A Day of Days

Man oh man oh man. Today has been a day. Just got back from tequila slammers at 3rd street bar in laramie with Carl, Sam, Nathan and Bert. Carl owns a bike shop called The Pedal House which we spent some cool time at before and after the tequila, Alan's bike is booked in for a checkup first thing tomorrow.

Our little expedition has been suffering from a combination of altitude sickness, sun, heat and over exertion today. James has altitude sickness, hasn't been able to sleep or eat much, and has spent all day in bed. I came back to the room to find him in his underpants trying to walk a straight line, one foot in front of the other police style, with a deadly serious expression on his face. Lots of rest has done him good though, and he managed to eat some of his burger king whopper.

Bert got in last night more tired than i have ever seen him after a ride, it was like someone cut all the bones out of him, he was too tired to go out to eat so we ordered a massive pizza and stuffed it. His 120 miles in the sun, heat, headwind, isolation and alititude pushed him to the limit and today was quickly agreed to be a rest day so we've stayed in laramie.

Alan and I headed off in the APC with the bikes, driving to the foot of the mountains to do some serious climbing. We took a gravel road and got completely lost, ending up at a dead end with an off-putting sign. Pulling a quick u-turn we took another trail which turned into a couple of ruts leading across a field, the massive suburban bouncing and juddering along. Alan was scanning ahead with the binoculars trying to figure out the way ahead to the road, without luck. Eventually it became clear that our rough trail was heading into a very isolated farmhouse, and Alan got 'the fear', mewling and crying like a little girl until i turned around.

We eventually found our way to the road and got to Centenial, population 100 ish. We ditched the tank and got on the bikes, a sweet climb ensued, we quickly turned off the main road, which was closed in 7 miles due to snow, and turned on to a wee lane heading into the mountains. This gradually got more and more snowed over, until we were often hiking with the bikes on our shoulders over snow fields. The road has not been used all winter so was covered in rocks, after we were forced to turn back at around the 10,000 foot line we descended at max speed through them, dodging the rocks with all senses and reactions maxed up.

The country here has to be seen to be believed, you can see for 70 miles or so, plains surrounded by mountains, storms hovering over parts of the plains, hardly any settlements or houses, it really makes you feel insignificant.



Plan for tomorrow is to drive along the plains to the foot of the mountains at Dubois so that we can maximise time with james in Yellowstone. I've crossed the plains so feel no need to continue trekking north along the foot of the mountains for another 300 miles in a 40 mph headwind, and both me and alan are hungry for mountain climbs not plain slog, so we're treating this week as a proper holiday and road trip and will be climbing up to the continental divide and yellowstone on friday, riding and hanging with james on saturday, then the trip proper resumes on sunday when james drives back to denver.