As expected, after a couple of hours the snow turned into a
cold, piercing, intermittent rain. We rode the entire wretched
day into headwinds, and though we made good distance, we had little
choice -- there were no towns to speak of, and stopping at roadside
to rest would have just left us wetter and colder. It was, on
the whole, an inauspicious introduction to the state and we were
very grateful finally to arrive in Saratoga, where we would be
able to get off the bikes and into dry clothes.
Saratoga in fact provided a splendid and unexpected counterpoint
to the day. By the time we left our hotel room to find dinner,
the western sky had cleared and the heavy clouds still directly
above us were bathed from underneath in a brilliant blood-red
sunset glow. It was beautiful. And, though the temperature was
still stuck somewhere in the low 40s, we had gym shorts and towels
under our arms -- we'd learned of an authentic hot spring in town,
and we were going to go for a soak.
That day turned out to be the last one that Rob and I rode
together. From the time I met him in Kentucky, he'd never been
certain quite where or how far he was going to go, so there was
a continuing ad hoc quality to our partnership. In Walden he finally
decided to follow the Transamerica Trail through to the Oregon
coast and then continue up to Seattle, where his wife was going
to be attending a conference. To do that, though, he'd have to
put in some serious miles. On the other hand I was way ahead of
schedule, and, having no desire to end my trip early, was actively
looking for ways to linger. On top of that, I had been planning
to depart from the Trail at Jackson. In the end we decided it
made more sense to split up, and so on a nippy and overcast morning
I watched Rob ride off on the first of the hundred miles he planned
to cover that day. We made vague promises to get together again
at the ocean, but I knew he'd get there well before me. It was
the last time I saw him.
My route through Wyoming was straightforward. Saratoga is 40
or so road miles in from Wyoming's southern border, about halfway
west across the state. After Saratoga, the Transamerica Trail
heads mostly north through Rawlins and the Great Divide Basin,
then bends northwest to join the Wind River beyond Lander. A couple
days later there's a climb up to Togwotee Pass, which at 9,658
feet is the second highest point on the Trail. From there it's
downhill all the way to the base of the Grand Teton mountains.
At the Tetons the Trail turns north through Yellowstone National
Park and into Montana -- 
but
I headed south to Jackson, where I stowed my bike for three days
to tour Yellowstone in a rental car. Once back on the bicycle,
I rode west out of Jackson, over Teton Pass and into Idaho. In
all, I was in Wyoming for 10 days.
The plains in Kansas are covered with wheat and the mountains
in Colorado are covered with trees. They're both lovely, but in
a static, postcard kind of way, and riding through them could
be painfully monotonous. Wyoming is the surprising converse -
little grows, but the scenery is dynamic and fascinating. The
views became more dramatic and striking each day, unfolding in
front of me almost as though they had been laid out for effect;
and with the sparse ground cover, the earth's folds and striations
are plainly visible in nearly every mountain, gorge and outcrop.
Every mile provided another window into tens or hundreds of millions
of years of unimaginably massive and gradual change. Finally,
few places in the country are as geologically active as Wyoming.
The spring in Saratoga merely foreshadowed the hot, fluid, otherworldly
earth that escapes to the surface throughout Yellowstone.
Wyoming was rawer and more rough-hewn than any other place
on the ride. Even its beauty -- which was abundant -- had kind
of an edge to it, as though it could hurt you somehow. Not surprisingly,
Wyoming provided some of the ride's most vivid memories.
-- The fewer the merrier. It was funny being alone
after a month of companionship. I'd been lucky to find someone
as compatible on the road as Rob -- he liked longer days than
I did, but not so much longer than we couldn't easily compromise.
We kept a similar pace too; if we weren't riding actually side
by side, we were almost always within sight of one another. And,
though we could often go for two or three hours without saying
anything, during those long silent stretches, we were still company.
I also really appreciated having someone there to share particularly
memorable moments, like cresting the 11,000 foot summit at Hoosier
Pass.
So I did miss him. But on the other hand, now that I was by
myself again, riding each instant at my own pace, I realized
that riding with Rob had involved a constant, subliminal and
irresistible urge to keep or make speed. If he was behind me,
in my draft, I'd ride a stronger and steadier pace than I might
otherwise. When he was riding strong, I'd stay with him; and
though he might be riding only a hair faster than I would ride
alone, keeping his rhythm and not mine could feel like a job.
