West Yellowstone, Montana, Rest Day

Day 61.  (despite what the photo says - it is day 61)

Our third to last rest day.

Slept in till seven thirty which in itself was a wonderful.  Had a little breakfast here at camp of egg, bacon and potato.  Then walked with Norm into the downtown till I found a coffee place to sit and write.

Lunch today at the marvelously kitschy Buckaroo Bill's BBQ which has a back section of "covered wagon" booths surrounding a taxidermy display comprised of a coyote, a bison, and a duck by a faux-fire pit.

Buckaroo Bills is Montana Western charm at it's best.  The menu and the front of the store just blasts you with messages.  In the menu they offer a 50% discount for all active duty military.  When warning guests of cooking times, the menu says, "Be patient as You Can't unsay a cruel word spoken in haste."

The headline over the drinks section reads, "Always Drink Upstream from the Herd."

At the end of the menu, it closes with, "Live a good honorable life.  That way when you are older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time."

Up front Buckaroo Bill's individualistic, gun loving, God fearing, patriotic advice is on full display.  The restaurants special is the Montana Mountain Man T-Bone Special for #5.95.

Huckleberry Ice Cream for a treat and then we walked back to camp and I took in a wonderful two hour nap.

Bill's Shitcicle

Fellow cyclist Bill Foreman, being a retired Park Ranger, airplane mechanic and other manly occupations is full of stories which he readily admits are sometimes true, kind of.

At lunch today, and I'm not sure how this came up, Bill told us about a time he spent in a rustic cabin in the Alaska wilderness that did not have electricity.

There was, of course, an outhouse a few paces away from the door.

“But it was minus fifty then,” Bill explained, “and I was the only one there, so after a while of using the outhouse a sort of fecal stalagmite, a shitcicle, started to form at the base of the outhouse's pit.” Sheets old toilet paper would mark each addition.

After enough time at the cabin, Bill worried that he might accidentally make contact, or worse, be impaled by his creation. He figured he might need a two by four to break it up, or shift it. But then the weather broke for a while, sending the temperatures briefly to a balmy 44°. The shitcicle then tilted forty five degrees to the wall and rested there. The sub-zero temperatures resumed, and Bill began adding to his scatalogical creation off the side.

“That's a true story,” Bill says.

Dinner with the Group

Dinner tonight with the group at the Madison Crossing.  Very nice little restaurant.  I ordered a caprese salad and a huckleberry hamburger - but after eating the salad and one PICKLED deviled egg - I just didn't have room for the burger so I had them wrap it up so I can eat it on the ride tomorrow.

Tomorrow we'll do about 71 miles but it's mostly if not all downhill so it should be an easy day.  (Hopefully those aren't famous last words.)

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming to West Yellowstone, Montana

Yellowstone National Park

Day 60.  Today we're biking through Yellowstone Park.  I have been here three times before, but of course all those times were by car, and the prospect of biking through, much less TO, Yellowstone Park makes being here all the more surreal.

In those hazy nostalgic days of being a child on Sunday evenings and watching the perfect television family line up of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, followed by the two hour Wide World of Disney, I can still recall the anxious yearning I would feel whenever Disney would feature Yellowstone park on the show.

Back in those carefree (but ecologically irresponsible) days Yellowstone had Bison, Geysers, and best of all bears that would come to the cars and be fed by the passing cat-eye-glass wearing beehive hairdo toting tourists.  Had the ten year old in me had known it was physically possible to RIDE YOUR BIKE to Yellowstone I would have been sorely tempted.

It is a warm and sunny day, and the only complaint is the road is narrow without much of a shoulder, and being Fourth of July week there are a lot of people, and trucks and RVs.

Old Faithful is a mandatory stop especially after biking up the continental divide twice in the last nineteen miles.  Since Hoosier Pass we have crossed back and forth across the continental divide so many times that I have lost track if we are on the Atlantic or Pacific Side.

It's mostly downhill from Old Faithful to our ultimate end destination of West Yellowstone, Montana so we took in one of the other thermal features - the Great Prismatic Pools.

Colored by the algae that can withstand such temperatures, these thermal pools are iridescently beautiful.  Sometimes the breeze shifts and the air suddenly gets warm and humid.

The crowds here are intense, and that does pose a fun advantage for cyclists because we pass all these waiting cars, or people hiking along the road because they had to park so far away, and we just bike in and find the empty bicycle rack right at the start of the foot path.  Wandering around with out helmets on we feel a little weird, a little detached, but smugly think to ourselves..."We biked here."

The Pause that Refreshes.

The Firehole River is a great place to take a dip because upstream all the thermal water pours into it, so the water is a little warmer than what you would expect.

Great little way to cool off for Bill and I and of course with biking and the warmth of the day - our spandex clothes were dry within five minutes.

Montana Stateline

This is our Eighth State of Ten.  The State Line runs through the Western Edge of the park so we have this minimalist sign rather than the large expansive "Welcome to Montana" sign which is likely just outside the park in West Yellowstone.

The road is difficult because twice we've had RVs pass within less than a foot of us unnecessarily.   Also a little disappointing we have not seen a lot of wildlife, just a female Elk.  No Bison.  Oh well.

West Yellowstone, Montana

Given that tomorrow is a rest day, Norm, Christine, and I went to the community theater here - called the Playmill.  It was packed for their production of Singing in the Rain.  Incredibly talented cast and the production was really well done.

We left at intermission because were getting so tired after the day of biking - but a fun stop.

West Yellowstone is a funny little place because on the same block as the community theater there is West Yellowstone Big Gun Fun which is an indoor shooting range where you can fire off all manner of fully automatic machine guns including a Gatling Gun.  Nearly half of their customers are Chinese so they have signs and brochures in Chinese.

We learned later that the Chinese have poured into this area - both as tourists, but also to buy property.  There are seven Chinese restaurants in town, many with more signs in Chinese than in Mandarin.

There is also, and thus far this has proved to be true, not a single block in the downtown area, that does not sell some form of ice cream and / or milk shakes.

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, Rest Day

Independence Day

Day 59.  Other than a bad cough at the beginning of the night, I slept really well in this cabin.  Shared it with John and Philip.  I love rustic cabins.

Jackson, Wyoming

We drove down this morning to Jackson to drop off Norm, Christine, Lew and Tom.  Tom is going to ride from Moses to Jackson and then get a car service to bring him back.  Lew was dropped off at Moose and will ride back.  Norm and Christine will cycle back from Jackson.

We had a great group breakfast at the Bunnery and then walked over to the main square in time to see the 4th of July parade.  I'm not sure if there is any equivalent celebration elsewhere in the world.  So many towns all across the country have the same parades on this day - here it was towing trucks, and gondolas from Jackson Hole Ski Resort, and Covered wagons.  Out in Galva it will be tractors.  But everywhere there is a parade going on within fifty miles of almost everyone.

After the parade we went to Moo - the gourmet ice cream parlor of Jackson.  Excellent huckleberry shakes.

The Snake River

Happy Fourth of July!  Today was a rest day so we went down to Jackson by van for a nice breakfast and took in Jackson's Independence Parade.

Took the rest of the day easy and then went on a dinner floating trip down the Snake River with the snow capped Teton Range soaring up ahead of us.

Dubois, Wyoming to Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Day 58.  These are the days that travel brochures are made from.  We are headed northwest toward the Tetons but have to climb the Wind River Mountains first.  A two thousand five hundred climb.

So we are biking toward and past these wonderful snow capped peaks as we pass from eastern Wyoming to western Wyoming.  Gone are the endlessly rolling but relatively flat sage green scrub plains.  We're seeing more pine trees and river woods.

The river also brings MOSQUITOES and on one hill they were so bad, and we were slow climbing it that we were getting eaten.  Very frustrating.  I could feel little pin pricks on my back, my rear and legs.  As soon  as Bill and I reached the top we hopped off our bikes and rubbed our backs against a highway pole.

Even at 10MPH the little pests kept finding us and we would be contorting ourselves to swipe them away.

