Wednesday 6 July 2011

Day 62 Dubois to Tetons National Park

Today was brilliant riding. I skipped the 6AM breakfast, slept in for an hour a.d had a sumptious breakfast in town. This put me miles behind everybody else but I managed to reel in four of the tail enders before reaching the 9560' summit of Togwotee pass 29 miles down the road. I like the days when all the hard wotk is do.e in the morning. It makes the afternoon headwind more bearable.

The last 10 miles of the day were in the Tetons National Park whi,h is breathtaki.gly beautiful. By this time I had caught up with Don Ellen and Kelly and we saw our first grizzly bear with its cubs chasi.g elk. Appare.tly it was bear number 311!

To.ight we had a special treat. Friends of Terry dating back to his days in the 1972 U.S  Sapporo  Olympic team came to camp and cooked us buffalo burger with all the trimmings. Thanks for organising that Terry. 

Miles Today  64
Total          3086

P.S Thanks very much Ellen's Mum for your very kind and generous donation. It is really appreciated. I promise I will keep your daughter in peach rings until the e.d of the trip :)













Day 61 Lander to Dubois 3000 miles up!

Well today was pretty much deja  vu of day 58. Ridiculously early start, high mileage, headwinds  . . . you know by now the sort of thing that I mean.
One difference, just as I was all set to go, I decided to check tyre pressures and somehow broke the valve on the rear wheel. So after much stomping around the campsite I unloaded, and eventually  fixed the damn thing. As I was now miles behind everybody I thought what the hell and took refuge in Mcdonalds and had a second breakfast, which of course by now was at a more civilised time. Ok strop over.

Today was going to be interesting as for 58 miles we were cycling through the Wind River Indian Reservation, home of the Shoshone tribe.

Typically when cycling througb the USA  you pick up the sense of  national pride by virtue of the stars and stripes hoisted above just about every home. Here there was  not one single flag displayed, other than above the Missionary church in Fort Washakie. And I did not see a single Indian.  My overriding feeling was that of poverty,deprivation and a tough place to live

Quite a contrast to the tourist information boards describring the reservation in the more upmarket town of Dubois where we stayed tonight.

Miles Today 76
Total         3022