Rained again last.
Tents got wet again. No rain in
the morning. Thirty-five degrees when we
left and 91 when we finished in the afternoon.
Pretty hot. Sometimes you get
what you wish for. We were tired of the
cold, but…Our morning began with a climb up Togwotee Pass, 9,658 feet. Not too bad.
Good grade 2-6% the entire way.
We were thanking the engineers who did the excavating of the road. Great shoulders so far in Wyoming. Got to the top and made our way down to the
Lava Mountain Lodge where we had coffee.
Very cool place. Had great accommodations
if you ever venture out here. Cool bar
and nice people. And popcorn. Jack
finally got his popcorn fix. They made
popcorn for him at 8:30 in the morning.
We saw some mooses before we got there.
Jack saw a deer and a porcupine having a little turf battle on the side
of the road. Of course, being the
teacher, Jack broke it up.
Mr. Sun came up too, to warm things up. Made our way through Dubois and met a
tailwind. Bicyclists have never met a
tailwind they didn’t like. We had a
tailwind for more than 60 miles. We were
flying, hardly peddlin’ hitting 20-25 miles per hour. We were going through the Painted Hills. If you have never seen them, look them up on
the Internet. Imagine riding a bike
through them for about 20 miles. Then we
rode through some terrain that had red rock, unbelievable. It seems just when it can’t get any better,
you turn a corner and voila, more good shtuff.
We stooped for lunch at Crowheart.
Met group of bikers heading west.
Had some great conversation with them about what to except in our future
rides.
Well, all good things must come to an end. The tailwind ended when we turned onto route
287. Brutal. Really slow going. At times, the wind almost blew our bikes over
while we were riding. I was going down a
hill and my bike kept drifting into the other lane. We got to our destination, Fort Washakie and
Jack got his second flat tire. No
camping at Fort Washakie and besides it seemed a little questionable. So we had to go to the next location down the
road, Lander, population 7500. Even has
a McDonald’s. RV Park not as nice as
others we have stayed at. Not safe to
drop soap in shower. We have seen some
very odd places, but this may be at the
top of list. But we have our tents up.
Anyway, by having top go further, we ended up doing 128 miles and not
getting to the site until about 4:30. So
tonight will be a shorter entry. I am
whupped. But no rain in forecast. Warm weather ahead. We decided to sleep in tomorrow and get a
later start after today’s longer ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment