DAY 11 - DIRT ROADS AND ANTELOPE

We awoke in the tent behind the Bright Spot and were re-welcomed by a hot breakfast and coffee. We got on the road pretty soon, but.. not the most exciting of roads. If you look at highway 20 on a map of Wyoming, you can see how straight it runs but it's hard to understand without experiencing. It's pretty much this:

... for a really long time. Just us, our bikes, a couple cars, and the occasional antelope. What goes through our minds at these times? Well, Don was reminiscing about college, Dave was thinking about his impending move to Denver, and I was oscillating between brainstorming dissertation ideas and thinking about the last time I was traveling across the country (but in a car). The view for the many hours of riding, besides the grassy plains on either side, is something like this:

In any case, we headed from Hiland where we stayed to Casper, WY, where we stopped by a grocery store to get a ton of food and soothe our ravenous hungers. The cashiers at this Albertson's were super friendly, and offered to let us sit upstairs in their break room to eat our brunch. 

From there, we headed a couple miles up the hill into town to pump up our tires at the local bike shop. The people at Ragged Edge Sports were incredibly friendly, and let us use their pumps and even have us a screw that Don was missing from his show. Thanks!

More long straight road for us from Casper heading east, and we eventually got to Glenrock, where we stopped for a cold drink and some help with road advice from some locals at the grocery store. The staff were helpful and even grabbed an atlas from the back to help us on our way, but as always we had to make our own (silly) decision. Stuck with a choice between riding up a hill, on the interstate, or on a dirt road for the last 30ish miles to Douglas, we chose the dirt road.

 

Which, of course, turned out to be the worst kind of dirt road: one that's actually gravel and therefore terrible on our road bikes. Instead of turning around, we kept going, I guess because we're stubborn. The road wound past a power plant and then a river, which at least was pretty (the river, not the power plant).

 

Due to the fairly abandoned nature of the road, there was also a lot of wildlife. Antelope watched us from the field as we rode by slowly. I don't think we realized we'd run into antelope, but they're pretty cool looking.

Probably the highlight of this otherwise way-too-long dirt road: we saw some baby antelope running along a dry creek bed. Not sure this does justice to how cute the tiny little ones were.

However, after they noticed us blocking their usual escape route, they turned around and one of the young ones ran the opposite direction. One of them, though, ran straight into one of the barbed wire fences that lined the fields along this road. He kep struggling against the wire, probably because he was so scared of us. We didn't really know what to so, since it was our presence that was clearly makin him so agitated that he kept getting more stuck! We debated just leaving to let him figure his way (calmly) out of it, or trying to help him. Eventually, Don approached by himself, equipped with our tiny multitool to try and cut the antelope out. Our scissors didn't cut it, so despite the kicking and yelping of the antelope, Don had to manually pull it back through the fence to where it had started. The antelope sprang free and ran off to join the rest of his family. Hopefully that makes up for us scaring him - and maybe even begins to repay the karmic debt we're obviously in from the kindness of the many people who have helped us so far on this trip. Thanks again, kind strangers! We appreciate everything you do.

DAY 10 - ESCAPE FROM THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS.

For those of you who were wondering why we slept in Meeteetse, WY last night instead of Sheridan, I have to back up to our rest day. While we were in Yellowstone feeling very tired,  we looked a few days ahead at our route and noticed an enormous climb through the Big Horn mountains. While doing laundry in the Yellowstone hotel, a couple who had just come through the mountains told us that the roads were treacherous, had little to no shoulder, and were dangerous for bicycles. We asked my sisters in Command Central to look into this, and this is what they sent (remember, we are traveling west to east).

     Already having spent a few days in the mountains, climbing passes over 8000 feet, we didn't want to do another climb, even steeper, over 9000 feet. We reconfigured the route to go south to avoid the Big Horns and will now follow Route 20 east instead of Route 14 east.  My sister Lauren outlined the new route on her atlas and sent photographs so we would have hard copies if we lost cell phone reception. 

     Our day began a little late as we slept in - we needed the sleep. There was a simple but well-stocked continental breakfast at the Oasis which was for motel guests, but campers could participate for a donation.  I had oatmeal, toast with jelly, a hard boiled egg and coffee.   Having had breakfast worked well, as our first town, Thermopolis, was 52 miles away. We finally got going at around 7:30. 

     Because the route is now new to us, we've had my sisters measure out distances of 110-130 miles to get is to Milwaukee on the correct day. They send us suggestions for places to eat and an overview of the terrain.

     As you can see, it was mostly downhill to Thermopolis and this morning we had a tailwind. That combination had us averaging just under 24 mph, getting us to Thermopolis in just over two hours.

   Thermopolis is famous for its hot springs and has a relatively large tourist complex set up around it. Although there were plenty of places to eat, we decided to hit the grocery store which we prefer. We stuck to our staples, yogurt, cherries, plums, turkey breast, and cheese.   Dave and I also bought some local snack cakes which pushed us over the edge into a food coma on the sidewalk that runs along the side of the store. Justin let us sleep for about 20 minutes before waking us up and getting us moving. 