Togwotee Pass, Wyoming

It's spelled Togwotee Pass but pronounced TOGADEE Pass.  Regardless it was a longer climb (or at least felt like it it) than the Hoosier Pass - partly because we had to climb another thousand feet today.

So it was a long climb, but eventually reached the top.  Happily John, Lew and Bill were still there.  We ate our sandwiches and then Phil came along riding sweep.

The sign ahead says we have 6% grade downhill for seventeen miles.  If that's true it's will be glorious.

Oh my.  It is one of best descents I have ever been on.  Routinely and constant 30 miles an hour down with little traffic and all the while the Teton Mountain range and the emerald green river valley lay before us.

It was a view along with the rush of the bicycle swooshing down the road that defies an adequate description, but if God didn't speak to me then, He never has.

Seventy mile ride today from Dubois to Colter Bay Village in the Grand Teton National Park.  After the seventeen miles of the most glorious descent with the snow capped Tetons looming before us. We rode along the valley floor - mostly flat - and had these almost surreal mountains hove closer into view.

They are almost unreal, and I joked later with Norm, Christine, Bill, and Barry that they are fake, re-painted every five years by the park service and propped up by scaffolding.

Barry says they look as if children drew them.  "As if you said to kids, draw a mountain range, and bang - there they are."

The view defies capture by camera.  We can only hint at it, but to be here, and more weirdly TO HAVE COME HERE BY BICYCLE FROM VIRGINIA boggles my mind.

Colter Bay, Jackson Lake, Grand Teton National Park

I did laundry.

Dinner tonight by Jackson Lake.  It was a left over palooza with beef and bison burgers, kielbasa hot dogs.  All good and wonderful.  Chris is pretty good at looking at everything left over from the week's last dinners and putting something together.  I told him he should write a book titled, "Making Winners from last week's dinners."

My cold is still present.  Coughing.  A little stuffy nose.  It isn't keeping me from riding, but it does drain me.  Hopefully tonight I'll get good rest, and rather than do the optional biking tomorrow - I'll take it easy.

Lander, Wyoming to Dubois, Wyoming

Day 57.  So today will be a long day and I have a cold. Barry has a cold that's so bad it interferes with his breathing. He is taking the van today.

Jim and I left early today since we have to cook.  It's a long day, and I know that I slowed Jim down, but we stuck together the entire route.

In Crowheart we ate lunch at a country store that sold everything from food to ammo to guns to hiking equipment. We saw this adorable little dog, a chiwinnie, according to the owner, a "Res" dog.

Beautiful country here.  We even cycled by Gerry Spence’s famed Trial Lawyers College.

So Jim and I pulled up to Longhorn Ranch where we are camping at 2:45.  Good time.  I was beat and my mild cold symptoms have NOT gone away but the prospect of what the ACA (Adventure Cycling Association) called the best pie on the route in Dubois was something not to be missed.

So we cycled the three miles, upwind, and uphill into Dubois ( pronounced Da-Boys as in "Da Boys got a little wild last night) and found the Cowboy Cafe.  It was packed of course. We saw Norm and Christy there splitting a sandwich and each having pie. So of course we teased them about ruining their appetite for our dinner.

We just had pie which is a bit of an understatement given the size of the piece and the massive mound of ice cream. Huckleberry.  I ate it completely guilt free given that I'm burning six thousand calories a day.

Longhorn Ranch & RV Park

We're camping just south of Dubois, Wyoming tonight.  It's been a long and tiring day of seventy six miles of mostly uphill.  We went up a to 3546 feet and descended 2148 feet for a total altitude gain about 1400 feet.

Its beautiful country that switches and varies with almost every turn.  We cycled through the scrub and plateaus of the Shoshone Wind River Reservation to the wooded River valleys to red capped buttes more reminiscent of Utah.

Throughout the day, the distant snow capped Wind River Mountains to the Northwest stayed with us.  Tomorrow we'll climb up them to Togwotee Pass at 9 thousand-plus feet and then descend, feeling triumphant, into the Teton Valley.

