Lamar

The first night beyond Pueblo I only made a few miles. Rolled out in front of an elementary school, in the little town of Gates. I stayed on pavement, right next to the building, so as to avoid sprinklers, but was still woken up by the sound of them. I think I've kind of developed an instinctive phobia to the sound of a sprinkler now. I found that I couldn't sleep, couldn't even get close to sleeping, with the 'che che che che, brrrr e che che che' in the background. My eyes wouldn't stay shut.
It stayed cloudy for a few hours, as I walked, but when the sun finally burned through the temperature climbed quickly. I've enjoyed a good break from the most extreme heat, for a while, but it's coming back.
I walked slightly over twenty miles, on the day, and pulled over just short of Fowler. In the morning I made it into town, and spent a few hours at the local museum and at the library. Later in the afternoon, when the heat wasn't as bad, I walked to Manzanola, and found another elementary school to lay out my sleeping bag.
The next day I walked through Rocky Ford, stopped at a local fruit stand and ate through two entire cantaloupes before walking again.
In the evening I set up nine holes of frisbee golf at Swink High School, and stayed the night under the football stadium bleachers.
I didn't walk much, the next day. Made it down into La Junta and spent quite a while reading in the cool of the library. That night I walked eight miles, and pulled over around midnight by the side of the road.
I've been running into mosquitoes for a while, now. They started coming out as far ago as Idaho, but it seemed that no matter how thick they were, they went away once the stars came out and it got cooler. Now, unfortunately, it's too warm for them to come out until later at night, and they stick around forever. The night beyond La Junta proved to be the worst so far. I made it to sleep fine, but woke up some time later scratching furiously at my face. By the time I realized what was happening, my cheeks and eyebrows were already covered in lumps. I sprayed buy repellant on my hands and rubbed it over my face, and tried to sleep. But the mosquitoes didn't seem to care about the repellant. They came thickly, and I stayed awake most of the night, trying to keep them at bay. Swatting three or four at a time on an arm or a couple on my forehead. I'll have to find some netting.
The next day I walked through Las Animas. Sat out some of the heat at the Loaf and Jug, and found the library closed. In the evening I made ten miles beyond town, with a storm on my heels. Twenty minutes after setting up my tent off to the side of the road and climbing inside, the rain started. And for two hours it kept coming, harder and harder. The wind shoved the sides of the tent over and the rain ran underneath and started soaking up from below. I spent the second night in a row mostly awake.
In the morning the sun was shining. Things dried off quickly, and I found good spirits to walk with. Another twenty miles on the day, and I stopped a little before Lamar, for the night. Slept like a baby, as they say. I was probably too tired to notice bugs or lightning, had they come.
Now I'm in Lamar, and I'll probably stay here most of the day, and make some miles in the evening, when it cools down.