We woke up in a park at the mouth of the Wind River Canyon, just outside of Thermopolis, WY, in a light rain. After we packed up, we ate the left over pizza from the night before and got going.
The low clouds stayed with us through the gorge, sprinkling us occasionally. To our left was the Wind River, it was the most unbelievable shade of green I've ever seen, mountains and cliffs faced both sides. Going through the Canyon was like flipping through the pages of a geology book. Some of the rock was so pretty I wished I'd brought Joe Lane and a bunch of climbing gear.
At the other end of the canyon the Great Tire Debacle began. The tire with the weak sidewall blew out taking our last slimed tube with it. After determining the tire was trash, we put the mystery tube in the backup tire and began praying. We had no spare tubes for the back wheel, no patches and no backup tire.
Shoshoni, WY, is home to 500 people, more mobile homes than fixed structures, a whole hell of a lot of tacky lawn furniture, and Yellowstone Drug which clames the best malts and shakes in the state. Brad and I stopped in and had a shake and some food, they were good, possibly the best in Wyoming but there's not many towns in the state.
Emails back and forth had confirmed that our dads were going to be flying into Casper and meeting us at some point east of there depending on our progress. Not wanting to end up way beyond Casper we decided we could take it a easy for part of the day. We sat in the park for a couple hours doing emails and postcards. Once it started looking like it was ready to rain we got packed up and headed out.
We were riding hard trying to stay in front of the rain. Lightning was striking all around us and then CRACK, it hit about a half mile from the road. I was ready to camp for the night right about that point. We stopped and setup the tent in a hurry--I didn't want to be waving aluminum tent poles around for long--and then it proceded to dump on us. Brad and I just sat in the tent and listened to the rain hitting and the thunder rumbling for the next hour or so, only interupted by the tent blowing down once.
After it got past us it was even crazier, we just stood there and watched 180* of the sky flicker with distant lightning. Whole clouds, thousands of feet tall, would liqht up illuminating the clouds in front of them and then the lightning would seem to cartwheel from cloud to cloud. I tried to take a picture of it but like so many of the most memorable things in life, a picture can only be a pale shadow of the actual event. A more able writer could explain the awe it caused me but it'll always be one of the images that come to mind when someone asks me why I'm riding cross country.
andrew
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