It was nice now to be riding exactly like I wanted to.
I was a little freer in my diversions too. I could stop three
times in a thousand yards if three things caught my eye -- I
passed up more than one photo riding with Rob because I felt
foolish asking him to wait yet again. As much I missed the companionship,
I was really enjoying the complete freedom that accompanies solitude.
It was a good time to go our separate ways.
-- A
Certified Epiphany. On my second morning in Wyoming, I set
out from Rawlins on what was going to be a comparatively short
60 mile ride to Jeffrey City, a destination I'd chosen only because
the next town, Lander, was 70 miles beyond it. A good part of
the ride would be through the Great Divide Basin, a vast, flat
expanse surrounded by high ridges. I read somewhere that the
continental divide splits and goes to either side of the Basin,
meaning that water falling into it drains to neither ocean. And
indeed I passed signs marking the divide both as I descended
into the Basin and climbed out. (In contrast to my first time
over the divide at Hoosier Pass, these "crossings"
came at the crests of small hills, indistinguishable from any
of the other dozen or two I climbed that morning.)
The Basin is divided by a single, ramrod-straight two lane
highway. Signs advise motorists on this mesmerizing road to drive
with their headlights on at all times. Most drivers heed the
advice, so oncoming cars are easily visible 8 or 10 miles away.
It was fascinating being able to watch, for seven or eight long
minutes, a single car approaching at (his speed plus mine) 95,
maybe 100, miles per hour. Usually something traveling that fast
arrives more quickly.
Except for these occasional cars, I was entirely alone. Time
passed quickly, though, and I arrived in Jeffrey City a little
after 1:00. The town, such as it was, consisted of two bars (open)
plus a hotel (apparently closed). There was little to hold a
person's interest and I had got there far too early to consider
stopping, so without the slightest idea of where I might spend
the night, I decided to press on.
An hour
or so beyond Jeffrey City, the sky grew threatening. I could
see rainstorms off to either side, and indeed sometimes right
in my path -- but all afternoon as I rode, either the rainstorms
or the road would change direction just when I needed them to,
with the result that I rode the entire day through a tunnel of
dry, sometimes even sunny, weather. It rained everywhere but
over my head.
In Wyoming there is little other than the ground to sit on
when you feel like taking a break, so 30 or so miles further
on when I came upon a guardrail rising up out of the road alongside
a culvert, I decided to stop for a snack. It was late afternoon.
I'd been dodging dicey weather all day but at this moment there
were only patchy clouds in the sky. The sun was shining low in
front of me and making that perfect temperature where you can't
tell where your skin stops and the air starts. I had been riding
for ten, ten and a half hours and had covered well over a hundred
miles but I felt great, strong, like I could go another 50. I
still didn't know where I would be spending the night but it
didn't matter; I wasn't in a hurry, and anyhow after 6 weeks
on the road I knew that things would, one way or another, sort
out fine by nightfall.
So there I was, enjoying the silence and reflecting on an
already remarkable day, when all at once the thought struck me:
I am on an empty road in the middle of Wyoming, three-quarters
of the way across the continent from my home, and I rode my
bike here. This of course should not have been news to me
but still it came with the force of revelation -- how remarkable
a thing to ride so far, how fortunate I was to have the opportunity
to do it!
I'd been on other adventures where a single moment seemed
to sum up the whole of the thing, and my friends and I always
enjoyed trading stories about these epiphanies. I knew that I'd
just had such a singular moment and so I snapped a photo of myself
sitting on the guardrail. (It came out lousy.) Having documented
the event I sat a bit longer to savor it; and I don't think that
in those five or so minutes I would have traded places with anyone
in the world.
Of course, perfect contentment is fleeting and so I wasn't
surprised or upset when I noticed the sky once again darkening
over the road in front of me -- it was time to start moving again.
