I rode 88 miles to get to Atlantic City two days ago. I don't know how i did it, but a small fire burning in my brain would burn me down if I didn't make it there. So I kept pedaling.
when I arrived it was dark, and the town's bar that I had been told was very hiker/cyclist friendly was in full swing. I mean, it was a RAGER of a party with a live band and old drunk cowboys getting down and dirty on the dance floor, hats and boots screaming "Wyoming"!! At one point the singer got up on the bar and everyone tucked dollar bills into the holes worn through the knees in his jeans. Needles to say, I went to sleep in a teepee around 2am when the party finally calmed down.
The next morning I set out to tackle the Great Divide Basin. I felt like a wrung out towel that had been soaked in Fireball and Big Sky IPA. I made it 6 miles out of town before I realized I was headed in the wrong direction (yup, a tailwind was too good to be true) and had to retrace my tracks. That night, I collapsed in my tent in front of a solar powered water pump. It works!
Woke up. Saw my first moose of my life. Pedaled 40 miles to this town of Wamsutter which has a Subway and a table where I can sit and type this. 60 miles to get out of this god-forsaken and eerily beautiful wind trap, I'm going to try to make it all today...there's a yurt I can stay at in 60 miles! But if 88 miles put me riding in the dark, I don't know if I can make 100. We shall see. Almost to Colorado..!
Good ol hood
Solar panels that actually work, unlike mine
Solar pump trough
carrying extra water through these parts