day 34: milk shakes and fries at Johnny J.'s, Casper, WY

For her: coffee and chocolate
For him: cookie dough malt

And, yes, we dipped.

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Douglas, WY: home of the jackalope

Don't you wish your town was able to claim to be the place where the first jackalope was spotted and caught? And don't you wish your town commemorated this by building a giant jackalope statue in the town park, Jackalope Square? And don't you wish your town had a place called the White Wolf Saloon, which was purchased on ebay by a retired teacher from Miami, which had 150 beers to offer, along with many, many kinds of whiskey?

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day 33: the glamorous life of the cross country cyclist

Laundry in Douglas, WY. (Yes, those are Skittles on a communal copy of US Weekly.) Took an abbreviated day to get odds and ends done here. We even picked up a package at the post office - Tim mailed Aaron the bike tools he forgot. Thanks Tim!

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you've got a friend in lusk

This lil doggie hung out with us at our campsite last night and even slept right next to the tent. I'll miss her.

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Speaking of *the ending* ... an invitation

While the last thing I want to do is jinx ourselves (this trip has made me more superstitious than usual), I will throw it out there that you all are invited to splurge on a trip and meet us in San Franciso when we roll in. We still haven't determined where in the city the trip will officially end (the foot of Lombard Street? Fisherman's Wharf? Somewhere cooler? Thoughts welcome!), but it sure would be cool to have some people there to celebrate with, especially if anyone out there is looking for an excuse for an adventure (much like we were). No obligation, of course, but if you're interested let me know and I'll keep you posted on potential arrival dates. I'm too superstitious to mention them here.

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day 32: happy monthiversary!

Today marked one month since we set out for this big old adventure. I have to say, in a way, it feels like it's been longer. I guess a good way to make yourself feel far away is to peddle your way there. We're at a campground in Lusk, WY tonight, again marveling at how we always seem to wind up so close to he freight train lines. Lusk is at an elevation of 5015 feet. Last night, we were in the ballpark of 3200 feet, so today was a busy day. It probably ranks in the top 3 or so in hardest days we've had so far, not because of the climbing, but because of a combination of the hills (including one in the "mountain" category), the wind (reached something like 30 mph *sustained* from the west this morning), the heat (a dry, dry 90-something), and most importantly, the desolation. We biked around 75 miles without a place to stop. We'd been told about a coffee shop and a rest area at the Mule Creek Junction about 25 miles in, but it turns out the coffee shop was closed and the "rest area had no vending machines and drinking fountain water that was very brown. We did, however, get our bottles refilled by a nice man driving an RV. We subsisted on Cliff Bars, dried fruit, trail mix, tortillas and peanut butter, and a few little goodies to help replenish our electrolytes. Not bad, but the amount of water we had was a concern, mainly because we haven't had to be concerned about it yet. I timed myself, actually, taking sips from my bottle every 15 minutes. This was to be sure I wasn't guzzling my supply and also that I was drinking consistently. We hit the aforementioned mountain - tree line and rock face included - with about 13 miles to go for the day, so as you can imagine, the four mile ascent was a slog. We didn't have much of a downhill either. I guess that's how things are going to be for awhile.

So, what else is there to say about having been at this for a month. It's still hard, but we think we're getting better at it. "We'd never have been able to handle this a month ago," Aaron said about today. Y'all know I can't be so self-affirming, but I do think we've gotten a better handle on things. For me, this has meant keeping my cool mentally and getting physically more comfortable with my bike. I think Aaron is learning to pace himself better, mainly out of necessity. It's worth saying too that team morale as a whole has been better in the last week or so.

Gail, my neighbor from the ol' days in Epping, asked earlier if we're running ahead of schedule, being in Wyoming by now. Not quite, as we'd love to have a few days in San Francisco at the end of all this and we know we might be pretty slow heading through the Rockies. But a week or so ago, during one of his fuzzy math mapping sessions, Aaron said it'd be awesome if we could make it to Wyoming by the beginning of August. It'll still be awhile til an ending seems truly possible. Maybe that's not such a bad thing.

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here's the guy who meowed at me a month ago.

photo courtesy of Sue, one of our lovely subletters/cat nannies.

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day 32: welcome to wyoming

You call that wind?

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day 31: image from the trail

We opted for an old railroad bed for the last 16 of our 87 miles in the triple digit heat today. The trail was gorgeous but I was slightly unnerved at the possibility of rattlesnakes or other creepy critters, especially as far from the well-traveled road as we were. Turns out that the only critter to steal our attention was, again, the grasshopper. In abundance.

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day 31: on cheating

We've cheated twice so far. What I mean by that is there have been two occasions on which we loaded our bikes, our bags, and our selves into a vehicle and had it drive us up the road a piece. This first happened when my spokes broke about a week ago. As I mentioned in my last Best/Worst of Mootis post, we were riding our bikes slowly into Mitchell, attempting to avoid the catastrophic failure, and a woman with a large pickup truck and her four grandchildren in tow came along. Riding the last ten miles with her enabled us to get to the bike shop before it closed.

The second time we cheated was just a few days ago when we were headed from Wall toward Rapid City. We were on I-90 (yes, *that* I-90 -- bikes are allowed on it out here) and after enjoying a wide shoulder for many miles, the road (er, interstate) narrowed considerably over the Cheyenne River. After contemplating whether it would be collasally stupid to cross on the shoulderless bridge as RVs and tractor tralers whizzed by, we backtracked to the rest stop a few hundred feet back, ran into a couple drving a large pick up, and asked if they'd mind schlepping us and our stuff over the river. (Okay, Aaron did all the talking. I just lingered in the background worrying that we were asking too much of complete strangers.) But, they obliged and wound up driving us about 10 miles to the next exit. They offered to take us all the way into Rapid City, but we declined.

So, all told, we've got about 20 cheater miles on record so far. Feel free to stop reading this blog now if you feel deceived. The other touring cyclists we've met seem fine with this occasional gap in the route. The people we met from the UK got a lift their first night of their trip when it became clear that the last five miles of their day were to be on a road made of deep, unpacked sand. The second pair of cyclists we met have gotten several lifts, including one from a restaurant to a campground due to food coma from giant burgers. But purists exist, apparently. I just haven't met any yet.

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