Up at 5:30 this morning. Ate breakfast in the hotel and on the road at 6:30am. It’s 50 degrees and cloudy…expected high today of 67.
For the next couple days, how far I go will be primarily dictated by available services. I don’t really want to stealth camp so am shooting for places with campgrounds and they’re not a lot of options. Today I’m headed for Jeffrey City and will then assess things (wind/weather) and decide whether to stay there or go on to go further. Just because of the available services, it’s going to be the day after tomorrow when I get to Lander and I’ll need to stop there so I can make Dubois the following day. In short, available services are dictating my next three days and where I stop….my daily mileage won’t be as high as I would like.
Crossed the contenentinal Divide for the 3rd time this morning about 7:30. It’s cold and starting to rain a bit….under some dark ugly looking clouds…looks a little clearer up ahead but that’s 20 or more miles, so I’m cranking to try and get out of this system before I get rained on hard and then it gets really cold.
Road construction about 25 miles in. Having to ride on a dirt road beside the paved road just for safety—a little slower going buy a lot safer.
In Lamont at 9:35 at 33 miles in….the Annalope’ Cafe was a little deserted…no second breakfast there 🙂
Crossed the Continental Divide for second time today just outside Lamont. Huge thunderstorm off in the northwest…hope I can dodge it.
Huge thunderstorm forming off to my right just after Lamont. I have about 5 miles to go to Muddy Gap…skirted around it and only got rained on a little, bit it was cold. Got to Muddy Gap and stopped at a gas station. Had a V8 and a sneakers bar. There were storm clouds all over, but from Muddy Gap was heading West and it looked clear in that direction so took off.
About 5 miles down the road everything clanged fast…a thunderstorm moved directly overhead and it gave me everything…cold rain, thunder, lightening, hail, and wind. And there was no place to hide, so I just kept peddling—after stopping to make a video 🙂 It rained and hailed on me for about 20 minutes and the wind was blowing strong out of the west. I was leaning into the wind and tilting my head to the right to try and have the hail hit my helmet and not my right ear—it was a miserable 20 minutes.
Sitting in a little dive cafe in Jeffrey City right now waiting on a couple grilled cheese sandwiches and deciding what to do. There is a church here that I could stay in or I can continue on….will eat, check the weather and decide. It’s only 1pm and the hate to stop now, but there are probably more storms out there—this is a stormy kind of day.
Well, it’s 60 miles to the next viable stop and if it weren’t for the storms I would do it today—feeling great and have enough daylight, but the storm clouds look bad outside. So, I’m staying here in Jeffrey City tonight at the Community Church that is open to cyclists. The split rock bar and cafe has good food and the TVs is set to the western station. I’ll get up early tomorrow and get to Lander then decide what to do from there.
In the church tonight there are several other cyclists spending the night here. Olof from Germany has a broken spoke on his rear tire—he has a spare spike but doesn’t have the tools to change it, so I loaned him the tools and helped him change it….I’m sort of an expert spoke changer now 🙂
Feeling good and strong….hoping for good weather….would like to do at least 80 miles a day….don’t like these 50-60 mile days.
