Yellowstone Part III- Midnight Riders

Saturday, June 28th. We woke up early after Katie's late night difficulties. We still felt bad that someone who was helping us had so much trouble. Guess my bad luck is contagious, eh? Either way, our days of rest are over. Time to get our asses back on the bikes and pedaling down the road! The plan was to bike clear across Yellowstone park today. From side to side it's 87 miles, not to mention mileage to the park and to where ever we spend the night. We decided to get an early start to maximize our daylight.

8am. We biked to town. We were hoping to do our laundry the night prior but obviously that didn't happen. We got food, did laundry and picked up a few souvenirs. If you can believe it, all of that took until 1pm. We picked up the pace and got a move on.

We arrived at the entrance to Yellowstone! There were a few families there taking photos of loved ones. I thought it'd be a fun new hobby to take photos of unsuspecting tourist. I figured you'd seen enough of my fat ass.

Some random people.

My fat ass since I know you miss it.

So we entered Yellowstone... for the third time. Here's a cool little tid bit- at the entrance of the park there is a bald eagle's nest. Since they don't want people disturbing the rare bird you're not allowed to stop on the road in your car. The benefits of a bicycle my friends! I stopped and snapped a few photos.

It's a bird!

We also entered our fourth state shortly after crossing the Yellowstone border...

State 4 baby!

We had decided to head along the north side of the south loop. This provided us with the shortest route, although there's a lot of hills. As we made our way up the first significant hill we stopped to take some pictures of the waterfalls when we met a mother and her daughter. They were really nice and stopped and talk to us for a few minutes before we made our way.

Cycling was much easier today! We were heading up some serious hills and we were making great time. It wasn't exactly easy, but a few days rest made it much more bearable. I was even keeping up with Josh. The sky was clear and bright. It was a cool 70 degrees. It might had been the perfect day.

As I've mentioned before wildlife was everywhere. And sure it was cool seeing them, but you know what else was interesting? How effing stupid people can be around them. So I turn a bend in the road and see a Buffalo. Again, as I mentioned Buffalo = huge. This one was just about as close as I'd want it to be before I start getting nervous. It was happily grazing on the side of the road and I felt no need to worry or worry the animal by getting closer. Next thing I know I hear a truck coming behind us with a somewhat reckless family. The truck pulls up besides the Buffalo (I'd say about 12 feet away) and a teenage girl leans her entire upper torso out the hatchback window to take a close up shot of the beast. Bad idea if you ask me. THEN the driver puts the car in reverse, teasingly sending the girl even closer to the buffalo! The girl screams and scampers (because screaming is scampering is a good idea) the buffalo looks up like "wtf mate?" and goes back to grazing.

Stupid girl. Nice Buffalo.

We had made it 35 miles or so through the park and came to a gas station/convenience store. We took a break, bought pop tarts and other assorted food, filled water... you know the drill. I called Katie to try to get an update. Turns out we were correct after all! A pebble had gotten stuck between the brake pad and the rotor. A simple fix but c'mon how was I supposed to know what to do? I can barely figure out how to make my bike go forward. While we were stuffing our faces and catching our breath a familiar face popped in. The mother/daughter combo from earlier in the day had caught up with us! They were really impressed we had made it "so far so fast" and were keeping up with them in a car. I mean obviously they were stopping and seeing sights but it feels real good when people are impressed with what were doing. Especially the ladies if ya know what I mean wink wink wink. Time to go impress more high school sophmores, back on the bikes!

Further down the road we came across a large gathering of people. Usual Yellowstone rules, group of people = something to see. We figured it was probably another bear and weren't that interested but after inquiring it turned out to be two elk. Having never seen an Elk before we stopped. Now I have seen an Elk. And so have you.

We were approaching the east side of Yellowstone and the day was growing late. It became clear we weren't going to make it out of the park before the sunset. We were still 30 miles from the east entrance and the majority of those miles were uphill. After 55 miles for the day I was considering whether or not it'd be a wise idea to find a campsite. Throughout the park there are camping areas designated exclusively for biker/hikers/non-motorized tourist. I thought if there was one close enough we'd be set. During the peak of the season there's just no way any motorized campsites would be left. We found a park ranger and asked him if we had any reasonable options. He informed us all the campsites were filled and the closest cycling campsite was 25 miles in the wrong direction (back by the convenience store). That obviously wasn't going to happen and Josh was quite insistent we try to make it out of the park tonight. We didn't have time to argue over it, I figured we still had daylight and I was going to make the best of it.

The last few hours in Yellowstone were great. They also presented me with some of my favorite photos. Take a look.

Not long after we made it to Lake Yellowstone. This was the final stretch of the park. There's a long straight path that follows the lake before you head up into the mountains to reach the East entrance. The sun was getting low and I was a bit tired and hungry. We took a short little downhill which brought us through a swarm of gnats. Being half naked, sweaty, and hairy I was literally covered head to toe is tiny little black bugs. Super gross. The lake was gorgeous though.

