New map section! Only 4 more after this until I'm in Astoria! I also noticed that I'm closing in on the big 3,000 mile mark, I should hit it sometime tomorrow.
Tyler and I woke up at Kevin and Lucy's and were treated to a big bowl of oatmeal! We were out the door and ready to ride a little before 8am. We hit 2 continental divides during the morning but neither had any real elevation gain. We made our way to Lamont, about 33 miles in, which turned out to be not a town but just a trucker cafe. We hung out in the shade on the ground outside and had some mid-morning trail mix and decided to grab lunch at the next stop, Muddy Gap.
11 miles more and we made it to the town of Muddy Gap, and it turned out to be another 1 building "town", but it was a gas station and they had food. Tyler and I each grabbed two slices of pizza and sat down to eat. No cell reception but the place had wifi.
When we were about to leave Muddy Gap, Tyler found his rear tire flat. He pulled out his previously patched tube (his only spare) and went to work changing it. After remounting the tire and inflating it, the Schrader valve on his spare got cut open on the edge of his wheel as the hole was made for Presta valves so it was smaller. He changed over to Schrader tubes earlier on his trip on advice of a bicycle shop but ended up cutting all the valves on his wheel.
So there we were still at Muddy Gap and Tyler had to try and patch his just flatted tire. The hole in the tube was right on a section where the tube's size was written in raised rubber lettering. This posed a problem because to get a good patch seal you'd need to sand down the raised lettering. Tyler tried this and the tube held pressure so we were off to Jeffery City.
Or were we? About 5 miles out Tyler's rear tire was flat again, so we pulled over and he tried to patch it again. This didn't work either so for the next 17 miles he had to keep inflating his rear tire every few miles with my frame pump.
Eventually we made it to Jeffery City, which once again turned out to be more of just a bar than any city. There we met twin girls cycling east and they warned us to stock up on groceries before heading to Yellowstone as it got pricey there. Tyler pulled off the tube once again and we went inside to grab some food, which our only choice was tamales from a mexican festival the previous day.
I had some rubber cement and we tried using that in addition to a patch, which seemed to give us hope of working but once it was on and pumped up failed too. Tyler called the camping area we planned to stay at, Sweetwater Station (a Mormon site commemorating a handcart team that got stuck in the area during winter and was rescued by a team sent from Salt Lake) and told them we'd be arriving late as he was having bike issues.
Just as Tyler was feeling low, a father and son cyclist pair rode in. They were staying at a cyclist trailer across the road from the bar and offered Tyler one of their spare tubes. The boy was happy. He got it on his bike and pumped up the tire and everything was good again. We even had a tailwind!
We crushed the next 19 miles in a little more than an hour and made it to the Mormon site by 8pm. We checked in with one of the ladies who ran the site and learned that Mormons came to this area to camp and learn about the handcart crossing and could pull a loaded handcart 1 to 30 miles to see what it was like back in the 1800's.
We were given a campsite next to a big gathering that took up the 6 neighboring sites. They invited us over for dinner and we can't say no to free food so we joined in the fun. The men were dressed up in ol' time cowboy gear and the women in dresses and head coverings but all of them were super nice and were asking us all about our bike trip.
Eventually it got dark out and Tyler and I were both sleepy and the festivities were winding down so we made our way back to our campsite and tents. I got into my sleeping bag (can actually use it now that the nights are cooler) and fell fast asleep.
Start: Rawling, WY
End: Sweetwater Station
Distance: 87.93 miles
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