Trip days: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8-9 | 10-12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
Finally, I managed to make an early start. I was originally awakened by the machine gun fire sound of a heavy rain storm at 1:52am but it was over as quickly as it had begun and I promptly fell back asleep. I woke for the final time at 7:30am, and was on the road by 8:15am. I had plans of making central or western Wyoming today so I felt that it was necessary to be up and on the road at such an ungodly hour! It was a gray low-ceiling overcast morning, but it wasn't raining and I was suprised to find the first 20 miles of highway 44 on the western side of the Missouri River to be nice and twisty, winding around the foothills that lead down to the rivers bank. Things straightened out pretty promptyl, however, and I chugged along for a ways. I hit the Badlands within a hour or two and was greeted with spotty blotches of sun painting the landscape. The Badlands area is pretty cool. Large open grasslands fenced in by craggy white rock or soil outcroppings. Definitely different looking scenery. I passed through the central skinny area of the Badlands and continued heading west to Rapid City through the Buffalo Gap grasslands, home to a gazillion and one prairie dogs that didn't want their photos taken, and a climbing stretch of rolling prairie that terminated in the Black Hills, the home of Mt. Rushmore. I'd been to Mt. Rushmore before so I merely passed by and snapped a couple of shots from a distance rather than paying the exorbinant $8 to park in a parking garage and mingle with a glut of tourist geeks. The sky opened and it turned into a perfect 70 deglree summer day. I stopped at a picnic area and relaxed in the sunshine for a bit and pondered how I should finish my day of riding. I decided to ride across to Newcastle in Wyoming on highway 16, and then head southwest on highway 450 to Wright, then 387 southwest to I-29 and down to Casper. And, finally west on highway 20/28 to Shoshoni where I would camp for the night at Boysen State Park. As soon as I got out of the Black Hills and down to Newcastle the landscape exhibited a radical change. Out of rocky mountains and pine forests and into rolling hilly savannah as far as the eye can see. Central Wyoming has an eerie weathered beauty to it. I can definitely see why they call it 'big sky' country. Though there was nothing really around, I enjoyed the vast open expanse of the landscape. The weather was pretty much perfect, apart from a brief 10 minute squall, and the afternoon of riding went very quickly. I stopped for an early dinner at the restaurant at Hell's Half Acre overlook just west of Casper on highway 20/28. It was a quaint Wyoming cowboy diner and I had a tasty "Devil's Burger" and a bowl of Chili. It wasn't the best food I'd every had, but for $6.85 I couldn't go wrong. Further west on highway 20/28 I was foiled by some serious road construction. Actually it was more like deconstruction as the work crew had deemed it necessary to tear up about 20 miles of pavement before they started repaving. Nice. It was a suprisingly hard pack of some sort of clay so it was pretty smooth, but I got stuck behind a couple of semi-trucks doing 10 miles and hour in the unpaved 35 mph section of the construction zone. Finally the road turned into 2-lanes of unpaved and I was able to pass the trucks and get on my way. As soon as the construction area ended, the wind picked up and I was fortunate enough to ride the remaing 50 mile leg of my trip angled 10 degrees into the high winds. Always fun, and especially nice feeling on a persons neck. Not! What a pain in the butt. I arrived at the campground just north of Shoshoni and paid my camping fee of a mere $12. I should have scoped the campground out first because if I had I may have opted to rent a room for the night. The Boysen State Park campground is located on a spit of sand that extends into a large reservoir north of Shoshoni. Surrounded on the north and west sides by a mountain range a ways off, and on the south and east sides by low lying hills, the area acts as a wind tunnel. After casting around I found a camping area with a little bit of protection from the elements, but not really. For those of you who are wondering, it's no cake walk setting up a non-standalone staked tent in high winds of maybe 20 or 30 mph. Finally I got my site squared away and sat at a picnic table nibbling on some junk food and watching the sky, amazed at how quickly it changes and its sheer stark beauty above the mostly barren landscape. Now here I am lying in my tent hoping that I won't be carried away in the night by the high winds and that it won't rain and muck up all my gear with wet sand. Did I mention that some of the really fine sand in the camp area can make its way through the bug netting of my tent. Yeaaah. Nothing like getting sand in everything. Needless to say I'll be sleeping with my long underwear on tonight to make sure that I don't get sand in my underpants.
Total Mileage for Day: 586 |
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©2003 John Meloy <jam@nas.com>