 |
| Haps saddle has a boo boo! |
 |
| Fort Washakie |
 |
| On the road to Dubois WY |
 |
| Haps favorite part-the downhill. Going down to Wind River |
 |
| KOA Dubois WY |
 |
| Climbing Togwotee Pass Continental Divide 9658 feet. Just before the storm! |
 |
| Power break! |
 |
| Me too..... |
 |
| Hap, Was that thunder? At top of pass |
 |
| Slow down for Hap and Diane too!! |
 |
| Teton mountains outside of Jackson |
 |
| Road construction going into Jackson. At least scenery is beautiful while we wait |
 |
Never seen a traffic roundabout on a bike trail. Have you? |
 |
| Bike maintenance |
 |
| Map Profile climbing Togwotee Pass (sorry couldn't turn picture right side up for you) Wish this blog site would stop changing how to make posts! Having trouble getting pics and writing to sync. You can probably get the just of what's going on! Sorry if hard to follow. |
When we left Lander the sun was shining, we set off for a Dubois. Hopefully the rainy part is finished. Famous last words! For the next few days we will be climbing until we get over Togwotee
Pass. Todat the climbing was easy enough so that it was "almost" (!) not noticible. We rode through
an Indian reservation and stopped for a snack and a bathroom break. Speaking of that.... Riding in this terrain of no cornfields, trees, or buildings. Where does Diane go to the bathroom? I can get really small and be really fast! I have a decoy plan too. If I have to go I bathroom I run to other side of road cause I know everyone who goes by will look at Hap on the opposite side. Nuff said about that!
We stopped at a rest area for lunch. Today we had yogurt, wrap with peanut butter and Nutella and an apple. A group of people arrived and started setting up their lunch. It was a nice family from Wisconsin who were out celebrating their dad's life. He passed away recently. They all (18 of them) had t shirts that said "Live like Ed". Neat family!
Riding along the Wind River was pretty. . Beautiful country out here. Saw some red rock formations traffic wasn't bad at all. Hope it stays like this. In Dubois we went to the KOA. Seems like highways robbery to charge $34 for a tent site. But what can you do? It's nice to have a shower at the end of a long day in the saddle. Dinner tonight was baked beans, mashed potatoes, carrots, celery. Not too bad! I laid down in the tent at 5:30p to watch a movie. Gotta love wifi and netflix. Hap walked over to hear some "fiddle" music that was playing in camp. Actually it was right by our tent so I could hear it too. We both slept great.
We got up at 6a and went over to a cafe for breakfast. The sun was shining but it was pretty chilly. It warmed up quickly though. For today the plan was to climb Togwotee Pass at 9658 feet. We started climbing right away but the major climb was 11 miles long. Shortly after leaving town we caught up with a couple guys that we rode. Turns out they were a group of ten who had met on the road. A bunch of young ones. Not sure of ages maybe in the 20's? As we started the main climb there was a store that the guys stopped at. Most of their group was there. We continued on. The climb wasn't bad at all just long.
As we got to the top, we stopped to eat. Clouds start rolling in and it started thundering. Two of the kids showed up after awhile. Then two girls it started to rain harder so we all headed over to a picnic area and an outhouse with a porch! Yea! It ended up with ten of them and two of us crowded on the porch. Fun talking with them. when the first two showed up they commented that they had been riding with two people from Ohio they couldn't keep up with. Wonder if we were the only two people from Ohio they had ridden with?
We stayed quite a while on the porch hoping the rain would stop but it never did. Finally we gave up, put on our rain gear(and my down vest! It was cold!) Some of the "kids" left with us and some waited. What a downhill. Heavy rain, temps maybe 40's, traffic and a 6% descent! Wow! It was awesome. I stayed behind Hap to watch the expert road racer (motorcycle) negotiate the turns. Max speed for us was only 42 mph due to rain and headwind. I have a question for cars. If the speed limit us 45 mph, we are going 42 and there's a passing lane, can you just move into other lane. We rode in the lane because it's not safe at those speeds. So MOVE Over genius!
About half way down the sun came out. Amazing how that happens in the mountains. When we got to the campground the first thing Hap noticed was a very soft i.e. Almost flat) front tire!!!! Thank you Lord for your protection. All the time! We planned to camp at Moran Junction. Here we go again except this time campsite was $38. Guess we are in a tourist area. Oh well. They had a cafe so we had hamburgers and chilli. After we set up camp we just had tuna sandwiches for dinner. Slept good again.
The next morning we packed up and went into the warm store for coffee and breakfast. After today we are leaving the Adventure Cycling route and turning west toward Jill and Franks. We plan to meet them in Arco ID for a week of riding in the Sun Valley area before going to their house. And hopefully meet other friends from Boise along the way. I thought I had a campground picked out in Wilson. According to their website and calling them we thought they had tent sites for $38. But this am we found out they didn't accept riffraff tents. We scrambled for a couple hours looking for places to tent camp in Jackson. Hotels were $170-$450.... The KOA waned $48. I asked her if they had a pool hot tub or anything she said no. Electric water? No. Finally we found a warm showers host who had a friend that said we could camp at their house. Whew! Frustrating morning.
The ride into Jackson is a beautiful ride. We love the mountains. But we don't love the traffic! Thankfully there was some road construction that slowed down the traffic. In Jackson we couldn't go to our hosts house until 5p. We went to eat, bike shop, rec center to get in hot tub and shower, and grocery in that order. Dale was super nice and opened his house to us even though he wasn't home most of evening. Tomorrow's ride will be interesting. We are climbing Teton Pass which is steeper than any we have done on this trip yet. Let you know how it goes!
No comments:
Post a Comment