Distance = 16 Miles; People Met = 3
Almost everything of note on this day happened in Cisco; ironic, considering it’s a ghost town. Cisco originated for the railroad, pumping water up from the Colorado River for the use of steam engines. Uranium miners also settled here for a spell, but mining was not really successful in the area. Now the whole town is owned by one person, with one other permanent resident and an occasional opening of the Cisco Landing Store for a couple years before folding again.
The Only Store ... Occasionally
Keith, one of the BLM workers we met the day before, filled us in on the history of Cisco, along with providing us ice water. That was appreciated because we needed to wait a few hours there under one of the very few shade trees for Ky to come by. Keith is an avid bicycler who, among other grand trips, biked from Alaska to Oregon. He also was a news director for awhile so I asked him for some tips to approach Grand Junction media.
Keith with Ice Water
Ky arrived later in the afternoon and we were just about to leave Cisco when a rafting bus came by. Since Moab we saw rafting buses go by constantly, all destined to deliver their customers and rafts on the Colorado River north of Moab. As it turned out, this one rafting bus had been looking for us. Dre, the diver for the rafting tour, had read the superb article in the Moab Times Independent written by Jeff Richards. Just like Mary, the vineyard worker we met the day before, Dre was living out of his vehicle and tent. He had been looking for us to tell us how much our 5,000 mile walk for Housing, Health and Hunger meant to him.
Dre, April and Kyle
Dre was accompanied by the two guides for the tour, April and Kyle. Both were just as supportive. They gave us a copy of the newspaper article that they had been holding onto, some snacks and, that most treasured commodity in the desert, more ice water. We could not help but hike the remaining four miles out of Cisco with a little extra bounce in our step, assured that what we were doing was being appreciated by the people who perhaps count the most.