It was a tough day, but even with a slight cold, it was a doable day.  Still I am beat, knackered, tired and happy to crawl in my tent.

That's what life is reduced to now: Bike. Eat.  Sleep. Repeat.

Jeffrey City, Wyoming to Lander, Wyoming

Day 56.  Bill and I cycled through the mostly abandoned former town that Jeffrey City used to be. It's a sad little place that went from boom to bust in 25 years.

It looks like the elementary school portion is still functional. What must it be like to go to school in a dead town?

Along Highway 287, Wyoming

It's a good ride today, fifty-eight Miles with half being mostly even and half being mostly downhill.  The weather has been good, coolish, and almost no wind.  (Picture by Norm.  From left to right: Bill, Britton and Jim.)

Our TransAmerica Trail is now temporarily following some of the classic historic trails: The Oregon Trail, The California Trail, The Mormon Trail, and the Pony Express.  I have had ancestors who traveled both the California and Mormon Trails.  What a journey it must have been! Such voyages do not exist anymore which makes me wish I could have asked them questions.

They traveled (except for the Pony Express) about ten to thirteen miles a day. There were (obviously) no convenience stores, cafes, route maps, or hotels.  It was a journey of intense risk, not just from the elements but also interacting with the Native American Tribes struggling to deal with this incursion.

Our trip cycling across America pales in comparison to those treks.

Sweetwater Junction, Wyoming

We were to have camped here last night. It's a lovely green oasis where the Sweetwater River crosses the highway. Or vice versa since the river preceded the highway.

All of the trails passed just south of here - the Oregon Trail, the California Trail, the Pony Express, and The Mormon Trail.

The LDS Church owns this land because here several companies of Mormon Emigrants were running late and caught in a snow storm.  Many died.

They traveled using handcarts which was actually cheaper and faster than the covered wagon.  Few original carts still exist because many women were so sick of them when they arrived in Utah that they would burn or run them off a cliff.

Shortly after the Mormon Historic Sweetwater Site, John realized his rear derailer wasn't working.  Fortunately Barry quickly determined that the cable had broken. By then Norm and Christine pulled up.

When the cable is broke, the derailer shifts it to the highest gear.  Norm and Barry pulled the wire and then wrapped it around the water cage to get John to at least a middle rear gear.  Then with his two front gears, John could go at least two speeds.

It was, I remarked later, like seeing Spock and Scottie jerry-rig the Enterprise to limp along at impulse power to get back to a Starfleet planet.

As promised we had a glorious seven to ten mile descent into the Beaver Creek Valley.  It was an incredible ride down, with cliffs of red becoming apparent beside the road.  My average speed for seven miles ranged between 24 and 30 miles an hour.

Lander, Wyoming

First stop into town was the Gannett Peak Sports which we all agree is the best, friendliest and most well stocked bike shop on the trip.  They have side access to a restaurant next door called the Middle Fork.  Great lunch. I had the blackberry walnut Salad with grilled chicken. They have a side patio with a brook running through it.

All the staff have been on long range bike trips. They give out beer. Not having a liquor license they cannot sell it, but coyly point to the tip jar expressly for you favorite mechanic.

They got John's bike up and running and did a great safety check on my bike.

A great enjoyable place.

We, and a lot of other people are camping at the city park which, the sign declares, is free.  Some are cyclists but most are here for the Independence Day festivities that will occupy this wonderful little Wyoming town over the next three days.

I'm tenting again, because despite the numerous trees, there isn't a pair of trees within ten feet of each other except at the far edge of the park.  Tom is there, but I like being closer to the group.

There is a Cowfish Restaurant here, and I was excited that it might be similar to the sushi/burger fusion place we liked so much in Orlando. It was not, but Tom asked if I wanted to skip the group meal to dine there and we had a nice dinner and conversation.

Part of it hinged on the question I was asked before this trip.  How will this trip change you?

More on that later in the trip.

