CD 9 (and hitting the 1,000 mile mark), CD 10, CD 11 today
Before leaving Little Sandy Creek, we had a really nice chat with Mike and Bobbi, the owners of Blue Sky Sage, who have been running their horse camp at the creek for the past several years. They really have an appreciation for the beauty of this area (and they're on the same side, as we are, when it comes to shipping Wyoming (or otherwise) coal off to China).
This day started with pretty favorable winds and roads and we got to see a couple cowboys at work, one of whom was decked out blue jeans and shirt, red bandana tied around his neck and a white hat. With a bushy mustache and toothy grin he looked like the kind of guy you'd want to be sheriff.
As we got further on up in the high country, a much more significant headwind developed with sporadic pushes from behind or the side, depending on the curve of the gravel/sand (and often washboardy!).
As in many places, the towns all lie in gulches, both for water access as well as wind protection. Today's two towns that we rode through seemed to be down particularly deep folds in the earth. The gold boom, bust and now ghost-town-turned-state-historic-site of South Pass City was a steeeep drop down and climb out. Likewise the more "lived in" (population all of " about 57") town of Atlantic City. A big, late lunch of burgers and fries and salad made the climb out of AC a slog. The owner at Miner's Grubstake Kitchen was quite funny trying to deal with QuickBooks support on the phone, and she seemed to appreciate our request for a bottle of whiskey to go, especially after she watched us transfer it into our platypus wine carrier. Maybe that extra weight was the real reason for the slog...
The rough washboard continued after Atlantic City and all the way to where we ended up stopping for the day, which was not the very lush and pretty Sweetwater River crossing as originally planned, but Diagnus Well, another 11.5 miles further (so instead of a 47 mike day, it was 59.5). We just wanted to get a little further down the road to take a dent out of the next day's ride, but, boy, were those last 7 miles were a beast. Slow going with tired bodies wobbled to hell from the rough road. Once we located the well a little off the road, we were grateful, even though the setting outside the protected, wetland-like well area was pretty barren. The constant flow of water allowed us to wash and rinse and wash and rinse all the dust and sand off (no one to see our high country half nakedness!) and it provided us with all the drinking/cooking water we needed. We set up camp, ate the meat/cheese wraps we'd premade but didn't have for lunch (because of the stop in AC), and sipped whiskey as the sun set. So quiet! until 9:30 when a couple of riders showed up to set up camp and NOT using their quiet-time/shared-space voices... :-(
The last tree until close to the Colorado border a couple hundred miles away.
We've been in the early to bed, rise mode, so we were able to enjoy the morning's beautiful sunrise and getting ourselves together before the other riders even got up, I suspect that they might have been heading north versus south, as we never saw them again.
But strange we don't see more riders, as we hear from others who run into lots along the way, or even camp out in groups. We're an anomaly, it seems with how a few other riders we run into once we get to camp. But that's okay with us!
Day 26, Tuesday, July 22, Little Sandycreek campsite to Diagnus Well. 3 Continental Divide crossings.
59.6 miles, 6:37 ride time, 9mph avg --this included some walking on Alaine's through the very very steeps of South Pass and Atlantic cities.
59.6 miles, 6:37 ride time, 9mph avg --this included some walking on Alaine's through the very very steeps of South Pass and Atlantic cities.
No comments:
Post a Comment