Day 65: Dubois, Wyoming...

We never made it to Jeffery City.

In fact, it's been difficult to make it anywhere. As soon as we said goodbye to the girls and headed out of Rawlins, the wind picked up. And picked up. And picked up. About 20 miles outside of Rawlins we estimated the winds to be gusting somewhere between 50-60 mph from the west. I've never actually seen winds like this before, and don't presume that you have either, so let me explain what that looks like on a bicycle.

You lean over about 10 degrees to the left.
You get blown off the road more than once.
You watch birds shoot across the road flying backwards.
Anything you drop that weighs less than one pound is instantly in the Dakotas.

On the plus side, you never have to smell roadkill.

It's been like this for the last three days of riding, though sometimes the wind drops down to a breezy 20 mph. Mostly headwind. We were on the bike over eight hours yesterday, averaging well under 10mph.

So frustrating.

Enough about the wind... let's talk about the good stuff. We ended up in Three Forks/Muddy Pass, Wyoming on the evening of Day 62. We were totally spent after just 47 miles in the wind. On a side note, this is the third or fourth place called Muddy Pass on our trip. There are a lot of muddy places in the US. So we stop at the convenience store and realize we're never going to make it to Jeffery City. Cue the local entrepreneurial prodigy, Bert. Bert owns the gas station we're at, and as of four hours prior to our arrival a cabin about 1/2 mile back up the road. He proposes that we stay there and we haggle on a price... $20 later we're cruising our way to the only house in sight, complete with the only trees in Wyoming and a plush carpeted living room. We were on top of the world. We made up some chili on 2 lbs of pasta for a prebedtime snack and said goodnight. Thank you Bert and thank you God for taking care of us in such creative ways! Bert bought the place to put a Bed and Breakfast on the property, so if any of you readers are ever in the Three Forks area we recommend it...

Day 63 - So we jet out of Three Forks bright and early to beat the wind and trudge on our way to Lander. We never made it. Detect a theme? The wind crushed our spirits, but the unbelievably beautiful landscape helped take our minds off the invisible hand pushing our bikes backwards. We made it to a place whose name I can't recall, but in appearance looked like the most ridiculous movie set I've ever seen. Old style store fronted cabins, lots of skulls and horns and antlers and old paraphernalia - a wagon and a real dinner triangle out in front of the cafe. Remember the Popeye town where they took it really seriously? Same idea. Wild wild west but for real, no jokes. Freaky at first, then we all realized it was one of the coolest places we've stayed yet. We filled up a cabin with our stuff, filled up our bellies with dinner, and then a nice lady named Amy had a birthday party in the next room and gave us her last four pieces of cake. It was perfect.

Day 64 we got up too early again and were grumbling about how the sun hadn't come up yet. Grrrrr. We rode into Lander and entered the McDonald's with rejoicing. Jonathan's parents sent us McDonald's gift certificates (hint hint) and it was a massacre. The poor girl behind the counter thought we were going to jump over it and make McDeluxes ourselves. We headed out of Lander towards Red Rocks. It didn't exist. We did find a dog that for some reason all of us got really attached to. I named him Jackson after Jackson, Wyoming and he followed us five miles to where we camped out under the Red Rocks along the Wind River. We made a campfire, roasted some hot dogs and cooked up some beans. It was my favorite night of camping yet, and we woke up to a spectacular sunrise splashing on the red rocks behind us. Perfect.

We took Jackson back the five miles to find his owner. We all entertained thoughts of bungeeing him to the BOB trailer and bringing him to Oregon, but it just wasn't right. We ran into a dude in a pickup truck and he took Jackson - said he knew who he might belong to. We were sad to see our mascot go, but glad to know he would be taken good care of.

We're in Dubois now, after eating a few breakfasteses at the cowboy cafe. This town has a real western feel to it - I think there is an old mine shaft on Main Street. Ran into some bikers at the laundromat who couldn't believe we were biking cross country. It made me really proud.

We can see the snow capped Tetons in the distance as we climb into the hills. It's exciting to watch the landscape and wildlife change. I guess we're changing, too. It'll be more evident when we get home, but we're all learning a lot about ourselves and about our walk with the Lord. There's a lot of time to think when you grind into the wind for eight hours a day... Every day we thank God for the opportunity to be out here doing this, and for the family and friends back home who support us and love us. AND for the new friends we meet who help us along the way or just wish us well.

Just about 1,000 miles to go. Woo!