No Moose . . . but Antelope!

Tuesday, August 15.  Walden, CO to Saratoga, WY.

 

After looking at the day's profile, I announced to Matthew that we should try to make it all the way to Saratoga today.  It would mean a 68-mile day, and need I remind you, we're still in the Rockies, but our only other stopping point would be at milepoint 50.  Riverside's population of 59 made the additional 18 miles to Saratoga, a booming town of over 1,700, seem like a worthwhile endeavor.

 

Generally speaking, today's profile was downhill.  Which meant that we would end the day at a lower elevation than when we started, but other than that, who knew what lay in between the first mile and the last?  We began the day with breakfast at the Moose Creek Cookhouse in Walden, CO, and left town on Hwy 130.  The Wyoming border was only 22 miles away, and we spent the first couple of hours pushing to the tops of hills and soaring back down.  There was some nice cloud cover, and the air was cool.  68 miles was definitely do-able.

 

At the state border, we stoopped for a few minutes to take pictures celebrating our enty into another western state.  The clouds overhead had darkened, and occasionally we'd feel raindrops.  Some motorcyclists we'd met at the The Moose mentioned an impending storm, but I am finding it hard to predict if we'll actually get any rainfall.  The sky is so huge out here that you can see storms moving in and around for miles, but we've watched rainclouds move in and move out without so much as a single drop of rain hitting the ground.  Even when we have felt rain, it hasn't been enough to cool us off, let alone send me scrambling for a rain jacket.

 

At mile 30, we began a 2.5-mile climb that took about 30 minutes from start to end.  I am still surprised to see my odometer reading 4mph, even though I'm still turning the pedals relatively easilty.  I think that I should be going faster, given the effort that I'm putting out.  At the top of the climb, we stopped to catch our breath and have a snack.  We still had 20 miles before we'd reach Riverside, the closest town, and breakfast was long gone.  The downhill side of the 2.5-mile climb was a rewarding 3.5 miles, but now the wind had picked up.  It was mostly a headwind, between 10 and 15mph; we rode with it and more of the uphill/downhill grades until we reached Riverside.

 

The only open place in town was (fortunately for us) serving food.  We enjoyed a quick lunch and got back on our bikes for the last 18 miles.  The wind had died down while we were inside, but just as we got back on the road, Mother Nature kicked it up a notch.  For the next 10 miles, we fought both a headwind and a crosswind of about 30mph.  Going downhill took nearly as much effort as going uphill!  And then, coming toward us, we spotted a single cyclist, loaded for touring.  We were on a downhill, and he had a tailwind, so I decided to let him make the call about stopping to chat.  He waved, we waved, but neither of us stopped.  I wondered what his story was for the next couple of miles.

 

Just as we rounded the turn to Saratoga, we saw three more cyclists coming toward us.  This time I crossed the highway and everybody stopped to chat.  Bunny and Katie, it turned out, were riding with Jordan, the cyclist we saw earlier.  They're all from the east coast, Bunny and Katie from NY, Jordan from SC.  They'd left Florence, OR on July 15, and are heading to Bar Harbor, ME.  Which means that they'll need to leave the TransAm trail and pick up the Northern Tier route, which is what we did.  Matthew gave them our route information, but Katie seemed particularly set on climing the Ozarks.  Don't know if they'll use our route information or not.  Chris, on the other hand, is nearly done with his ride.  He started in Fairbanks, Alaska with a friend, and is riding back home to Denver, CO.  His friend detoured to Bozeman, but Chris hooked up with Bunny, Katie and Jordan a few days ago.  They gave us information on the route ahead of us, we wished them all happy trails, and we parted ways.  They were stopping in Riverside for the night, so we each had about 8 miles yet to travel.

 

As we had been talking, the winds had died down, so the last few miles into Saratoga were much easier.  It was nearly 6:30pm, and I wanted to get to the library before it closed at 7pm to see if I'd be able to upload pictures there.  We scooted in just in time, and I was glad to see that the USB port was usable.  That meant that we'd spend a rest day in Saratoga, upload pictures, and try to get updates on the road(s) ahead.

 

The Wolf Hotel and Restaurant is one of the town's earliest buildings, and we stopped there to see if a room was available.  No such luck; all seven rooms were booked.  They suggested the Riviera Lodge, just down the street.  They did have a room available for two nights, and after showers we left the hotel for a quick walk to a nearby cafe.  We came upon 4 deer grazing in the town square, wary, but not deterred, by our presence.  Still no moose-sightings.

 

Today has been a good rest day.  I was able to upload pictures, we walked around the town for a bit, and Matthew has just finished doing laundry at the local laundromat.  We'll head out for Rawlins tomorrow, and try our luck on I-80.  Should be fun.  We'll be sorry to miss the state microbrewery contest in Saratoga this weekend, but what can you do?