June 21, 2012
Rawlins to Jeffrey City, WY: Out of the wind ... almost
I was up and out early. I had a good breakfast at the hotel, right when they opened up at 6:00, and was on the road by 6:30.
Less than a mile from the hotel, I stopped for some pictures.
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Not a bad ride at all today, with even a bit of a tailwind in the morning. My first Continental Divide crossing came about 10 miles outside of Rawlins.
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I had talked with another Crazyguy, Dale, who was also in Rawlins last night, and said I might catch him during breakfast at Grandma's Cafe in Lamont, 33 miles from Rawlins. Lamont was one of my possible overnight stops tonight. Grandma's is closed, and there is supposed to be another restaurant open, but I failed to find it. I stuck my head in a door at Grandma's former cafe, and the room was just full of junk. Apparently there really is a restaurant there, a good one, and I somehow missed it. So I headed on. And came to the next Continental Divide crossing.
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Next stop was Muddy Gap. Muddy Gap has a gas station with a convenience store. I missed Dale there by 10 minutes. I guess he had been waiting a while. Muddy Gap was my second option for an overnight, but I was there at about 11 am, and there wasn't anything other than the service station. So I went on.
Just up from Muddy Gap I encountered my first Eastbounder. He had ridden from Portland, and had spent last night in Jeffrey City. He said the cafe in Jeff City had not opened this morning, and he hadn't eaten anything. That's a tough way to ride, but fortunately he had a short downhill to the convenience store. Before too long I started seeing historical placards and pull-offs for the Split Rock historical site. Split Rock was just a rather large gap in the mountains that was visible from far away, and was used as a navigation aid by the early settlers. The valley between the mountains was pretty, but I would have had a hard time navigating by it!
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And then I went on to Jeffrey City. That made for a 69 mile day. I blew my "no more than 50 miles/day in the first week" rule. I was pretty spent. I went into the Split Rock Cafe and Bar, and the proprietor quickly served up a huge mug of ice water. Her staff was all off for the day, and that's why she had opened late, and she wasn't serving food other than the bar snacks and pizza. So I had a pizza. It was pretty good, even though it was a fozen pizza. Eventually another cyclist came by, a Dutch guy who was east bound who stopped, chatted, and moved on. And then another westbounder, who also stopped, chatted and eventually moved on. And then a group of 5 eastbounders, not all really together, who, like me stopped for the night.
Jeffrey City is really a ghost town. The current maps say it has 100 residents, but the bar owner says it is down around 50 now. It used to have somewhere in the thousands, and there are a lot of abandoned buildings. It was a mining center, and was famous for jade. I didn't know there was jade in Wyoming, but apparently Jeffrey City had plenty near by and some people made a fortune off of it. AT first I thought I was going to sleep in the trailer across from the bar, which was part of Monk King Bird Pottery. The pottery guy was gone for the day along with the cafe/bar staff, so I didn't meet him. But the other cyclists called the Baptist Church, about a half mile down a sandy road, and I ended up going there to sleep in the basement. The call of open restrooms at night lured me over! Despite the fact that it was indoor accomodation, the mosquitos were bad. I crashed pretty quickly once I was there and had my sleeping bag unpacked.
Today's Stats:
dist 69.75
odo 6059.7
Max Speed 42.4 mph
Av Speed 10.8 mph
Today's ride: 70 miles (113 km)
Total: 196 miles (315 km)
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