There was a small store at the foot of the mountains. We bought protein bars, bread, and other treats to fuel. I was not a fan at all of continuing on. It was already sunset. We still had a minimum of 20 miles to go. Up hill. I hate hills. Let alone in the dark. Let alone in the bear infested woods. Overall it seemed like a horrible idea. Josh didn't seemed to care, he really wanted to make more ground and good time. He figured we were so well rested we should be able to push ourselves. I suppose he was right but damn was I pissed. I begrudgingly got on my bike and pedal up the damn hill.

We had barely begun our ascent when darkness fell. For the first time on the whole trip we donned our reflective vests feeling it might add some level of protect. Or just make us easier to spot for bears. There really wasn't much traffic which was good, but that only added to the creepiness of the whole ordeal. The further up we got in the mountain, the creepier it got. After the first hour of biking in the dark it was pitch black, but your eyes adjusted just enough so you could make out the trees and the road. In the distance you'd see a car coming and think "Fuck! We have to bike all the way up to THERE?! Shoot me now." It just looked so far away. I wasn't really tired, probably because most every noise startled me. I couldn't see shit man! I had little issue in repeatably "joking" about how bad of an idea this was.

Another 1/2 an hour up the mountain and it was 35 degrees and snow was still on the ground. We added layers to keep warm. This was beginning to remind me a bit too much of Steven's Pass although luckily not as steep. Or maybe I'm just that much better at this point. You'd hear a stick crack or some snow crunch.. some water trickling. You'd flash your light and see nothing. It was so quiet, which only helped to make every noise that much louder. Another 1/2 hour up the mountain we finally reach the top. Two hours of uphill blind biking. Remind me to thank you for all this later Joshyboy. We were both pretty ecstatic to be up here, we knew it was a easy downhill on the other side. We stopped and relaxed a few minutes, ate some food and celebrated. You couldn't help looking at the sky, it was so clear, so bright. It seemed closer, but maybe because I had just biked a few hours uphill.

So great! Were at the top. Time to go down. Issue though, we can't see a damn thing! One thing I'm sure of is that I don't want to go flying 30-40 miles down a hill and not be able to see a pothole in the road. I've already been thrown off my bike once, dammit. Not to mention the right side of the road is a cliff. I don't mean a 10 foot fall. I mean a 200 foot cliff. You fall off, you're gone. Josh and I both had flashlights we tried to hold and aim at the ground to see it as we went. My light wasn't strong enough and it just wasn't feasible holding Josh's. We tried sticking the thing in our mouths and holding it, but that was a bit too gay and our jaw got sore fast. What do intrepid bikers turn to whenever they have a problem? Duct tape. We duct taped that mofo right to my handlebar bag. A little bit of adhesive fine tuning and I had a bright light shining about 12 feet in front of me. Just enough to react to a bump or hole. We started downhill.

Riding went a bit too smoothly. Josh and I were giddy like little school girls who were recklessly disregarding their own safety. We laughing, flying downhill and not believing we made it this far! I was in the lead and Josh followed about 25 feet behind me, trusting my path was safe. Or that he could stop before hitting me if I fell. I would scream back to make sure Josh hadn't fallen himself about every 45 seconds. It's weird when you're biking you can't really hear anything behind you, but can easily hear things in front of you. I was holding the break- I didn't want to go too fast. 30 mph seemed fast enough for a midnight ride, don't you think? About half way down the hill I stopped. Guess what?!

Milestone 10 of 35ish baby! Grand Milestone #1.

Mile 1000. Beautiful, isn't it?

Another few miles down the road and we reached the east gate. There were some lamp posts and a picnic table there so we decided to take a break. We sat, ate sandwiches and chomped on candy. We discussed the trip, and how it was hard to believe we had made it 1000 miles. It was thrilling and at the same time depressing. We were barely 30% of the way there. But we lived up the momentary accomplishment.

The park closes each day at sunset. No traffic is supposed to come into the park because there are no rangers stationed at the entrances. In other words- if you come late at night you can sneak into Yellowstone for free. And I must say I'm amazed how many people do this! We sat at that picnic table for about a half hour and 5 or so cars must had come by. They'd drive up, see Josh and myself there and stop. They'd roll down there windows and look at us, usually nervously. These poor saps thought we were park employees! We'd wave them on and laugh. After a few cars we'd go out to the road and stop people, look at their license plates, then wave them in. In hindsight we should have just charged admission coulda made some money...

It was late though and we needed a place to camp. We had been told there were numerous campsites right off the road when you leave Yellowstone, so we figured not much longer till were resting. We left the park. It's silly how you feel safer when you leave. Not that is particularly dangerous in it, but you feel like it's a zoo of sorts- the animals don't leave the park. Obviously this isn't true. We were really no safer out of Yellowstone than inside. But you felt safer, and that was good.

