Home, Home on the Range.....

From where we left off the last posting, the small town of Dubois, we pushed off in the morning with the intention of making it to Lander, WY...as did the rest of the group we had dinner with the night before....Bret a retired computer programmer and Isreal, Jordan, and Natalie from Tennessee....but not before we took a ride on the "Worlds largest Jackalope".

 

 

The ride was a beautiful one, as usual, but a bit harder than we were expecting. As Lander was a 75 mile day, along the way we decided it may be better to stop a little shorter and stay in the town of Fort Washakie, which is on the Wind River Indian Reservation, and would make a 60 mile day. In rolling though town we soon understood why some of the locals refer to it as "Fort Wayshakey". Let's just say it didn't really have the "let's stay here for the night" type of vibe, so we pushed on to Lander and boy was it worth it! Rolled into town tired and famished so we proceeded immediately to the local brewpub. Had a great dinner. When a super nice woman happened to notice we were cycling the TransAm, probably due to both the speed and intensity of which we devoured our food, she brought us chocolate chip cookies for dessert and told us a little of her cross country trip last summer on the Southern Tier. Lander turned out to be the best town stop of the trip thusfar. Free camping in the city park, along with 15-20 other cyclists, along with use of the city pool which also had showers. We couldn't pass up the opportunity of a rest day in Lander, so the next day we toured around town, ate, swam, had coffee, ate, napped in the park, ate, ate, and ate. We also met a load of other cyclists. The ones we both got the biggest kick out of were Sally and Patsy, two mid sixties grandmas who ride a two week section of the route every summer. They hope to finish the whole coast to coast ride by the time they're 70. Both are totally young at heart and an inspiration.

 

 

Given Lander is supposed to have the biggest Fourth of July celebration we just couldn't entertain the thought of kicking around town for three more days, and losing our mojo, so we pushed on to make Rawlins, WY for the Fourth. The next day the landscape and environment turned to complete and total desert.....HOT and dry. We peddled a shorter day and ended up camping at a Mormon historical site, where they were nice enough to let us stay. There we met David, a really nice Southern fella whose riding the route. He's also a journalist and his writing is published in his local newspaper back home in North Carolina. He mentioned us and included our picture. Here's the link.....

http://www.salisburypost.com/article/20130703/SP01/130709887/1023/david-freeze-ride-update-many-miles-on-a-hot-day

The next day was through more desert environment, however, the temperature cooled off a bit and we also had a nice tailwind. We ended up riding a record, for us, 88 miles. Twenty miles into the day we stopped at a diner, the only diner, in the middle of nowhere for breakfast. The type of place that will make you thankful for your place in life and remind you there really are some weird places in this country and world. Stumbling back outside into the bright sun, post breakfast, with our eyes burning from cigarette smoke and half of last nights dinner stuck to the bottom of our shoes we peddled on.....

The rest of the day we cruised towards Rawlins, with not so breathtaking scenery, but nevertheless thankful to be simply pedaling our bicycles. Rode into town tired with food on our minds. Chose what turned out to be a really good Thai restaurant. We're starting to notice more wondrous eyes looking our way in restaurants. Probably due to the fairly disheveled look after a long day on the bikes and our ravenous appetites. Camped in Rawlins and took yesterday, the Fourth, off...Kicked around town, relaxed, went to the movies, laundry, chores, ate, ate, and ate. We ended up watching the fireworks from our campsite as slight rain means wet roads, and wet roads means every cowboy in the county saddles up their pickup and heads over to Rawlins to burn out at and slide around every corner in town.....that mixed with the employee at the local liquor store mentioning "record sales" we figured it smart to stay off the roads. 

Pushing off this morning we soon met Steve and "Bones", two burly rough and tumble bikers, covered in tattoos, patched leather jackets, and all the standard Outlaw regalia. "Bones" asked to borrow my bike pump as his back tire was low. Pretty comical to have these two rough and burly, but totally personable and down to earth, bikers trying to pump up a tire on their Harley's with my little dainty bicycle pump. In parting, in hearing our next big town stop is Pueblo, CO, Steve responded with, "Sorry to hear that". When asked for a further explanation he mentioned that "if Colorado was to get an enema Pueblo would clog it". Not really sure what to make of that, but onward to Pueblo!