     The highlight of today's ride was biking through the wind river canyon. It follows the river and is the exit through the Big Horn mountains that arc southwest around Thermopolis. The scenery was spectacular.

   

    Exiting the canyon took us through through a series of tunnels. We did well, no competition from cars and very high speed.

    Once through, we took a quick break in a park by the river. Shade is hard to find along the road and this park looked very inviting. As we ate protein bars and drank water, an official vehicle pulled up,

 and the park ranger got out: "Do you know you're in a Wyoming State park?"  I wondered what we could have possibly done wrong this time. He quickly explained that this was a day use park and that we should have paid a fee before sitting down. He then said he would waive the fee as it was obvious to him we were just passing through. As it turns out he is a cyclist also and asked us a bunch of questions about our bikes and the trip. He said he wished he was our age as he would like to have come along.  A few miles down the road when we were cycling again, he passed us, honked the horn and gave us a big wave. 

     Getting to Shoshoni was a climb, but we had a tailwind which made things nice. Unfortunately at Shoshoni we would make a 90'degree turn east and the tail wing would become a cross wind. We are quickly learning that winds can have a very big impact on the amount of miles we can do, and after asking many of the locals, it is difficult to predict the direction or the speed. The ride to Hiland was very difficult. The crosswind became a little more of a headwind and we estimated it between 20 and 30 knots. The road was straight with little variation in terrain.

We passed the sign below.

Our ride for today was 124 miles and we were really feeling it as we approached our stopping point, Steelman's Brite Spot, in the town of Hiland, population 10.

It's a bar, store, restaurant, and motel, but they let campers like us set up a tent in the field behind the motel. The inside of the restaurant/store was fascinating. Stuffed rattlesnakes for sale at the main counter, stickers everywhere and a small dinner/breakfast menu. 

Bob, the owner, was great. He made us dinner, let us charge our devices, choose the TV channel and engaged us in conversation. After we ate, we set up the tent

 and came back to the bar for a few beers. Bob told us what it was like to own his place and gave us a picture of life in a small town of 10. We asked him if he knew the other 9, but he said that number was fluid. 

    After the beers, we said goodnight, got into the tent at 9:30 with it not yet dark, and rested up for another day. Breakfast is served at 6am, and we plan to be his first customers. 

DAY 9 - DESCENDING FROM THE MOUNTAINS

Today started off with an early rise from our beautiful hotel on Lake Yellowstone. Although it was nearly impossible to leave the bed, we were on our bikes by 6:20am pedaling in the frigid mountain air. Justin's bike computer read 42 degrees! The ride out included the most beautiful scenery so far. 

An epic early morning climb through mountains and sulfur steam led to an impressive 3500 foot descent to Cody, WY. Just before Cody, we came across a series of tunnels, which were very narrow, dark, and without shoulders. We decided to plunge headfirst and pedal our asses off so that cars wouldn't come up from begins and try to pass us. Fortunately, we were able to keep up a pace over 40 mph and made it through the tunnels without being passed. 

In Cody, the temperature soared into the 90s. We stopped for a much needed late lunch and decided to kill sometime before getting back on the road since we had made such good time in the morning. We cleaned our bikes outside of a kmart when we found the only bike shop in town closed. 

The temperature only got hotter, and with only 32 miles left in the day, we decided to escape the heat and watch a movie. We shoved our bikes in a closet at the theatre and spent a luxurious 3 hours in plush seats and AC. Transformers is a terrible movie, unless you are trying to maximize your time in a cool dark environment. 

 

Our last stretch brought us to Meeteetse, WY, a small town southeast of Cody. On this part of the ride, the hills were lit up by the setting sun. The landscape was vastly different from the morning's. At this point in the trip we took a moment to celebrate reaching 1000 miles! 

We set up our tent, grabbed a shower at the RV park, and had dinner at a little mom and pop's place. Now, off for some solid sleep. 

DAY 8 - RELAXING IN YELLOWSTONE

With one week down and around 850 miles in the bag, we took our first rest day today. Since we stayed last night in Madison campground just inside Yellowstone, we were able to tour around the park a bit and get to Yellowstone Lake where we're staying tonight (in a hotel! with beautiful showers!) and enjoy the scenery, which has been a little tough when we're trying to fit 8 hours of biking into each day. That's definitely one of the big surprises for us on this trip: not nearly enough time to relax and sight-see.

We slept in until the luxurious hour of 8:45 am, which after a bunch of nights with <8 hours of sleep was very needed. Though we felt groggy when we woke up because of the late hour, we hopped on our bikes for a quick spin to get from Madison to the Lake Yellowstone hotel to check in. It was a great idea to take a relaxed ride through Yellowstone with no pressure to get any distance done, as it allowed us to see some waterfalls, hot springs, and bison.

Yellowstone is however full of tourists, which is a little annoying when it comes to trying to find a reasonable place to eat or enjoy the scenery as we bike (so many cars - at least they drive slowly!), but we managed to hit up some general stores along the way for lunch.

