It was a rough start. Bob, overflowing with optimism (as usual), entered the gas station behind this ominous sign in search of breakfast. He returned deflated with a bag of banana chips.
We got sandwiches at the Arby’s across the street, Bob and Steve got some extra water, and we hit the road, which was quite nice.
We saw lots of pronghorns along the way, but they are wary of cyclists and were rarely close enough for good photos (the same was true of prairie dogs, but we have seen lots of them already).
And we were amused by some roadside signage.
We made a stop at the only rest-stop on the stretch of road between Buffalo and Gillette. We had hoped to get water there, but although there were fully functioning restrooms, the water fountain was non-functional. The rest-stop was next to the Powder River, which was very muddy. The helpful signage indicates that the fish that live in this river have small eyes and long barbs so they can find food without visual queues. It was no good for filtering.
So we ate an abbreviated lunch (mango habanero jerky from Costco, highly recommended, and the afore mentioned banana chips) and we were just about to leave when a young couple riding from DC to Seattle arrived and started chatting.
We eventually got on our way into temperatures in the high ’80s or low ’90s, enjoying the scenery and worrying about water supplies.
And wasn’t too long before the road-saint appeared. He was very apologetic because he had more water but gave it to the young couple at the rest-stop where he had gone looking for us. Again, we what a guy!
With our enthusiasm for the ride, and our faith in humanity, restored, we continued for another 20 miles before I went on ahead to find some restorative beverages.
I sent this picture to Bob and Steve as encouragement and found my way to a local park to wait for them.
Our humor improved substantially, we located a campsite picked up some burritos and hustled there to set up before a doozy of a thunderstorm hit.
Just after sunset, we got lots of rain, thunder and lightning. We were all asleep before the storm passed.
Leave a Reply