Today’s Date: June 15, 2024

Today’s Start Point: Rawlins, Wyoming

Today’s End Point: Rawlins, Wyoming

Today’s Miles: 0 Miles

Cumulative Miles: 1,693.29 Miles

First off, I feel much better today. Body feels fine, just dehydrated. I am surprised that I am not sore at all. Even my shins don’t hurt and the swelling of my ankles is gone. I am glad I am resting today. I guess it is time to explain how certain dumb decisions on my part put me in a difficult situation.

Yesterday, I woke up before sunrise and planned on getting to Jeffrey City by the end of the day, a trip of about 65 miles.

I would be staying at the only hotel in town, the Green Mountain Hotel. I then planned on riding the next day to Rawlins, Wyoming, another 60 to 65 miles. Between Lander, Wyoming (where I spent Thursday night) and Rawlins, Wyoming, there were only two towns for resupply. The first was my proposed destination of Jeffrey City (65 miles from Lander) and the other was a convenience store in Muddy Gap (81 miles from Lander). This meant there was nothing between Muddy Gap and Rawlins, a distance of 45 miles).

As I said, I left Lander at sunrise and headed south. It was cloudy, which would be the story for much of the day. I was pleased that I had a tailwind, there was virtually no traffic, and I had a wide shoulder, so far everything was good.

The ride was through a treeless landscape, with red cliffs looming up occasionally along the road. Yellow flowers lined the road for miles. At first I thought they were pretty, until my nose started to get stuffy and my eyes were itchy. It was still nice to see some color.

The first real challenge was the four mile climb up to the top of Beaver Ridge. I felt good on the climb and it had a relatively low gradient. Once to the top of Beaver Ridge, there was a beautiful vista of the valley below and the Wind River Mountains in the background.

Once over the top, the surroundings were relatively desolate. In the taking picture department, I could take 20 pictures over 30 miles and you would think they were all the same.

I rolled into Jeffrey City at 11:00 am, by far the earliest I arrived at a final day’s destination on the trip. To call Jeffrey City a city or town is a huge disservice to those terms. It looked like a place that dreams went to die. The two businesses in town were a saloon and a hotel, the Green Mountain Hotel. There was really no place to resupply, unless you consider a shot and a beer as resupply.

I looked at the Green Mountain Hotel and it had all the charm of John Wayne Gacy’s crawlspace. I had another option in Jeffrey City in that the local church would board cyclists. This is the option I should have taken.

But I, in all of my brilliance, came to the outstanding decision to go another 65 miles to Rawlins. My defective reasoning was that I had a slight tailwind, there were not many climbs, and it was still early in the day (it wasn’t even noon for god’s sake).

When I arrived in Jeffrey City, I met another unfortunate bike traveler from Denmark. He was traveling from the Mexican border up the Continental Divide to Banff, Canada. He could not get his chain to stay on the cassette, and he was wondering if I could help. As we all know, asking me for mechanical assistance is a comedy in and of itself. To add to his misery, we were in a 70 mile no cellphone section. I told him there was a bike shop in Lander so he decided to try and hitchhike to Lander for repair. I hope he found a helpful driver.

I eventually made the decision to proceed. I mean no cell service and only one convenience store between me a Rawlins, what can go wrong. With that I took off, with what had been a slight tailwind had now shifted to a crosswind.

Around me was still shrub brush and not much else. On the positive side, I saw a lot of deer and antelope playing in the field (someone should write a song about it).

After about 10 miles out of Jeffrey City, the wind shifted to a headwind, a 20 to 30 mph headwind. I had the option to turn around and go back to that church in Jeffrey City, but I stubbornly pushed ahead.

By the time I got to Muddy Flats (still in the no cellphone zone), I was noticeably tired. Riding into the wind is soul sapping. When riding into the wind, you work as hard as climbing, but at least with climbing you are accomplishing the conquest of a summit. When riding into the wind, you just crawl forward, with the howling wind in your ears.

I bought some supplies and sat on the ground and ate, but in retrospect not near enough food. I should have also bought some extra water to put in my back pockets.

While eating lunch, I met another bike traveler that was going from Missouri to Seattle. The juxtaposition of his demeanor as he rode with the wind and me riding into a headwind was pointed. He commiserated with me for a bit but I had to go because I was starting to worry about the time.

The next 25 miles was basically me looking at the white line and my Garmin, just counting down the miles. I am sure I missed some wonderful photos, but I was spent. I just wanted to get off the bike.

In the midst of this section, cellphone reception was restored. I had a Saturday reservation in Rawlins, but not one for Friday night. With reception restored, I tried to call the hotel to get a room for the night. My luck continued in that no one picked up at the hotel.

I was starting to really understand I could be in trouble. I knew the best person to call was Leslie. I asked her to try and get me a room for the night because I didn’t have time to keep calling. As always, Les came through and set up everything for my arrival. Thanks Les, you saved me.

At about the 105 mile mark, there was a three mile climb over the Continental divide. My stomach was killing me to such an extent I could not get any food down and I was almost out of water. This added to my predicament.

The climb was steepest at the beginning and then smoothed out at the top. I got through the steep part but I could not turn the pedals on the one to two percent section. I humbly got off my bike and walked a mile to the top of the climb.

Once over the top, the next 12 miles were thankfully downhill to Rawlins and the wind had died down.

I stumbled into the hotel at about 8:00 pm, checked in and collapsed on the bed and immediately fell asleep. I awoke at about 10:30 pm and walked across the street to McDonalds. As I was returning to the hotel, I missed seeing a curb and tripped, falling head first into the highway. There was no traffic so I just sat in the road laughing, at this point what else could I do.

Today I slept in, watched TV, did laundry (luckily the hotel has a laundry room a couple of doors down), went back to McDonalds (got to love that salt) and nothing much else. I really haven’t had a complete down day like this, and it has been nice. It took a lot to get this off day, but alls well as they say.

Tomorrow I am back on the bike for a 60 mile day, a much more reasonable day.