Day 16 Green River to Grand Junction.

It was due to be a long hot day today, not too much climbing, but if yesterday's temperatures were anything to go by nobody wanted to be out in the heat too far into the day. We couldn't load until 7.00am so it wasn't exactly early and it was warm then. We didn't need Marco Polo for the navigation today as we went out of the hotel, onto Interstate 70 east (what else), then get off into the hotel in Grand Junction. Our group of 4 were almost last out again, but we weren't far behind the field and soon caught up. On the interstate the shoulder was 'chipseal', basically throw chipping into tar and let the traffic do the rest, so it's not only British councils that are cheap. This meant that there was a good deal of vibration through the bike and my left foot (good name for a film) went numb, (like most people who watched the film).
The first SAG at 24 miles was welcome as we were all drinking water like it was going out of fashion and needed more. By then it was hot. Several miles later we were stopped by one of the vans to take on more water as the temperatures rose. By the time of the second SAG at 66.5 miles we were all pretty tired as it was now seriously hot, but fortunately the stop was under a bridge of the Interstate so we were in the shade, good move. The nicest part was a tub full of iced water with soft dinks in it, a Diet Coke never tasted so good. While we were there we saw two of our riders miss the turn off and carry on past. We shouted waved and whistled, but they did not see us and probably couldn't hear us because of traffic noise.
Starting off again the temperatures were now in the mid 80s at only 11.30am. After about 4 miles we came across Jose and Don stopped on the shoulder, they realised by now that they had missed the SAG and were virtually out of water. We shared our water with them and they were able to carry on. A short distance later we crossed the state line to enter Colorado, our fourth state. There were the usual photos in front of the sign and I crossed the road to get the Utah sign as we did not see the sign when we entered it.
A couple of miles into Colorado we were stopped by a lady called Sue who had previously ridden with AbB and who proceeded to welcome us to Colorado and give us each an ice stick. She was parked in the shade under a bridge so it was a nice touch. It was very hot and I was still trying to drink all the time, but by this time the water is luke warm and not pleasant. The wind was like someone aiming one of those heater from a tyre fitters operating at full blast. Ventured into a McDonalds for a milk shake and even had something to eat, can't describe it, it was advertised as chicken something, but the chicken clearly escaped.
As we neared Grand Junction we dropped onto the side of the Colorado River and rode alongside for some miles. By the time we reached the hotel the temperature was 96F and I was showing just over 96 miles so I did the inevitable for another century.
Later in the evening I found that my front tyre was squashy, my first puncture, but at least it was in the hotel room and the tube was quickly changed. It turned out to be a small thorn in the sidewall.
On a general note, I feel that my American is coming on pretty well and by the end of the tour I could well be fluent, nice to be fluent in a foriegn language, a first for me. I've been picking up some phrases from the telly, like the commentators description of the Turkish winner against the Czech Republic in Euro2008, 'That was a great onside go-ahead goal.' With such in-depth language education I can't fail.
Today's distance was 100.7 miles.