When the alarm went off at midnight in the Sheridan Lake church, we scraped ourselves out of our sleeping bags and loaded our bikes and were on the road by 115 to 130 a.m. It was a more challenging 27-mile ride to Eads than we anticipated, and the tailwind we expected turned out to be more of a crosswind and occasional headwind. But we had a big, bright full moon in a cloudless sky that gave a faint light to all the terrain and was simply gorgeous. We had planned to ride 88 miles to Ordway but as we got closer to Eads, given that it was taking us longer than expected because of the wind and some small hills, as well as having to walk our bikes through a 1-2 mile stretch of super dangerous highway construction with extensive semi truck traffic at dawn where there was no shoulder and no trucks would slow down or give us any room, we decided to regroup in Eads and think about our options. We checked out the Travelers Lodge, which used to be a nice hotel but has a very similar story we have since learned to that of the Derrick Inn back in Ness City, Kansas that I wrote about a couple of days ago, and it looked pretty terrible so we went to the other hotel which is a new, expensive hotel called the Cobblestone Inn. The lady that I called a couple of days ago told me that the rooms are $149 and if we arrive early in the morning we can check in early if there’s room available, with a $30 early check in fee. Our plan was to use the Cobblestone Inn lobby to sit down and decide whether we would ride the 61 remaining miles to Ordway or get a room at the Cobblestone. Ultimately, given the wind conditions and our fear of the biting flies coming out during the daytime hours again today, we decided to stay at the Cobblestone. Let’s just say checking into the Cobblestone was an interesting experience and one that I’ve never had in a hotel before. There was a relatively new employee at the desk who said the hotel internet was not working and he did that he didn’t really know how to check people in because he was the night guy. (No one checks in at night??) I told him that when I called two days ago we had been told rooms are $149 but I wondered what today’s rate was, and he said he had no idea. He knew he had two rooms open but he didn’t know what they cost, so because he didn’t know how to check people in and he didn’t know what the room cost, he couldn’t give us the room. He wouldn’t give us the $149 rate because he didn’t know who he had gotten it from despite my telling him that I had called and talked to a lady two days ago at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. He suggested we book right now on some internet site because “you get better prices on the internet”. He was trying to be helpful and started pulling up internet sites from his personal computer, connecting using his cell phone as a hotspot since the hotel Wi-Fi was out. (Turns out the hotel Wi-Fi has been out for over a week because the supervisor is gone and they can’t get anybody to fix it out here in the middle of nowhere.) He found some site showing the rooms for $120 but I couldn’t duplicate it on my phone search; the best I could find was $156 but he never mentioned an early check in fee so we figured we were already a little bit ahead of the game and we really wanted to get in and get some sleep so we at his suggestion booked the room on the internet. But then there was a big snafu because I had paid but he couldn’t see in his system that we had paid for the room even though I was showing him the confirmation email on my phone and he had watched me book it. He said he had to wait for his system to show that we had purchased the room before he could let us in. At some point as I was getting more and more quietly irritated and trying my best to still maintain a good face and not get short with him, Vanesa told me that she wanted to step in and handle the situation because of her hotel industry work experience, which I was grateful for. I forwarded her the confirmation email and she went to work, and ultimately what happened is that she made them give us a room. She got someone else to figure out how to make the keys since the new guy had said he couldn’t make us keys and that we’d have to leave our door propped open if we wanted to come and go (Really? No thanks!). She wrote down the confirmation number for our reservation on a post-it note along with our names and told them that this was the proof that we had paid and that the hotel needs to take it up with that internet company later if the reservation doesn’t show up in their system, then politely but firmly insisted that we get into our room. It worked and we were in our room after only about an hour and 45 minutes of this madness. For such a nice, expensive hotel this was a joke. I get that the internet goes down, and that a person can be new, but don’t put a person at the desk that doesn’t know how to check people in. So we got some relaxation time from about 8-10 am and then slept from 10 to between 3 and 4pm. We woke up to a text message that our friend Joel had reached Eads and we’re staying in the same hotel so we join him for an early dinner about 5 o’clock. Was nice catching up with him and we felt like we were seeing an old friend. We’ve been riding in close proximity for a week or so but haven’t really seen him and we missed him. Also there were Bill and Greg sitting at the restaurant too when we arrived, Bill the fully-tattooed guy and Greg the recumbent bike guy. (I wonder what they call us. Vanesa is probably “the dog woman”, who knows what they call me.) Anyway it was great getting reacquainted with Joel, as well as chatting a little bit with Bill and Greg too. And another dude walked in named Holden, a guy from Colorado but originally from Portland, who Joel had met nearby here in Eads. Holden is riding from Durango, Colorado where he lives to Dubuque, Iowa for a wedding. Then he and his fiancé are going to fly to Austria for a trek, then go to France to watch a mountain stage of the Tour de France bike race, and then go spend a few days in Barcelona before coming back home to Colorado.It’s really interesting to see what people are doing out here on the road! After dinner we came back up to the room so I can do this ride summary and Vanesa can watch a movie before we try to get another couple hours of sleep before we head out for a night ride of 61 miles to where we have made reservations at the Hotel Ordway for tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll be out of this heat soon and be able to start camping again and not getting so many hotels!