Tomorrow Jim and I cook but we have a seventy-two mile uphill ride before us. That is not something I look forward to, but I'm not dreading it and that is a nice change. I will start early - hopefully by 6:30 and then average ten miles or more an hour and minimize my stops.  If I can put in by 2pm that would be fabulous.

This city and their park are really lovely. There aren't a lot of mosquitoes and there is the Popo Agie River close by so we'll sleep to the sound of water.

Rawlins, Wyoming to Jeffrey, City

Great Basin Divide, Wyoming

Day 55.  It's impossible to take a photo that conveys the wild uncultivated expanse of this valley, particularly the gliding downward path that made reaching speeds between 20 MPH to 30 MPH so easy.

The highway curved down and to the right and then ran straight north forever into the distance.  It's a little weird seeing all of this nothingness, particularly from a bicycle.

I recall from "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" the idea that traveling by car was little different than watching a television screen.  You saw the landscape pass by, but you are just a spectator watching it with detachment.  As a motorcyclist you become part of the landscape.  You are in it.

For cyclists that's even more true because the landscape governs our day, taxes or rests our muscles, and affects our progress and speed.  We more than part of the landscape, the landscape shapes us.

We are eventually heading to Lander, and I have travelled this road, by car, before in 2011 taking the kids up to the Wind River Mission.  I recall vaguely the wide open expanses of nothingness - scrub, sage, rocks, and mountains in the distance.  Cycling through it I am struck by how different I feel about this land.

Sure it's desolate in ways that are unfathomable in Illinois, or Kentucky or Virginia where it's town after town, with houses and ranches in between.  But cycling has shrunk our world, rather than made it bigger.  We parse things in ten or fifteen minutes segments - whatever it will take us an hour to do.  Little convenience stores, tiny little towns become not just blurs that were passed by car, but major goals, stopping points and little gems of refreshment in their own right.

Along Hwy 287, Wyoming

Another weird change passing into Wyoming is that the cows are interested in cyclists again.

Riding through Colorado I noticed that neither the people nor the cows seemed particularly friendly or interested in cyclists.  It was as if most drivers and people have become inured to accommodating cyclists.  We're just part of the background naturally and pervasively.

Here in Wyoming we are back to people introducing themselves, asking where we are going, when did we start, and it's back again to being popular older men in spandex.

But even the cows in Colorado were jaded to us, and I would notice that they would not stop to look at us, unlike their bovine counterparts in Kansas and Missouri.

In Wyoming we are again objects of bovine interest and curiosity.  Not sure why.

Split Rock Overview, Wyoming

Our trail meets up now with three historic routes now - The Oregon Trail, The Pony Express and the Mormon Trail.  We are cycling past split rock - a major landmark in the Oregon Trail.

On average the speed of those long ago pioneers was 13 miles a day.  We're averaging 60 miles a day so our journey is as different as it could be.  Wyoming was the perfect route because it contained three things.  Nearly daily access to water.  Grass for livestock. Access to an easy pass through the Rocky Mountains.

The Pony Express only lasted 18 months but nevertheless found an eternal foothold in the lore of the West.  Advertisements for riders described the company as looking for thin, skinny, wiry men, under eighteen, willing to risk death daily, and preferably orphans.  How many labor laws would that advert trigger now?

Jeffrey City, Wyoming

We pulled into Jeffrey City making good time.  This little burg remained hidden behind a low depression in the valley until we were a mile away from it.

Bill and I went past the church to the Split Rock Cafe & Bar - a dusty and worn out little building where Lisa acted as the waitress, cashier, cook, bartender and busboy at the same time.  Prices were a little high ($7.50 for a hamburger, $3.00 for a Can of Coors as examples.). Bill had a bowl of chili and I had chili cheese fries (and a can of Coors).

In addition to three cowboys at the Bar, the Split Rock Cafe and Bar features several cowboy hats from prior customers, and two walls by the pool table covered with dollars bills.  There is also a friendly German Shepard Dog, named "Pig" that comes in and out as he pleases and loves customers who pet.

With a population of 58, Jeffrey City seems hopelessly optimistic in its name.  It had been a small city that boomed and bust within a generation.

