38.26 mi / 3:35:32 time / 10.6 mph avg. / 23.5 mph max. / 1642 ft. climbing
Staying at Newton Creek National Forest Campground

It’s appropriate that my new location still puts me in the city that I left from, since this is the closest thing to an “off” day that I’ve taken so far. But I did actually go somewhere!

I maximized my use of motel WiFi by staying until the check-out time at 10am. On the way out of town I stopped at a sports/outdoors store looking for a new sweatband (to replace the one I must have dropped at the top of the Bighorns) but ended up getting some socks instead. Then another stop at the Wal*Mart on the edge of town to stock up on supplies: bananas, bagels, a loaf of SunMaid raisin bread, dried apricots (a new standard item for this tour, this is my 3rd bag), can of soup, can of tamales, a box of NutriGrain bars (sorry Cheerios, you’ve been replaced!), a turkey wrap for lunch, and some inner tube patches. Yay Wal*Mart!

When I hit the road for real, I discovered that I sure picked a good day to ride only 38 miles, because the strongest west wind I’ve had so far was blowing. Combine that with the fact that I was heading upstream on the North Fork of the Shoshone River, and it meant I was going pretty darn slow. The river valley starts right outside of Cody, and soon I passed through a really long tunnel and emerged out the other side to see the Buffalo Bill Resevoir. That explained the crazy short-but-steep grade shown on my elevation profile: it didn’t know about the tunnel!

So there it was, another beautiful river valley surrounded by tall mountains, blah blah blah. How boring! This one was a little different though, because the Shoshone is relatively wide, so the valley walls are more spread out. It’s exactly the kind of river that you’d expect to see grizzly bears fishing in, with the wide gravel flats, so it’s no surprise that there are all sorts of signs warning about bears. Another difference is that the rock formations tend to be more fragile and delicate, due to the volcanic history of the area.

Just before I entered the Shoshone National Forest I stopped at a gas station and talked with a local couple who had just done a morning ride in the area. I think they might be the first cyclists I’ve really talked to. They were pretty cool and had some good info/advice to share. For the most part, I haven’t gotten many questions from people in Wyoming; they must see enough weirdo tourists doing strange things so they just ignore me. However, when I reached the campground, I was talking with the host for a bit, and he said “hold on, I’ve got a special deal for cyclists”, and disappeared into his RV. He came out not with a shotgun, nor a set of whips and chains, but with my campsite registration taken care of for free! That was sure nice. He said I was the third touring cyclist he’d had over the summer, the first being a 22-year-old girl(!) doing New Jersey to San Fran solo (and she’s the one that inspired the special deal, apparently).

Since it was only 4pm when I got into camp, I took the time to “rotate” my tires, since the rear one is a lot more worn than the front (which is normal when I do loaded touring). Maybe that’ll help stop and future flats. Or just move them to the front wheel!

It’s funny, even though the short distance today was planned, and fits perfectly into my schedule, I still can’t shake the “I should have done more!” feeling. Hopefully when I’m climbing the big hill into Yellowstone tomorrow, I’ll make my peace with doing short days.

I’ve got all my food (and deodorant, and anything else with a scent) in the bear-proof box at my campsite, so while the bear might eat me, at least I’ll go down knowing that he’ll never figure out how to get at my toothpaste!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 1:59 pm and is filed under bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.