Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Day 50: Lander, WY to DuBois, WY
Despite arriving so late the night before, we started early again today, since we simply couldn't stand another day of night riding. We had breakfast at the Pronghorn, then took off to see about purchasing a new tire. Downtown Lander looked like a pretty awesome place, but since it was still early the outdoor shops weren't open. Even then, they were outdoor outfitters, we couldn't find a real bicycle shop. We decided to ride on.
Lander really is right in the wilderness. We passed within a few feet of deer on someone's front lawn before realizing they were real. The people also seem pretty awesome. Someone had a dragon skull on their front lawn.
The ride north out of town was greener than usual, but still very open. It might have even been a nice ride if we hadn't both been in a bad mood.
We eventually came to the town of Ft Washakie, where we stopped at a grocery store for supplies. And by supplies, I mean donuts, which this dog very much wanted to enjoy.
Ft Washakie is the home of Sacajawea's gravesite. We didn't take the time to stop, since we were once again in a rush to get to DuBois. Like a number of towns we passed, Ft Wasakie had its name on the hillside.
Following Ft Washakie we had a difficult climb followed by long, windy miles of open space. We hit a wide, empty plateau at mile 26, giving us a few minutes to simply push in the wind without feeling like we were getting anywhere. But, a few miles later, we had another wonderful downhill to the intersection with US-26. Not long away from here we found another rest area, which was a relief. Any excuse to get out of the wind we were happy to take.
Down the road we started seeing construction signs.
We rode to the head of a long line of cars, where we talked with the flagger at length. He was very critical of the people in Montana for being so backwards, much like how people in New York criticize Pennsylvanians, and people in Maryland criticize West Virginians. He also told the story of Crowheart Butte to some of the folks in cars.
In 1866 the Shoshone and Crow tribes fought a battle at the base of Crowheart Butte. When Chief Washakie was finally victorious, he placed the heart of the Crow chief on his lance at the (depending on who you talk to) top of the butte.
Finally the pilot car returned, and we were told that we could follow a group of cars through the next five or six miles of construction. This was infuriating, as there was no way we could possibly keep up with the cars. If we were going to need to pull off somewhere in the middle of the construction and wait for the next passing pilot car anyway, why hadn't we been allowed to just go?
A few miles in, we passed the construction crew tarring the roadway. We stopped, waiting for a pilot car to go by, so we could be sure we were out of their way. The crew waved us through, but as we passed the tarring truck, they turned it on, spraying us with tar. Since there was no way to be sure if they'd done it on purpose, we rode on, eventually coming to the town of Crowheart.
We stopped at a general store, purchasing some ice cream for the heat. We also chatted with three county employees eating their lunch outside the store. They were driving up and down the road, spraying weeds and had passed us a number of times and had seen how miserable we looked. After seeing Jillian's legs, they gave us some very, very effective bug spray.
After leaving Crowheart, things got even emptier as we averaged about eight miles an hour in the wind.
Eventually we found our way to the entrance to the Wind River Canyon, at about mile 60. The canyon was an awesome break - the walls kept the wind off us, and the canyon kept the air a little bit more humid. Of course, it also gave us something to look at.
The homes we saw started to change as well.
Although the picture we got doesn't show it, the homes were much nicer, and in more of an Alpine style. We'd been told that the billionaires were buying the millionaires out in Jackson, so the millionaires were moving to Dubois. We very much loved riding through the canyon, only wishing we'd been doing it the other way, so that we weren't constantly moving uphill.
We rode through the very western style streets of Dubois at about 9pm. Dubois is very much a tourist town, and everything was open. We were ecstatic at the idea of eating a real meal. We checked into the Branding Iron Inn, where the owner's son provided us with a key (we'd reserved ahead of time, which was good, since we got the last room). The rooms were great, with high ceilings, log cabin walls, and a very reasonable price. We dropped our stuff off and got back out the door.
Our friend Staph had told us about the Cowboy Cafe, and had said they had the best burger in the world. But when we got there, we discovered that even though they were full of people, they were actually closed. As was the Italian place. And the bar. And all the gas stations. We thought about getting the bike back out and trying to ride a little further past town, where we thought there might be more eateries. After all, there was a Super 8 down the road a ways. But we couldn't be sure. Jillian started looking for a soda machine - just anything other than our standard fare of PowerBars.
We found one in a laundromat, whose hours said it was closed. We got some change together and purchased a can of root beer, a can of Sprite, and a little bag of Cheez-Its, and took our food back to the hotel room. We still had some days old bagels in our bag, which I covered in our peanut butter and choked down. It was awful. I washed it down with Sprite and went to take a shower.
Unfortunately, the shower was rather old and came from a time when people weren't generally as tall as me. I had to crouch all shower.
Showered, I got in bed and got to sleep before the hunger could keep me up.
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