Wyoming

Its all down hill from today. Just a small hill or two. Thats what I told the guys this morning. While it isn't wrong it certainly didn't feel like that cause of the wind in the afternoon the first half of the day was a fantastic ride along the North Sand Hills Park. Beautiful mountains, plains, and gentle downhill grade all morning. There was a small hill of about 200 ft that the guys gave me grief about and a 400 ft climb over a pass but that was it. The rest was a nice gentle downhill or flat the entire day. 

We made it to the border and Wyoming greeted us with a horizon of dark clouds and thunder. We played dodge the rainstorm before pushing uphill over the pass into a 10 mph headwind. Going uphill into a wind sucks. Seriously sucks. Going downhill into a wind isn't much better. Our nice 6% grade downhill on the other side of the pass only had me going 20 mph instead of the usual 35.

We eventually reached the town of encampment which is where I had switched from bicycling back to hiking on the CDT. This time there was a woodcutting festival and rodeo going on. We had made it for the tail end of the woodcutting events but the rodeo had just started. The local talent tried hard but I think the entire time I was at the rodeo there was only two successful events both by semi-pro contestants. 

We left the rodeo before it finished cause we didn't want to be on the road when it let out. Unfortunately we failed and were on the road battling crosswinds with no shoulder while drunk assholes in their trucks came flying by without giving us room. We made it to the town of Saratoga which I had stayed at on the CDT and has a fantastic public hot springs available. We stayed at a wonderful warm showers host which put us up for the night and got us all cleaned up.