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Gillette Wyoming

107 miles, yes, 107!

Up for breakfast at the hotel, then packed up to head out. Right before we left, I asked the clerk where the restroom was. He said, “In the guest rooms”. We’d already left the key in the room. Seriously none in the lobby? Junk hotel. We hit the road just before 7 for a long, relatively flat day compared to yesterday. No big huge climb like yesterday, but there were definitely lots of rolling hills and some long pulls uphill. We stopped after 35 miles in Clearmont at a little store/gas station/RV park for water as this is the last resource for 70 miles aside from a bar 40 miles away. So we drank plenty there and filled our extra 1.5 liter water bottle. The first part of today’s ride was rolling along the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. We went past many farm fields and loads of cottonwood trees! That fluffy stuff sticks to everything! The road eventually turned away from the mountains and into ranch lands. Lots of cows roaming around; we saw a legit cattle man on his horse corralling the herd. The day was really warming up and we were sweating. After another 30 miles, we stopped to refill our water bottles, but the spare water wasn’t in Jon’s frame bag. Had we left it at the last stop??! Ugh. 10 more miles to the bar. Gotta do what you gotta do. We finally got there and walked into the Spotted Horse biker bar in the middle of nowhere in our bicycling finery. Yeah, we stood out a bit. There were actually only 4-5 people there. It’s a seriously old crusty (smelly) bar. We asked about water and were told he would sell us a few bottles of water, but the tap water is undrinkable. So we bought 8 bottles and sat in front of the bar and ate our lunch and watched some clouds build up off to the west. We took off again and the winds got stronger. Jon was keeping an eye on the radar (surprisingly we had decent signal). We went through those water bottles pretty quickly so we stopped at a farm to ask for water. The fella generously gave us more bottled water, enough to get us to Gillette. Jon mentioned the building clouds and radar picture, and the guy said he never pays attention to that. Half the time radar shows it raining on his farm and there’s not a drop. We rolled on, keeping our eye on the sky nonetheless. After about 45 minutes, Jon thought we should stop and take cover. I didn’t think the storm was moving that fast and we could get in a few more miles. He said, “your call”. So we kept rolling for 5 more miles when it was getting darker and windier. We went up to a house to ask for cover, but no one was home. Across the road was an small old house turned shed in a field. We decided to take cover there. There was coiled up barbed wire, old animal poo and various other farm trash. It looked like it had linoleum in it at one time and there was an out house just behind it. 6 window openings. And a door opening with some boards across it. We got everything inside and settled in for the storm. There was a decent rain shower and a little hail, as well as lightning and thunder. It was a slow moving storm, so we were probably there for about an hour. Eventually it died off enough and moved away enough for us to get back on our bikes and headed towards Gillette. It was definitely slow going as the wind was pretty strong and right towards us. 25 miles to go but man it was a long 25 miles. Every rolling hill we had to climb was tortuous. We were both getting frustrated at one point or another, but what can you do? You put on some tunes and just keep moving. (Or JRA as my cousin says. Just Ride Along)We finally made it to Gillette just at sunset. We had the absolute best reception at the Laquinta hotel. When you’re that tired, sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on information you’re given. The young woman told us everything we needed to know, what time the Ruby Tuesdays next door closed, where the laundry is in the hotel (she even gave us free detergent). She assigned us a room at the end of the hallway, nice and quiet. It was awesome. We fed our bodies and brains and crashed after a thoroughly full day.