This little enclave, somewhat midpoint between Rawlins, Wyoming and Lander, Wyoming began in 1931 when the Petersons, a Nebraskan couple, decided to occupy and fix up an old abandoned homestead for the fresh air to combat Mr. Peterson's lungs - damaged during a gas attack in World War One.

For twenty-six years Beulah Peterson called her little spot, their "Home on the Range."  Their homestead is south of the Split Rock formation, a landmark of the Oregon Trail.  When a former Pony Express Mail Station - turned Postal Office closed in 1943 - Beulah took up the job as the area's postmaster for the valley's ranchers.  She used a cancellation stamp reading "Home on the Range." In addition to being the postmaster, Beulah also cooked for passing motorists.

In the Fifties, a speculator named Bob Adams discovered uranium in the nearby hills.  It was the dawn of the atomic age and the Cold War, and the demand for uranium was booming.  Rawlins' Doctor C.W. Jeffrey stepped forward with the initial capital and both the mining corporation and the moniker "Jeffrey City" were established.

Jeffrey City grew fast. Street grids were laid out, home plots built, utilities and street lights wired. Schools were constructed, including a high school with an olympic pool. Shops sprang up on what became main street. Hotels were built for workers who were waiting for their homes to be raised, or for mobile homes to arrive. Churches were founded. A library and a medical clinic were dedicated. Jeffrey City would even get its own newspaper, the Jeffrey City News. By 1979, 4,500 people called Jeffrey City home.

But in 1982 the demand for uranium was on the wane, the mine closed, and the twin lost 95% of it's population within two years.  Today only four businesses remain operational.  The Mocking Bird Pottery Studio, the Split Rock Cafe, the Green Mountain Hotel, and the Community Church which serves the ranchers of the valley.

We are staying at the Community Church which opens it's doors to cyclists during the summer.  The downstairs has an enormous large room which serves as a basketball court and community room.  There are showers, small rooms for sleeping and our hosts have yards of white walls inviting guests to write down who they are and where they are from.  It is a guestbook from people all over the world cycling through the United States.

Beef Stroganoff tonight, courtesy of Norm & Christine.  It's now 7:56 PM but the sun still hangs high in the sky.  I don't know if it's because we are on the western edges of the Mountain Time Zone, or farther North, but it seems like an inordinate amount of light left.

That night I took a night photo.  It was dark and you can really feel the loneliness of the continent here away from everything.  However even here you can see the ribbon of cars along the highway - even though they were spread out one here and there.

Saratoga, Wyoming to Rawlins, Wyoming

Day 54.  Rest stop with overpriced Gatorade and inappropriate apostrophes.

After Walcott we only had 18.5 miles to go but we were buffeted by wind from any direction, but primarily a headwind, at 27MPH with gusts up to 60MPH.

Brutal. Draining or as Barry calls it, "cream crackered."  Lew just got in his zone and never stopped, prompting Barry to coin the moniker "Lewcomotive."

Lunch today at a good Thai place, and around the corner we had our first Huckleberry Shake of the ride.

My bad news is that my front tire was flat. We found two wires dug into my tire.

Happier news, Gina and Sophia drove up to visit one last time before the trip ends.  Dinner tonight at the Aspen House and fun playing with Sophia at the Hotel pool.

Tomorrow we had an 85 mile day ahead of us.  The terrain looked okay. It the wind really today really spooked us.  Phil went to bat and found a place to stop in Jeffrey City - only 67 miles north.

Walden, Colorado to Saratoga, Wyoming

Day 53.  Cold last night.  37 degrees when I woke up.

There's a large lake (Lake John) nearby so we actually have Seagulls here although Bill says they're just Gulls without the sea. Same bird though.

Last night I could all sorts of animals, elk and Moose, bugling through the Valley.

We leave Colorado soon and North Park is gorgeous.

Wyoming Stateline

This is our seventh state.

We've biked now 2602 Miles.

Pictured Lew, John, Britton, Bill, and Barry.

