Monday, August 03, 2009

49: History, Various Hooved Animals, and a Distinct Lack of Pie

With so many miles to cover, we should have started before daybreak, but we decided to wait for the hotel to put out a delicious breakfast before we got on the road (of course). Once again the view was stunning but largely unchanging.

For a while the weather was fairly pleasant, but the heat and the headwinds gradually increased to sanity-destroying levels. We brought back our most depressing game from Kansas: choosing one of the few landmarks in the distance and trying to guess how far away it was. Then we started to worry that we were seeing mirages:

Unfortunately, Michael was right. Our English muffins were pretty good, but our lemonades had debris floating in them and the lady we assumed to be "Grandma" was tired, grumpy, and all out of homemade pies. Of course we have to welcome anything close to an oasis out here, but we still left rather disappointed.

An hour or so after Michael, we met some self-proclaimed "turtles": two Swedish retirees taking their sweet time across the country. They were absolutely delightful, and I can only hope that Kyle and I spend our later years the way they are doing (though I highly doubt I'll be more willing to camp as a senior citizen than I am now, so we'll have to ride slowly across somewhere more populated).

I was also thrilled to finally meet antelopes willing to stay still long enough for me to take pictures.

And then, a little while later, I got to see another family of them crossing the salt flats.

We spent the the day criss-crossing the Continental Divide several times and following several historical routes: the Oregon and California Trails and the paths taken by Mormon pioneers, Chief Washakie's tribe, and the Pony Express. We were able to see the same landmarks they used, such as Split Rock:

And in Muddy Gap we visited a combination Mormon Remembrance Site and gas station that used its walls as a giant guest book. (We signed with our frisbee nicknames.)

About 2 hours later, we reached the next sign of civilization, though it wasn't much of one. Jeffrey City was once a uraniam mining boomtown, but when those opportunities dried up it became a ghost town, a line of empty businesses and silent neighborhoods.

The only open business was the bar, and we made up 2/3 of the patrons. We admired the bird-friendly exterior, chatted with the woman behind the bar, watched Bonanza, used the bathrooms, and downed two deliciously cold sodas before reluctantly returning to the road.

We also checked out the hodgepodge art shop across the street, which we remembered hearing about as a place for cyclists to camp.

Nothing seemed to be stirring over there, however, so we moved on. We rode and rode and rode and you know the drill until we reached a rest area in Sweetwater. By then the winds were so intense that we decided to drag the bicycle inside so that it wouldn't blow over. We laid down on the benches, content to munch on granola bars in silence, but a chatty gentleman from Iowa came over to us and we had a long conversation about everything from marathons to gay marriage (in which I learned that Iowa is surprisingly and refreshingly progressive). We ventured out of the building when the weather seemed to have calmed down, but it was a temporary reprieve. Soon ominous storm clouds appeared on the horizon and haunted us for the rest of the afternoon and evening. We would outrun one storm only to spot another, adding an element of stress and danger to a ride that was already guarenteed to be exhausting.

Finally the storm clouds dispersed and we found ourselves on a beautiful descent as the sun set and the moon rose over the hills. A moment of pure happiness and exhiliration broke through our frustrated moods and left us grinning all the way down. As we zoomed past a campground we startled a trotting horse, its hooves kicking up sparks on the asphalt. We felt buoyed, even invincible.

It didn't last long.

We stopped to turn on the bike lights, and in those brief seconds that we were no longer moving, we were attacked by an angry swarm of biting insects. We leapt back onto the bike and took off as fast as our fatigued legs could stand, but I still felt like needles were stabbing me for miles. I thought it might be my imagination, or the aftermath of earlier bites; there was no way bugs could be biting me through the seat and my clothing, right? I tried to tell Kyle but his attention suddenly needed to be elsewhere: a lightning strike had just appeared to our right, much too close for comfort. We now had two very good reasons to ride as quickly as possible -- three if you count how late it was already -- but it still seemed to take forever to get to town.

When we finally made it, our problems weren't over. To our surprise, the hotels were all booked; we assume it was because of the Mormon tourists whose vans filled their parking lots. Fortunately, we snagged the last room available at the the Pronghorn Lodge; unfortunately, it was a suite so it cost us $110, but beggars can't be choosers. Outside we met an energetic woman named Polly who was vacationing with her mother, and they insisted that we let them take our picture in front of the hotel's impressive pronghorn.

The photo forced us to smile, and the women's excitement about our trip was surprisingly energizing, which is exactly what we needed. We walked over to McDonald's a little less depressed than before, and even though the milkshake was not gourmet this time I was incredibly happy to have a filling meal in me. I was hopelessly distracted by the itchy bug bites, however, and when I finally looked at my back and below in a mirror I almost screamed: those buggers had been biting me through the seat and my clothing during the ride; I was so covered with bites that I looked diseased. I stopped counting somewhere around 80, slathered myself in Cortizone cream, and collapsed on the bed wanting to cry.

I'm not sure how to express how utterly sick I am of the trip and these wide open spaces right now. If we had started this trip in Oregon, I'm convinced that Wyoming would have broken me, and I would have decided to quit and catch the first flight home. (Assuming Wyoming even has any airports.) I can't quit now, of course, since we're so close to the end, but OH do I want to be finished with this whole batshit crazy endevor. I just want to be done, finished, off the bike and home. I want to stay inside for days, and never ride at night again. I want it all to be over. I want to collapse on the beach and just barely keep myself from throwing the bike into the ocean.

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