Lander, WY

first--photos!!! http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2191403&l=9d624&id=1209158

Hello from Lander, WY. The past few days have been pretty eventful... and I've seen a lot of stuff. Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and lots of Wyoming.

July 8th: Cameron, MT to Grant Village, WY - 115 miles, 9 hours 45 minutes of riding.

The most time I've spent in a day on a bike. Went into Yellowstone National Park, this place was like a zoo. Imagine the San Diego Zoo, but with everyone in cars and RV's, just trying to get a peek of something moving, and stopping and clogging up the roads if they did. It would have been wonderful if there was no traffic, and you took out the people. To get a sense for how many people there were, our campsite, Grant Village (one of maybe seven or eight in the park) had 400 campsites in it. It seemed pretty full, but we rolled in after dark, so I don't know really. The last 45 minutes of riding we did was definitely nearly dark, way too late. I dont want to ride that late again.

The scenery was amazing, picture perfect meadows, streams, awesome mountains.

Wildlife count:
1 bison
2 elk (w/ big elkhorns)
2 bald eagles (one in Yellowstone)
1 coyote

We saw a bunch of geysers too. They were mad cool. Saw Old Faithful, and only had to wait about two minutes for it! That thing blasted pretty high up. It went off for about five minutes, maybe less. It seemed pretty long. Top elevation for the day, 8391 feet.

July 9th: Grant Village, WY, to Dubois, WY - 104 miles, 8 hours

I was pretty eager to get out of Yellowstone-- even though it was pretty, the traffic was horiffic. The Grand Tetons are probably the most impressive and pretty mountains I've ever seen. They seem to rise out of the middle of the ground to up over 10,000+ feet.

Wildlife count:
2 bears!!!!! both brown bears
I forget what else, the bears were the coolest.

We climbed up and over Togwotee Pass, Elevation 9658. A new personal record. It felt like it was 6% grade for 11 miles, which really sucks on a loaded bike. The total climb was 20-something miles long. On the way up though, we passed this Swede that was RUNNING ACROSS THE COUNTRY. This is his website. http://www.suneson.se Check it out. We descended into this cool town of Dubois, but we had a little help. They were doing construction on the back side of the mountain, so instead of enjoying out 3000' descent, we had to hitch-hike down most of it. At least those miles went by pretty fast, and I dont think it was cheating at all, more like punishment.

In general, I feel like I'm hungry a lot of the time. Normal sized meals dont fill me up, I need to eat half a box of Wheat Thins afterward to come close to being full.

July 10th: Dubois, WY through Lander, WY, to somewhere on the road - right now, at 75 miles, but going to ride more later

Today's cool story: On the road in this random tiny gas station/general store, this older couple said hi to Michael, because he was wearing his JMU jersey. Turns out they live in Oakland Mills, which is in Columbia MD, about a 10 minute drive from Dad's place. What a small world.

Today's not-so-cool story: 50 miles of headwind in the morning.

Anyway, my 30 minutes at the library is up, its someone else's turn now. Lander is pretty cool, I guess, but I'm hungry. Check out my photos at the top.

Hopefully I'll pass through Rawlins, WY sometime tomorrow.