Today’s is the beginning of the Wyoming basin. From Rawlings to Yellowstone NP they’re only a handful of towns very far apart. Because Lisa Marie’s here it makes it much easier to pivot and plan stops. If I was solo I would be rolling into these tiny little towns and most likely sleeping in churches or some type of bike hostel. Services are minimal or non existent. I met two Michaels last evening in the gas station stocking up on supplies. They have been traveling the Great Divide Mountain bike trail. They told me how difficult it was to find water in the basin. They showed me a picture of a single pipe coming out of the ground with water (must be filtered). This was the only source for 90 miles. They were resting at a local hotel for the evening. BTW this is the trail Gary (Chrysler) and Marlene did several years ago – Total respect! I was not following their same route but just searching along Google Maps the result was pretty close to the same. As I did in several places in Nebraska and Colorado I carried extra water. This time however the car was doing all the heavy lifting.
Leaving Rawlings started with an 8 mi climb out of the city. I didn’t realize it but I was coming over the Continental divide. This would be the first of two times today crossing the divide at different altitudes. The winds were much stronger than I expected for very early in the morning but once out riding they seemed to calm down for the first few hours. Coming over the continental divide the downhill started out slow but then the grade increased dramatically and I found myself feathering my brakes just trying to keep it under 35 miles an hour downhill. Following the fast downhill I came into a long straightaway that was a better part of 8 miles. I saw an occasional pronghorn deer cross the road or stand and watch from the hillside. Couple hours in, I met Tait going the opposite way. He was a young man from Montana who started at the beginning of June. A little bit farther up the road I ran into Simon from the UK who was only doing a portion of the TransAmerica Trail and stopping to see family and friends. Both confirmed that the resources in my future would be a challenge. I asked both of them if they needed water and they were both OK. But they were clearly jealous of me having a Sherpa.
I stopped several times to get additional water and Gatorade and ate some food to keep fueling the machine. The terrain was surprisingly different about every half hour to forty five minutes there was always something new to look at. Pedaling on made pretty decent time but the afternoon winds picked up very quickly and made the end of the day a challenge. There were several climbs but none that seemed too challenging. Later on in the day when we were returning back to Rawlings to spend the evening, the climbs look much worse from the view of the car. Once back into town at least then I had a great meal and look forward to just relaxing for the rest of the evening and getting a very early start to tomorrow.
Insights from Lisa Marie
We started out early today, hoping to beat the high temperatures and the winds that come later. Today was a lot more interesting as I took a lot more pictures of different wildlife and terrain. There was more cattle ,some with horns. I enjoyed seeing the split rocks formations and the different terrain that went from mountains to what almost looked like colored flats like the Painted Desert or Red Rocks. There was still a lot of flat brush area with nothing to see especially in the low basin area where we traveled many miles. Twice we traveled over the continental divide and made it all the way to the town of Jeffrey. Norm did awesome today as I watched him peddle up very long steep inclines. At times he hardly looked like he was working hard at all! I kept doing my 5 mile staying close routine, reading my book.
