Day 52. 74 miles.

Around mid-day, we stopped to sit in the shade along the side of a ranch building, in the friendliest town I have ever visited. While eating lunch, five different vehicles individually pulled up to talk to us, each offering food and water.

We left the shade of the farmhouse and entered both a heavy wind zone and the foothills of the Rockies, whose majestic peaks appeared on the horizon yesterday afternoon.

Some locals told us about a reservoir several miles ahead, so we stopped for a swim in the first clean water we had seen since the eastern border of South Dakota.