As we were pulling into the lodge to check in, Don noticed that his left shoe wouldn't come out of his pedal. (For people who don't bike or use clip-in pedals, we're using different variants of shoes that have cleats on the bottom and pedals that we clip into when we're riding - this lets us get a full pedal stroke instead of just using our quads pushing down) This was perfect timing for something like this to happen, as it would have been incredibly inconvenient to have this kind of problem when we had to keep riding. Don just untied his foot from his shoe and left his shoe attached to the pedal - it turned out that one of the screws holding the cleat onto the shoe had come loose and fallen off. We didn't bring an extra screw for this so we were worried about what we could possibly do.

Luckily, Don and I headed downstairs to talk to the concierge after we checked in, and he directed us to another Yellowstone employee who happened to be an avid cyclist himself! Not only did this guy (named Wim) have exactly the screw we needed, but he also gave us a ton of advice on biking in Yellowstone. Apparently all the volcanic rock in the park will damage our bikes if we don't clean off our brake pads and rims after we leave - it sticks onto different parts of the bike and will carve grooves into the metal and carbon. Definitely some important advice - thanks!

Not too much else to report, but we are excited to sleep a full 8 hours in comfort tonight and get an early start to riding in the morning.

DAY 7 - THE DAY OF TWO PARADES

July 4th. 

The day started out with clean riding clothes, although when we had them on, we noticed much of the road grime hadn't washed out, but the clothes felt and smelled great. We ate leftover PB&Js from dinner, grabbed coffee from the KOA and were on the road before 7am.

Now that we are in the western part of the time zone, the sun rises later by the clock making very early departures a little harder.

The plan was breakfast in Ennis which was 22 miles away.  The ride took us through two ghost towns

then a big climb. At the top there was a herd of cattle

and from there we could see the road winding downhill for miles with Ennis in sight.

When we entered town we noticed people gathering and chairs lining the road. We found the grocery store, bought fruit, yogurt and hard boiled eggs. By the time we were done, the Ennis Fourth of July parade had started. Justin led the way and found a path along the parade route and out of town. 

We had packed lunch as the next town was West Yellowstone 71 miles away. The ride was a gradual climb of 2000 feet along route 287 with a strong headwind making it a struggle to maintain 10 miles per hour. The group became very discouraged when the sheriff of Madison county pulled the three of us over. He had seen us on the parade route and wanted us to know that in Montana  bikes must follow the same rules as cars. He was a cyclist himself and encouraged us to be good stewards for the sport. We thanked him and continued into the headwind. There is no picture of the sheriff as we didn't feel comfortable asking him to pose.

     We stopped for lunch halfway, took very quick naps and when we started again out luck had changed. The road took an easterly turn, still climbing, but we now had a tail wind and beautiful terrain. 

We got to West Yellowstone, ate at the Slippery Otter and while we were at dinner they closed the roads for another Fourth of July parade.  We were still in Madison county and could see an emergency vehicle in the distance.  Could this be the same sheriff from earlier?  We needed to hurry and get in out way before we were caught in a second parade.  Luckily they were still letting some cars through and we were able to find an open side street that reconnected with our route.  My sister had made us a reservation at Madison campground 14 miles away inside of Yellowstone. We entered the park and entered another state.

Planning the trip to go through Yellowstone had added miles, but the beauty of the untouched landscape made us realize we were had planned correctly.

We've made it to the campground

and are trying to get to bed early as our bodies need rest. 

DAY 6 - UPHILL ON A DIRT ROAD IN A STORM

We had an early start from Boulder Creek Lodge and made good time to Philipsburg. We didn't bother stopping there in the interest of time, and charged up a huge hill to Georgetown Lake. It was a brutal climb, but there was a heart shape in the mountain face which made us feel warm inside. We love you too Montana.  

From there was continued on and eventually took our first break in Anaconda, 38 miles in. After the break, we has a hard time finding another spot to eat, stopping at the Hitching Post finally at 98 miles. 

After a 15 minute nap, we hit the road again, well more like a trail. We were told to ride an unimproved road to Twin Bridges by our friends at Adventure Cycling. Unfortunately, the road was basically a wide mountain biking trail with tons of rocks and loose gravel. Our road wheels were not made for this. 

Besides, as we climbed a huge mountain at about 4-5 miles per hour, we realized we were colliding with a fast moving storm cell, with lightning strikes about a mile away from us. The rain was hitting hard like hail. 

Just as we were about to take cover in lightning position, a big truck came rolling over the hill. We waved them down and asked if they had room to bring us the few miles we had left down the mountain. They had just finished a fishing trip and were towing a boat; they told us to throw the bikes in the back and jump on the truck bed. We were saved from the storm and the end of the brutal rocky downhill. 

We took cover in a grocery store and took comfort in hot chocolate goodness before setting out for the final 20 miles to Alder, MT, where and RV/campground was located. We ransacked the little camp stored for all things edible including a six pack. We were able to do laundry here for the first time of the trip and stole a quick shower before bed. Tomorrow is expected to be longer than the 132 miles we covered today.