Day 92: Walden, CO to Saratoga, WY

July 13, 2011

Half of the amber lights on the bank's reader board are burned out, but there are enough still working that I know it's just 55 degrees when I ride down a mostly empty Main Street at 7:00. I love it—I'll take a cool and wet Northern Colorado morning over the huge heat of the Midwest every time.

Inch-thick piles of hail stained brown from the spray of passing cars sit along the edge of the highway. A short line of snowy mountains run north off to my left, but I spend most of my time looking ahead for gaps in the smaller hills, trying to pick out the spot where I'll punch through and continue north to Wyoming.

I think about how warm I feel climbing hills in a long-sleeved shirt and rain jacket, which kick starts the music library in my head and leads me to start singing The Beatles' "Happiness is Warm Gun." Within a single cow mooing painfully behind a dirty old house with a dozen beat-up cars in the front yard I continue on with the help of a tailwind, singing bang-bang shoot-shoot and staring out on the wide open West and its endless shades of green and yellow and brown.

Highway 125 turns into Highway 230 at the border, but everything else stays the same: a mix of overcast and blue skies, a cold wind, low-lying hills with rocky peaks, a few pronghorn antelope, and never more than half a dozen houses in any direction at the same time. It's huge and desolate country, every bit as wonderful as I imagined it would be. I'm head over heels. I ride and ride and ride and never once grow tired of the world laid out in front of me.

I just rode across ten states and I'm really excited about it.

The 59-person town of Riverside gives me two restaurant choices: the Beartrap Cafe & Bar or the Mangy Moose Saloon & Grill. My instinct tells me to go with the Moose and I listen. It doesn't disappoint.

I sit at the bar and look at signs that read "Harley-Davidson Blvd," "Dale Earnhardt Dr," and "Beer: Helping Ugly People Have Sex Since 1862." The ceiling above me is paneled with logs, which are covered with stapled dollar bills that have messages like "Go Herd!" and "Call Maria for a good time" written on them in black permanent marker. When I look down the row of bar stools, I notice that each cushion is covered with the two back pockets and most of the ass portion of an old pair of blue jeans. Next to a half dozen bottles of bourbon there's a calendar with a picture of a girl in a pink bikini, standing next to a river, holding a fly fishing rod, and wearing waders that come up only to her knees. A few feet to the right is the official t-shirt of the Mangy Moose, which includes the bar's name and an anatomically accurate drawing of a bull moose humping a female.

The character of the place alone is enough to bring me back, but they also have the world's most delicious onion rings.

On the way to Saratoga I coast down a long hill in the sunshine for at least five minutes. As soon as I bottom out and start to climb a cloud rolls in front of the sun. It's just that kind of day. The tailwind stays strong and in the 69 miles it takes to reach town I average 14.5 miles per hour, which is completely bonkers on a heavily loaded bike like mine.

Modest transportation in the small town of Saratoga.

In the evening I demolish a pizza before riding to a lake two miles outside of Saratoga. As I bang over an indecently rough road I feel an invisible shove from behind, which pushes me to the campground moments before the 40 and 50 mile per hour winds arrive. I roll the bike into the men's bathroom but leave the door halfway open to watch the show. Tree branches bend at sharp angles and every leaf stretches toward the northeast as far as it can. A thousand small whitecaps form on the adjacent lake, the seats of the tiny metal swing set jiggle wildly from side to side, and waves of dust from the gravel parking lot wash over everything and everyone. Within a few minutes I see lightning bolts streak to the ground a few miles to the west. The smart dogs take cover, while one Irish Setter walks around sniffing for a good spot to take a leak.

The fury continues for an hour. When the rain finally arrives I hustle inside the bathroom and then close and lock the door. The toilet doesn't flush—it's just a pit in the ground—so the place smells, well, like a bathroom with a pit toilet should smell. The walls hold in in the day's heat, which means that all of the odors inside simmer while I start to sweat. It's every bit as wonderful as it sounds, but it's dry and protected from the wind and for that I'm thankful.

I piece together the tent on the damp ground as the sun drops below the horizon. Just as I'm about to climb in, a herd of touring bikers rumble down the gravel driveway. The first to introduce herself is Diana, a sweet and bubbly ball of happiness who recently graduated with a degree in Veterinary Medicine and is riding across the country from Oregon to Georgia. She's joined by an eastbound husband and wife, Laurie and Mike, an eastbound Aussie named Michael, and a solo Oregon-bound rider from Colorado named Matt. Jordan and Tyler, bound for Boston, roll in half an hour later. It's a big biker slumber party on the shores of Lake Saratoga, backed by the soundtrack of a constantly rushing breeze.

Today's ride: 75 miles (121 km)
Total: 4,594 miles (7,393 km)

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