arrived in cars! So you can imagine how excited we were.
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From there it was downhill into Grand Lake that had a great town park for us to take a nap in the shade. Our next stop was Uncle Jerry's in Silverthorne, home of the world famous Hot Tub. We spent the night there and enjoyed loads of good conversation.
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Pushing onward from Silverthorne, we got to enjoy 15 miles of bike trail up to Copper Mountain and then the climb up to Fremont Pass on our way to Leadville. Fremont Pass is unique because it takes you right next to the Climax Molyebdenum Mine in all it glorious destruction. If every one from Crested Butte visited this site and saw what such a mine can do to the landscape, they'd be recharged to fight against the proposed mine in Crested Butte. It's horrible and sad.
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We've had a "Foul Weather Fund" of $200 bucks since we started out on this adventure, which was meant for hotels along the way when the weather good too gnarly. But, surprisingly, we've only had to dip into it once, in La Barge, WY, and that was for mosquitoes, not rain. So since we have so much of it left, we've decided to treat ourselves to spa/resort/hot spring here in Buena Vista, only 60 miles from home.
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That's where we find ourselves now. At CottonWood Hot Springs. They've got a great common room with couches, pool table, scrabble, computers, TVs, the works. The perfect hangout for long-distance cyclist. There there is the hot springs and the real bed! We are in heaven!! So we'll pass the night here and conquer cottonwood pass before coasting into Crested Butte and the completion of our tour. So now its off to the hot water and relaxation.