Along Highway 130, Wyoming

Great tailwinds and downhill from Riverside, Wyoming meant we were effortlessly cruising between 20 and 34 miles per hour toward Saratoga.  I can't describe the feeling of having everything "fit" from smooth pavement, downhill or flat, and a tailwind.  You just hold your breath and cautiously smile while it lasts.

(Barry and partially Bill in the mirror)

Saratoga, Wyoming

Pulled into Saratoga and found a spot recommended by Jim.  The Hot Diggity Dog for our traditional, restorative and celebratory milk shake. I had a cherry. Lew, Barry, and Bill had chocolate.

The owner's daughter or family member was also there, having driven up in a van. We were having our shakes and the we're discussing some issue and I heard the owner complain that she had this rash and it was starting to spread all over her body.

Bill and I just looked at each other and he whispered, Is that the lady who prepared our food?

All I could do was just laugh and put my head down to keep it discrete.

They kept discussing, oblivious to us, and she was asking if it was covered by Medicaid.

Hobo Hot Springs

Saratoga is famous for its hot springs. There's a fancy hotel that has extensive pools, but it's for hotel guests only. For "the rest of us" the city provides the (I'm not kidding) Hobo Hot Springs.  It's a free large pool with nice facilities.  Bill and I took in a restorative soak in the hot waters.

We're camping tonight at Lake Saratoga which is really lovely despite the bleak, nearly treeless surroundings.  There are pelicans, osprey, and muskrats hanging out.

Beef stir fry tonight from Lew and John. Very good. We're dealing with a lot of Wyoming wind and expect it to drop to the forties tonight. Not as bad as last night when Barry claims to have tried to pull his cap over his entire body.

First night of camping when I could not find a place to hang a hammock so I set up the tent.  I had tried to give it to Gina back in Breckinridge but she told me to keep it.  So she's proved right yet again.

A very light day tomorrow with only 40 miles.

Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado to Walden, Colorado

It was a cold night.  Getting up in the morning was possible only by raiding my cold weather gear including the sweater I almost sent home with Gina. She told me to keep it because we were still in the mountains and heading North.  Thankfully I heeded her advice.

I set out with Bill this morning.  Great morning ride except....

Broke my chain.  I was reaching the crest of a hill and tried to switch my front and rear gears at the same time.

(Norm explained that chains now are thinner and weaker to accommodate the greater range of gears and it doesn't take much pressure or force)

Sucks because I was making good time and the area and ride is so beautiful.  River valleys.  Columbine Flowers.

I was able to call Chris and leave a message and he came and got me. Yet another reason I made the right choice to go can-supported.

Granby, Colorado

Worse than a chain.  The rear derailer broke so Chris came and got me and we headed into Granby.  VJ the owner, was really welcoming and helpful.  He offered to let Chris use the shop's tools and just charge us for parts.

Two and a half hours later I was back on the road.

Rand, Colorado

Having come down from the pass, we are in North Park.  We passed through the whimsical town of Rand with its defunct police car and the closed (for sale) Yacht Club in this landlocked valley.

It's beautiful and we are passing some gorgeous ranches where even the cows seem jaded and blasé about cyclists.  It's hard going though.   The pavement is uneven, cracked and bumpy.  Worse, there is a strong wind coming at us from the side and occasionally as headwind.  Our speed is sometimes 9MPH.

Walden, Colorado

After a lot high speed side winds and occasional headwinds the last twenty miles, Barry and I reached Walden. We were wiped and unsuccessfully searched for shakes, instead ending up on the River Rock Cafe at the beautiful Antlers Inn. It's a river rock, and massive log cabin style building.

We are briefly on Highway 14 that, looking East, runs eventually to Ault, a mere seven miles from home. I feel close to home and that has been a little surreal, but tomorrow we cross over to Wyoming and it will be mostly new and different again to me.

We sleep in the city park, I set up the hammock in the play area.   Dinner, hamburgers, tonight in the Pavilion.  We also went over to the town swimming pool ($5) for a swim and shower.

Celebrating the close out of our sixth state with a beer at the Antlers.  We are thirty days from the Pacific Ocean.