Day 20 (7/12): Rawlins, WY --> Wyoming/Colorado State Line (90 miles)

Days mileage: 90 miles

After a quick recovery from our sprinkler attack we packed up our gear early (~630am) and headed to the nearest bakery..which was closed (I guess in Wyoming things are always different: i.e.: bakeries opening at 730am, crappy roads, poorly constructed roads, an abnormal amount of desert, etc, etc).

We killed time outside the window front and soon enough ate some bagels that would hold us over until we got to the food store (or grocery store, whichever some prefer) a couple blocks down the road.

We were soon cruising down the Wyoming interstate at a comfy 14 mph and trying to figure out why we had to ride 14 miles on the interstate to get to the next desired road. Riding on the interstate was actually the best riding road we've had so far...a HUGE shoulder, rumble strips, etc.

Already the day poured the heat down onto Stephen and myself and we were soon faced with, yet again, a strong head wind that sapped the life out of my lower extremeties. And so the story goes...

We rolled through a small town called Saratoga and took a break even though it had only been a long and slow 42 miles from Rawlins to there. We made the most of things and soon headed out into the headwinds.

And then the day took a sharp turn towards...

A nicely formed accumulation of dark, black storm clouds. Lighting shot down to the ground as innocent prarie dogs to shelter deep within their respective burrows. Stephen and I threw our hands up in the air, not as a sign of rejoice, but rather b/c the state of Wyoming was seeming to do everything within its might to prevent us from crossing the border into Colorado. We were lassoed and had no place to go except for the shelter of some stranger-cowboy-like homosapien who was out in his garage "fixing" a tractor. The three of us sat in the garage and watched the clouds roll one way as the wind blew in an entire different direction. We all sat and pondered why and concluded that we had not reached a conclusion. So, we left despite the lingering dark clouds and were prepared to face harsh, tornado, hurricane, flood, avalanche, tsunami, earthquake conditions. I took one more gulp of water and clicked into my pedals. It was go time damn it...storm or no storm we were gonna reach that state line by days end regardless of conditions.

The temperature around us seemed to plumet as our core body temperatures increased as we clambered our way up a 10 mile climb as the light was slowly fading into the western slopes of Wyoming. The storm had been lingering on and off at least 15 miles ahead of us and so we didn't get too, too wet.

We cruised on down the last hill and knew the staet line was near...it had to be. We had been biking through rolling cattle fields for eternity by this point and our patience was wearing thin (along with the strength in our legs to keep pedaling).

As the last few miles rolled by I spotted a plot of land with a bulldozer that was in hibernation for the time being and as I got closer and closer I saw two cattle slowly walking towards the menace of a machine. Everything around me then seemed to slow down as the mama cow stopped, turned towards the dozer, sniffed it a few times, looked back at it's calf, and slowly sauntered off towards a nearby hill. Definitly a sad sign of things that are still yet to come and even the animals seem to sense such destructive tendencies we've all grown a little too comfortable with...

The sun was just about gone, snow capped mountains were barely visible through the nearby mountain passes, and the state line was getting closer and closer...100 yards...75 yards...50 yards....I squeezed the brakes and slowly brought myself to a standstill. A long 90 miles was behind us and it was time to set up camp in the middle of nowhere and sleep with half my feet in Wyoming and the upper half of myself in Colorado.

Damn the headwinds of Wyoming, and I'll be damned if they keep me from crossing the border...