I got back on my bike and started to climb the hill leading away
from the culvert. About halfway up, I reflexively checked the
rearview mirror mounted on my glasses and spotted a rainbow --
a double rainbow -- arching over the very spot I'd just
left. It's trite, sure, but it's still hard to imagine more fitting
corroboration for what already seemed like a transcendent event.
To make sure the rainbow wasn't the hallucinatory product of
a fatigued brain, I stopped to photograph that too. Luckily for
my story, that photo turned out well.
(There certainly does seem to be something special about this
spot! A pair of eastbound cyclists have included a photograph
of the identical place -- sans rainbow -- on their web site.
To see it, follow this link to Dave & Babak's Wyoming page.)
-- The RV people. An hour up the road from the rainbow,
maybe a dozen miles short of Lander, I passed an RV campground
and made the improbable decision to spend the night there. The
setting and campsites were nice enough but the place featured
a hokey Wild West village with hourly staged shootouts, and it
looked kind of stupid. Then of course there were those wall-to-wall
RVs. But by that point I'd ridden 120 miles and I didn't need
much encouragement to stop -- so when I spotted another touring
cyclist setting up for the night, my mind was made up.
The cyclist was Alby Mitchell, heading on his recumbent from
Jackson, Wyoming, to New York City. He was in the first days
of his trip and was shedding excess baggage at the rate of about
10 pounds a day. We shared coffee and dinner and told stories,
including a swipe or two at the RVers parked all around us. Indeed,
any touring cyclist can reel off a long list of complaints about
RVs. They're big and take up too much road. They're erratic and
smelly and loud and their outrigger rearview mirrors are a menace.
I have always thought of them -- and, uncharitably, their owners
by extension -- as a kind of scourge.
Alby retired as soon as the sun went down but (remarkably)
I was still awake and looking for something to do. While wandering
around I was drawn into conversation by friendly RV owners curious
about my bike and my ride, and wound up spending the rest of
the evening, as well as a good part of the next morning, chatting
with them. Surprisingly, I came away as impressed by them as
they claimed to be with me.
Apparently there are semi-guided tours that you can sign up
for with your RV, like you can with your bike. The company comes
up with a theme for the tour, tells the RV owners where they'll
be camping and how to get there, and the drivers spend the week
heading from site to site with stops along the way. The RVers
hook up with the same friends on different tours, and look forward
to them for months. This particular group -- 20 or so RVs in
all -- was roughly retracing the Mormon Trail on its 150th anniversary,
attending various events along the way that commemorated the
original Mormon migration.
These folks were old. Many needed a cane just to walk;
one or two were tethered to supplemental oxygen tanks. A lot
of people reaching that stage in life just retire to the bedroom
to wait and die. But every one of these men and women was still
curious, still interested in what the world looked like, and
they were driving around the country to see it despite their
very visible physical difficulties. Although they were fascinated
by my transportation and had no end of questions for me, they
didn't have to ask why I was riding across the country
-- that part they plainly understood. Me and the RV drivers,
kindred spirits. Huh!
I still don't like having to watch out for those machines
-- and to be sure, lots of those folks drive barely better than
they walk -- but I don't get so angry so quickly at them any
more, and it's more fun to ride in a peaceful frame of mind.
-- An entirely different pace. Way back in Virginia
I concluded that to enjoy bike touring you have to adjust to
a "bicycle scale" of time and distance. Somewhere in
the middle of Wyoming I discovered how successful my adjustment
had been: After pulling into an auto rest area for a snack and
to fill my water bottles, I struck up a conversation with an
eastbound couple driving home from a vacation in Yellowstone.
They warned me of substantial snow still in some of the park's
higher elevations. Yellowstone was at that point maybe 250 miles
and three days ahead of me. Thinking (hoping) that their information
was stale, I asked them when they'd been there and was genuinely
taken aback when they told me, that very morning. That
possibility hadn't even occurred to me.
-- Two ways to Togwotee Pass. The road into Dubois,
Wyoming, follows the Wind River, a muddy roiling thing that has
carved a deep gorge into the colorful, variegated Wyoming bedrock.
In Dubois itself, all the buildings on the main street are done
up in the same weathered-wood western motif and it is too cute
by about half. The place largely redeemed itself, though, with
the local practice of permitting bar patrons to take "go
cups" full of margarita or martini out onto the street.
