Day 63: Grant to Madison (still Yellowstone)

July 12, 2006

Whew. I thought maybe I'd lost my touch, but never fear--it's raining again. A lot. But I'm mostly dry and all the way in my tent, although it's getting filthy from the rain splashing the dusty ground into mud. The rangers here have a tarp up for hikers/bikers to set up under, but it only worked for a few minutes before it started leaking, and I had to go re-tie one corner of the tarp tighter since it was dropping water into a puddle that was getting too close for comfort. Oh well. At least I didn't have to ride in it and I was hungry enough that canned chicken and ramen noodles tasted pretty good.

So today... I had set my alarm really early in punishment for slacking yesterday, but I guess that didn't work--I must have turned it off or something. The alarm was silenced between me and the sleeping bag when I woke up--not late but not as early as I'd planned. I had camp halfway packed before realizing that I hadn't made a decision about whether to do the bus tour (and consequently camp there another night), so I guess I was ready to move on and skip the bus.

Saw some female elk and a couple of babies out on the road early--it took a while for them to move far enough away for me to ride on, then some deer ignored me as I went on to cross the continental divide. Twice.

Got to Old Faithful in plenty of time for a cookie break--when the geyser was behind schedule, some people started the wave and that seemed to coax it out. Hiked the geyser basin for a few miles and got lucky enough to see Grand Geyser go off--way cooler than old faithful. It kind of spurts randomly for about 10 minutes over 100' up. Made it to Morning Glory pool and headed back to see the Old Faithful inn as I was getting more and more intollerant of tourists and their insolent children, but it wasn't so bad.

Old Faithful's crowd. When the geyser didn't go off on time, part of the crowd started doing the wave to motivate it...

More stops at more geysers, springs, and mud pots made for a pretty easy day. Must have walked over 5 miles, too, though. There's another biker here tonight--from Germany but studied at Urbana, Illinois just about an hour and a half from where I am studying at Purdue, and that's about all I found out before the rain started. Maybe it will quit before dark...

Radko, German biker who did his MA in Illinois. We discussed the difficulties of training for a trip like this in flat, flat midwestern areas.

Sunset at the Madison campground--awesome.

Joe, Oregon biker/continental divide hiker/all around adventurer who contributed to the original route selection for this TransAm ride in the mid-70s.

That tarp was a nice idea, campground people, but it didn't do a darn thing to keep the rain off my tent...

I need to get into W. Yellowstone in the morning for supplies. Almost out of food and need to find a library if possible, but I'm going to try to push at least 1/2 day past to stay ahead of the group so I don't feel like I'm just trailing them, even though we're basically on the same kind of daily mileage plan. Looks like we'll catch up in a few days anyway because of the way services are spaced, but I need some time away from people after dealing with all the people crowded in yellowstone.

Today's ride: 42 miles (68 km)
Total: 3,160 miles (5,086 km)

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