Day 95: Lander, WY to Dubois, WY

July 16, 2011

My mind tells me to get up early, to get a head start on the heat and make miles in the cool before the long uphill stretches of the afternoon turn me into a tired, sweaty, sunburned disaster. My body simply tells me to sleep. That's all it takes to win the argument.

After a power breakfast of chocolate cake and milk I leave after after 9:00, slick to the touch from a thick layer of sunscreen and bug spray. I ride to the northwest and soon cross into the Wind River Indian Reservation, among grass land dotted with small homes and farms and with some unnamed mountain range standing watch a dozen miles off to my left. The road is alive with thousands of crickets, all pale yellow, that dash to the left or the right just before the front tire crushes them.

Through Fort Washakie I ride by government-funded duplexes, a community center, and a public health building. I know about this reservation from two sources: TransAm journals and a fascinating and depressing story about it produced by the Associated Press several years ago. Back in 2000, a Mexican drug ring moved onto the reservation and started handing out free samples of meth to locals, many of whom became customers or dealers and recruiters. The drug quickly became an epidemic, sending arrests way up not only for drug-related crimes, but also child neglect and spousal abuse. Even though the original cartel was broken up several years ago, an estimated one-third of the reservation's people still use meth. A tribal judge was even arrested in 2005 for operating a drug ring and trying to assault and kill a Bureau of Indian Affairs police officer. The limited law enforcement jurisdiction of tribal courts makes prosecuting drug cartels difficult, while the lack of funding for treatment centers and trained healthcare workers means that recovery options for residents often don't exist.

As a BIA police car rolls past, I think about the drug problems and the issues with alcohol abuse, poverty, and general poor health in the normal-looking community all around me. It's as if one of the worst slices of Eastern Kentucky or urban St. Louis has been dropped into the middle of Wyoming. The place looks like most of the other small towns I've traveled through out West, with its modest general store, single gas station, broken-down cars, and dusty streets, but I feel such a strong sense of sadness in this case because I understand the awful back story and know that the situation is in many ways hopeless.

Rumble strips sound like machine gun fire and rattle my wrists and arms and shoulders when the bike drifts toward the shoulder line. A path of dark green snakes across each valley floor, following the path of a river or creek, but as the terrain stretches farther away and rises higher the greens turn into yellows and then browns and oranges as the soft, rolling hills jut smoothly into the cloudless blue sky. I see cell phone antennas and oil derricks on the tops of a few hills, but the rest of the landscape sits completely barren.

Four lightly loaded touring bikes pass me while I'm stopped at the top of a long hill. It's the perfect place to take a break and talk bikes and swap ridiculous TransAm stories, but none of them slow down. I get a smile or a wave or a Hey, what's up? but that's all. I see four more throughout the afternoon and none of those riders stop either. Most people don't anymore—myself included. Back east the trip was new and exciting and almost everyone I ran into showed at least a low level of curiosity about their fellow bike travelers. Now we're all grizzled veterans, having dealt with the heat, hills, wind, bugs, and mechanical problems for so long that the shine has faded from our eyes. I always figured there would be certain behaviors that would show me when I've been on the road too long. This might be one of them. Mostly I feel sorry for the men and women headed east, because I can think of only a few things in life worse than banging over the Appalachians in the heat and humidity of August.

I take my time all day because I know it's a long ride to Dubois, with no help from the heat, the wind, or the elevation. I've been hitting it hard in the last week for one big reason: Togwotee Pass. Wyoming's Department of Transportation has been working on the pass for three or four years, and the construction is serious enough in one three-mile stretch that bikes aren't allowed to pass at any time of the day or night. Riders must instead toss their bikes in the back of a truck and hitch a ride through the work area before continuing on. Most people couldn't give two shits about a little help on the downside of a mountain pass, but I'm not most people. I set out to ride all the way across America, not all the way across America except for three miles in Wyoming. I've refused countless rides and killed myself going up steep hills because I won't give up and push. A free ride down the pass would stamp an asterisk next to the trip in my mind. It would nag at me for years.

Fortunately there's a wonderful loophole that runs in my favor: work stops on Sundays. Once I know that I'll reach Dubois by Saturday night and then cross over the pass on Sunday morning I can finally stop mashing and just cruise.

The miles start to bleed together as I continue the long charge across the plains. Over the course of hours I see the smooth, low-lying hills slowly give way to sharper, rockier peaks. Greens and yellows share space with shades of gray, red, orange, and the patterns left behind by millions of years of geological activity. Huge cliffs rise up within striking distance of the highway and give me relief from the pounding afternoon sun. The farther I go the more tired I become, and I draw upon the promise of pizza to give me strength and push me the last 20 miles along the bends of the Wind River.

A smile spreads across my face and I make a weird grunting sound of celebration when I see the Reduced Speed sign that tells me Dubois is just around the corner. The town was originally called Never Sweat because of its warm and dry winds, but the Postal Service wouldn't accept the name so the town had to change it. Eventually it came to be known as Dubois, after a U.S. Senator from Idaho, but the residents rejected the French origin of the name in protest and pronounced it Du-boys instead, with the emphasis on the first syllable. It's the kind of place I have high hopes for.

Covered sidewalks with wooden floors give off a Wild West vibe, but I shut out all of the people and cars and knick-knack shops and laser-focus on pizza. I try to keep my expectations in check, because Dubois is a town of 962 people, but the food fantasies that have been running through my head for hours won't let me.

In the end it doesn't matter. I'm blown away by a pizza that starts with a thick and chewy crust, adds an alfredo sauce base, sprinkles on chunks of smoky and delicious pulled pork, and covers it all with a thick layer of gooey cheese that crusts perfectly across the surface. After a long, hot, tiring day it's everything I wanted and so much more. I have to be careful not to let out strange satisfied noises and make the parents and children sitting around me uncomfortable.

Stuffed and happy I roll over to a giant KOA campground on the edge of town. As I look out at the mess of tents, travel trailers, and quarter-million-dollar RVs, a group of half a dozen Adventure Cycling people round a corner and head my way. After hundreds of miles spent almost entirely by myself it's a wonderful feeling to see a long line of familiar, smiling faces and catch up on all of the weird and hilarious stories from the road.

Someone asks me where I'm going tomorrow. I blank completely. I've been so focused on reaching the pass by Sunday that I have no idea what I want to do after I crest the other side. I suddenly feel a strong surge of uncertainty and I love it. With the sound of a rushing river and diesel truck engines breaking the silence of an otherwise quiet night, I spend an hour looking over my options, thinking about all of the impressive sights that lay in wait at the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, and preparing myself for the herds of tourists and their motorhomes, bright white tennis shoes, ugly sweatshirts, and fanny packs. I can't wait.

Today's ride: 76 miles (122 km)
Total: 4,841 miles (7,791 km)

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