Saturday, June 8, 2013
Ride Day 102
Today was just a short hop from Kirkwood to West Yellowstone of 22 miles and 500' of climbing in cool sunny weather. The ride was quick and easy with signs all along it to look out for bison but I did not see any today. I will see them in the park later and today they would have been a pain because I can't just bike through a herd of bison like people in cars can. When I got to the park I got myself a pass and a bunch of reading material from the visitor center and am spending the day reading it all and resting before hitting the lower loop of the park tomorrow. Each loop is about 65 miles so I can only do one loop a day and today I got too late of a start to go for it. I will do laundry and other things like museums today. The weather if perfect and the kids have not arrived here yet so my park visit should be good. a few pics...
Friday, June 7, 2013
Ride Day 101
Today I rode from Ennis to Kirkwood 54 miles and 2700' of climbing in cloudy, windy conditions changing to sunny and hot later in the day. I started at 4800' of elevation and ended up at 6800' as I climbed through rolling hills surrounded by mountains. Last night I camped in the RV park in Ennis so I could get a shower after three days of riding as well as charge up my electronics. After showering and eating a ton of food I met a friendly couple that was just completing the purchase of a house here in Ennis after moving from Eau Claire Wisconsin. They offered me a beer and some strawberries and ice cream so how could I refuse the offer? We sat around chatting for a while and had our beer and ice cream while I played with their two black labs. The labs were all over me wanting love so I gave them a bunch of attention. We talked about biking, Wisconsin, life in general and the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile which he worked with. It was a fun pleasant evening. I went to bed early after yesterday's hard ride. Today's ride was going to be 72 miles but I burned out at 54 as I was passing a campground so I called it a day and got a site. I had a nasty headwind all morning that kept my speed down to around 8 mph and sometimes less when a gust hit me. I had expected to be doing around 15 or 16 mph for the day. The ride was a long slow rolling upgrade that gained a couple thousand feet without ever really having any big hills. It tired me out because I could not coast at all today. If I stopped pedaling I immediately stopped moving. I am used to coasting every few minutes to conserve my pace. At one point the headwind was so strong that I could only muster 11 mph going down a long grade. I was working hard and sweating up a storm. I did run into five other bikers today which surprised me. One had started in Nevada but all the others had started on the East Coast. We talked about riding in Yellowstone and they all agreed that it was a great place to ride so I am looking forward to riding in it. They also like riding around in Grand Tetons. They did say that both places were kind of hard riding with lots of rolling hills. Such is life. I did pass Earthquake Lake today which was formed in 1959 when an earthquake triggered a huge slide off one of the mountains that came crashing down killing 28 people and blocking off the flow of Ruby Creek forming the lake. Nature can be brutal sometimes and does not always work slowly. As soon as this thunderstorm that is threatening me here in the campground blows off, I will set up my camp and get a shower in. 
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Ride Day 100
Today I rode from Dillon to Ennis MT, 78 miles 2800' of climbing. The day started out cold at only 36 but the sun was out and it warmed up rapidly. I rode through the valley seeing antelope, deer, cattle, sheep, llamas, horses and lots of birds like sandhill cranes, eagles, hawks, redwinged blackbirds, magpies, starlings, honkers, ducks of many types and one dead garter snake. I enjoyed the ride as I took it fairly easy after the problems I was having yesterday with pain from a little seizure I had the night before. I ended up not riding from Wisdom to Dillon but rather I rode with some fishermen in their pickup truck. I had decided that it was impossible for me to ride and was eating breakfast when some fishermen started talking to me about my ride. They did not have room but they told me I should hitchhike because there were a lot of fishermen that would have room. So I went out and stuck my thumb out. They were right since it took me about 20 minutes to get a ride with three fishermen that stopped. We had a lot of fun talking and laughing on the way but it took less than an hour to do the 62 miles and that would have taken me 6 hours probably.
I stayed at the RV park by I-15 in Dillon which was a mistake because the road noise went on all night. I wanted a shower and to clean my clothes so I stayed there instead of camping on the sly like I have been lately. It was only $10 bucks for the night. For food I went into town and had a good pulled pork sandwich with apple pie a la mode then back at camp I ate more junk that I had with me but also some good fruits.
My ride in the morning was freezing cold. I had my full finger gloves on and my long sleeved riding jersey, my fleece jacket and my raincoat and I was still cold. But then I started to sweat while I was also cold. My body seemed confused. It did warm up quickly and I stripped off layers just as quickly until I was down to only my jersey. I put sunscreen on my face. I still got burned because up at this high altitude the UV is stronger. I need to be more careful of that over the next few days while I am up around 7000'.
The only thing disturbing to me today was all the gold mine tailings that were along the road for miles and miles just everywhere. The environment took a beating on that gold rush and it looks like it is going to stay like that forever now. Harvard University is the one that got most of the benefit from the mining so maybe they should take some responsibility for the damage even though it was 150 years or so ago.
I did like Virginia City and would have liked to have spent more time there but I wanted to get to Ennis so I just took a few pics and rode on. The big grade out of Virginia City was not too hard except for the heat which made me get too hot so I had to take a couple breaks just to cool down not because I was tired or winded or anything. I still made it to the summit without much effort. The downhill was fun but I kept my speed down to 30 mph except a couple times when I was looking around and it went a little over. The view of the Valley from up on high was great and I wish I had the camera to capture it unfortunately for me I only have my little pocket camera. Ennis is a spread out town. I stopped for a juicy cheeseburger and a piece of cheesecake then headed to the RV park to camp even though there are thundershowers predicted tonight. I have been riding now 100 days which kind of shocks me a bit. I started this riding on a whim but love it so much I may never stop. Such is the life of a wandering bum...
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