* Miles ridden on the TransAm route
Odometer miles - Today - 69.5 Total to date - 1236.9 miles
Welcome to windy Wyoming!
My first night in the tent since
returning to the ride went fine. It was
cool enough overnight that I used my sleeping bag instead of my sleep sheet,
but I stayed comfortable. It didn’t get
as cold as the night before in Hot Sulphur Springs.
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| Sunset the evening before from Walden, CO |
I got up around 5:45am to pack up
and get ready for breakfast at 7:00am (which usually means everyone has their
lunch made and is eating breakfast by 7:00am).
We got on the road by 7:30am. The
roads were better going out of Walden than they had been the day before. The morning was beautiful, clear, cool but not
cold and more scenic views.
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| Heading down the road from Walden - State Line, 22 miles Saratoga, 62 miles |
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| Wide open landscape with mountains in the distance |
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| Some hills as we approach the state line |
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| A small calf somehow got on the outside of the fence. Mom's trying to get him back somehow. |
22 miles into the ride we reached
Wyoming – my 2nd state line crossing and the group’s 6th. We all stopped at the state line for the
obligatory photos. Greg and Monica were
there as I arrived, but they’d been there long enough that they were ready to
ride on. Huey was also there and within
a few minutes everyone else arrived.
 |
| Made it to Wyoming |
We all did individual photos and
then I tried to setup my tripod to get a group shot with the delay timer. Just as I got it setup to shoot my camera
battery died. Bad timing and bad
planning. Wendy’s camera battery also
died at the same stop. So Huey used my
tripod to shoot a group shot of everyone.
I need to get him to share the photo with me.
Because my camera was dead I
didn’t get as many photos today. The
best shot of the day was the one I missed.
As we started riding into Wyoming from the state line I was just ahead
of Wendy and Judy. Judy called out “Look
left” and there across the road running alongside us were two antelopes. A great photo op and Wendy and I were both
without cameras. They ran along with us
for several yards. (You’ll just have to
use your imagination).
We rode on through fairly barren
land covered in sagebrush, but with scenic mountain views in the distance. There was one two mile climb that was a bit
tough at mile 33, but a great smooth, straight downhill with no traffic
followed. I hit a max speed of
42.6mph. That will probably be my high
for the whole tour. Soon after, Nicole
arrived in the van to offer us service.
I was fortunate to be able to retrieve one of my bags and get my camera
charger from it.
At mile 50 we reached the tiny
community of Riverside, WY, home of the Mangy Moose restaurant. We all stopped for a lunch break. I had a cheeseburger that was pretty
good. I was also able to charge my
camera battery while we ate, so I got pictures from the rest of the day.
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| Leaving Riverside - Saratoga, 18 miles |
The lowlight of the day came about
5 miles out of our destination city of Saratoga, WY. I was moving pretty fast down a descent to
try to carry some speed into the rise ahead.
At the bottom I crossed a bridge over a small creek and heard a ka-thunk
from my bike. As I went on I found that
my rear tire was flat.
Fortunately Paul and the others
were close behind. Paul stopped to help
while the others went on. We looked at
the tire and found a 4-inch nail driven clear through the tire and tube. Fortunately, I had a spare. Unfortunately, as I put the tire back on the
rim I apparently pinched the tube putting a hole in it. Fortunately I had a patch kit, so we patched
the new tube. Unfortunately as I tried
to screw on the retaining ring and dust cap the valve broke and the tube
wouldn’t hold air. Fortunately we had
the original tube with the nail hole, so we patched it. Unfortunately, we didn’t think that the nail
might have caused two holes, one on either side of the tube. Fortunately, we were able to patch the second
hole. Unfortunately, we were in too big
a hurry and the patch didn’t hold.
Fortunately I still had patches so we patched it again and took our time
for it to seal. Fortunately this time it
held air and I was able to ride! The
whole episode took over an hour, so I made it into camp after 3:00pm.
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| Saratoga, Pop. 1690, Elev. 6786 |
We stayed at the Saratoga Lake
Campground, about 2 miles outside of town on a small lake. There were pit toilets and no drinking water,
just one spigot with non-potable water.
Also, there were mosquitoes everywhere. Not nearly as nice as the Walden city park.
Our late arrival into camp threw
off the shower shuttle schedule. Once we
made it, Nicole made one trip in for everyone but Paul (who was cooking) at
about 3:45pm. We showered and then I
came back and setup my tent. I was able
to charge my netbook for a while using power from one of the RV spots, but there was no power at our tent sites.
Just about dinner time a big gusty
storm blew in. There was hardly any rain
(thankfully), but the wind threatened to blow down our tent canopy over the
cooking area. The wind got stronger as
we ate dinner. Everyone had to grab
everything they could and chase after a couple of things that blew away. It certainly made for an interesting dinner.
The wind continued as we cleaned
up. We managed to get the tent canopy
down without it blowing away or getting anyone hurt. Then we held our map meeting inside the
van. After that, some people made a trip
into town in the van and I hung out in my tent typing this blog entry and
hoping not to get blown away. As I
finished this up, the winds calmed and there was a beautiful sunset.
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| Sunset as I prepared for bed |
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| A short time after I turned in for the night I heard others outside so I went out and saw this. |
So we weathered the storm. When we woke up the morning was calm and all was well (though the mosquitoes were still swarming everywhere). There was no internet connection from the Saratoga Lake campground, so I'm posting this from Rawlins this afternoon - one day late.
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