Saturday 2 July 2011

Day 57 - Saratoga to Rawlins (guest blogger Hadley)

One great thing about bike touring is the feeling of dropping into a deeep looong sleep after a day of riding.  While an 8pm bedtime might not usually sound so appealing, sometimes this biking leaves us pretty darned exhausted and ready to drop into unconsciousness at a surprisingly early hour. Many of us (Rob included) ended up having about 10 hours of sweet restorative sleep last night!  When we woke up, the sun was shining, we felt well-rested, and we knew that today's ride would be just 42 miles.  A fine sort of morning!

The landscapes we've been riding through in Wyoming consist of slow, gently rolling hills.  Assuming the wind behaves itself (staying away or at our backs) this terrain is DREAMY to ride... the first 20 miles today were lovely.  But then the wind came out in front and we were forced to work a lot harder to get ourselves the rest of the way to Rawlin. 

Noteworthy tidbits from today:

- Today is Canada Day!  Jack pulled a harmonica out of his handlebar bag and played "O Canada" for me as I rode past!  Very cool!

- The truckstop on the I-80 featured several animal heads (stuffed) mounted on the walls, including an antelope's head.  I was impressed with the care the taxidermist had apparently put into making the animal's tongue curl like this: ~ .  If only Rob had a photo of the beast!  (I fear that my description doesn't properly convey how striking its tongue really was).

- We saw lots of live antelope in the fields next to the road.  Viewed in profile it sometimes looks as though the antelope have a single horn... this is what made Don start referring to them as the "Wyoming Unicorn".