After a night in Dubois I began the climb to 9,600 foot Togwotee
Pass. The ride up was long and slow, but not that hard -- the
sun was shining and the views were great. The road continued
to follow the Wind River, which had been noisy and frothy in
Dubois but quieted and shrunk on the ascent until it was almost
narrow enough to jump across. At the summit, the temperature
was in the low 70s but snow still blanketed the high meadows.
I stopped to take photos of people incongruously riding snowmobiles
in picnic weather on the last day in May and they stopped to
take photos of a lycra-clad cyclist standing incongruously in
a snow field.
As I started to descend, the weather changed abruptly to a
heavy overcast. I coasted toward the Grand Tetons and Jackson
for several miles under clouds, whereupon a cold rain squall
blew in. After a few wet minutes I passed a resort lodge full
of workmen preparing for the season's opening a week later. A
convenience store next door sold sandwiches. (This was lucky
-- they were the only buildings for several miles in either direction.)
Eager for shelter, I pulled in and took up a spot on the porch
of the hotel.
While I was waiting for the rain to let up, a small pickup
heading uphill pulled into the parking lot. A very large man
climbed out of the passenger side and unloaded a bike from the
back. As the truck sped off, the former passenger wheeled his
bike over to me and introduced himself. He was Joe Knapp, from
the Quad Cities (those
being of course Moline & Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport
& Bettendorf, Iowa). Joe was riding from the Pacific back
to the Mississippi but he'd decided early on that he going to
"do it for the fun" and so would actually ride
only the flat or downhill portions. 
As he explained, at the bottom
of a climb he'd simply stick out his thumb and soon someone would
stop to ferry him to the top. He never had to wait long at all.
At first something troubled me about this approach but as I rolled
it over in my head I couldn't identify anything actually wrong
with it and decided it was not a bad idea at all. (Joe did allow
as how, having ridden into somewhat better shape, he would occasionally
ride up the more gradual inclines.)
The rain ended and the sun came out, but Joe was a delightful
fellow and we chatted for a good hour after that. Finally it
was time to press on. Naturally, the last I saw of Joe, he was
settling into position on the uphill shoulder. I bet he had a
blast on the descent to Dubois.
-- The Grand Tetons.
This is brief because I couldn't come up with words to convey
how magnificent these mountains are.
They are sublime. Formed by the angled upthrust of an ancient
sea bed, the Grand Tetons (literally, "big breasts")
have no foothills on their eastern side. They simply erupt, thousands
of feet high, out of the flat plain in front of them. If it weren't
for the lakes at their base, you could literally walk up and
put your hand on their side, as you would a tree or a building.
Still very young (only 5 to 9 million years old) and unsoftened
by erosion, they appear jagged and sharp, like arrowhead flint.
A dozen glaciers, 15,000 years old, flow slowly -- glacially!
-- from the peaks.
The Tetons are stunning from 30 or 40 miles and they become
even more spellbinding as you draw closer. For two days I rode
with these mountains directly in front of me, and I often slowed
to seven or eight miles an hour just so I could gaze at them
longer -- it was a treat to be on a bike and have that option.
On Memorial Day in Walden, Colorado (elevation
about 8,200), we awoke to winter storm warnings "for altitudes
above 8,000 feet". It was small comfort that during the day
we'd be descending to below 7,000 feet -- freezing rain would
certainly be worse than snow. Neither Rob nor I had packed with
this kind of weather in mind, but the general store in Walden
sold plastic rain suits and woolen hats and gloves (right next
to the ammunition) and despite the holiday the store was open
early, so we stocked up. It was 37 degrees and snowing when we
set out for Wyoming.
We found
the spring mostly by following the smell of sulphur. The town
had built a cinderblock structure (complete with changing room)
around the source, creating a waist deep, sandy-bottomed hot water
pool. The water where it rose out of the ground was nearly too
hot to bear. But toward the middle of the pool it was, conveniently,
about exactly the temperature at which you'd draw a bath at the
end of a hard, bone-chilling day. It was no spa -- in fact it
was kind of dumpy -- but it was open 24 hours a day, 365 days
a year and was free. I don't remember either of us complaining.