We biked about 5 miles down the road, a bit surprised to have not seen any campsites yet. We came across a business (which was obviously closed) but it did still have one vehicle left in the parking lot. It was a truck of sorts it reminded me of an ice cream truck actually. There was a large window or door on the side. And oddly enough a man was outside the truck leaning in through this opening. We bike about 30 feet from him thinking we could ask if he knew of any campsites. Josh started with a "Hello Sir!" to see if we could get his attention. No response. His body just stayed in the window, moving around. We moved a bit closer and again Josh goes "Excuse me, Sir". Again. No answer. The man is doing something, what exactly we don't know. It sounds to me like he's shoveling dirt or ice with a small hand shovel. Josh and myself exchange concerned glances. I speak up, yelling rather loudly "Hey! Excuse me! Can you help us?!" Still doesn't move an inch. Thoroughly creeped out we decide we need to get the fuck out of here.

We continued biking, talking about the weird experience. We postulated a thousand different scenarios why the man wouldn't answer us. Maybe he was hard of hearing or deaf? Maybe he was on drugs? Or maybe he had just KILLED SOMEONE and was burying the evidence in an ice cream truck. I vote for option 3. We had biked another 5 miles. We had definitely missed some camp sites by now and were getting concerned. Another mile or two down the road and we came to one, finally. As we turned off the road we saw a sign "Hard sided campers only. No tents allowed." Well shit. There were woods right across the road and it was 1AM. I was not in the mood to keep looking. Josh thought we should go a bit further to the next site down the road. But god only knows how far that would be.

A few people were driving and we flagged one down and asked if he saw any campsites further up the road. He was a bit of a blunt and rough man. He was more or less like "Hey, what the hell is wrong with you two. Get off the road, it's 1AM. All this land is national forest and since you're a tax paying citizen you're allowed to use any national forest as you so pleased. Go walk in the woods and pitch your tent." So we walked into the woods and looked for a place to pitch our tent.

We found a suitable tree and hung our food bag from it, hoping to evade bears as best we could. We moved about 50 feet over (knowing we should camp much further away from the food) and started pitching camp. We were just too tired and it was just too late.

I heard a sudden snap! I spun around and flashed the light into the woods. Josh got a bit disgruntled, he needed the light to assemble the tent. I told him to shut up and look.. about 150 feet off in the woods there were two eyes, glowing from being spotted by my flashlight. We froze. The animal froze. What the fuck was it? It started walking.. slowly.. circling around, coming no closer, going no further. It's eyes moving up and down as it's head bobbed. I kept my eyes on the animal while Josh finished the last preparations on the tent. No rain fly tonight. We just wanted to be in the tent and "safe"!

I laid in bed, gripped tight to a mag light in case I needed to bludgeon a bear or puma off us in the middle of the night. Today was the longest day of our trip, and our most productive. We had biked a century, which is a cyclist term for 100 miles or more. We had seen a ton of sights and face numerous obstacles. Only 2 or 3 life or death situations arose. All in all our time in Yellowstone was exciting, unique and really interesting! But I'm very happy to be moving on down the road.


Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 100.29
Total mileage- 1001.87

Yellowstone Part II- Mechanical Prowess

Friday, June 27th. I woke up in the morning to find Josh assembling his newest toy- a hammock. Josh had gotten the idea that sleeping in a hammock might be easier to set up and more comfortable to sleep in. So, we all had gone out and he purchased a cheap one and a tarp for overhead water protection. Frankly, I thought the idea was retarded. But, I have to give it to the boy it worked shockingly well.

Today was Katie's last full day with us (therefore our last day of rest) so wanted to make the most of it. We stopped at a local diner and got back to exploring Yellowstone! The day prior we had explored the southern portion of the park, so today we decided to head North toward Mammoth Hot Springs. Overall Yellowstone is just gorgeous. No matter where you look. Everything is just pristine. And I think a large part of the appeal is the variety in scenery. For example, heading north you head down these winding roads spotted with waterfalls. Or you'll turn a bend in the road and find beautiful snow capped mountains..

... Or these. We were just driving down the road when we came across huge slabs of rock jutting out of the ground. So we pulled over to take a look/check em out/take some photos. Josh started climbing all over them like a baby chimpanzee. We scampered up after him. I bet Josh he couldn't climb to the highest stones. And honestly to God I didn't think he'd be able to. Damn that boy is nimble. And cancerously tan.

But lets continue. We made it down to Mammoth Hot Springs shortly after our detour. I figured they'd be much like the name implied- large hot springs. But I honestly can't tell you. The springs were at or around a spa/hotel and the three of us weren't about pay to be allowed access to hot springs during the heat of the day mid Summer. Fuck that. So we left fairly disappointed.

The way back we saw Bear #3 for the trip... seriously. Enough with the bears!


The day was getting late and out tummies were rumbling and we decided to head back to town. While driving, Katie's brakes started making a horrendous squealing. We pulled over and inspected and nothing was blatantly wrong. We were on the other hand driving over a gravel road. We thought perhaps a stone had gotten lodged up in the wheel and was stuck. We drove in reverse a couple feet and the theoretical stone popped lose and the noise ceased. Talk about mechanical skillz, yo.

But, another five minutes down the road and the concerningly loud squealing came back. We decided to stop by the tire center from the day prior to see if they could assist. When we got there the place was sadly closed. We had drove a few miles, and it seemed the noise was not going to fix itself (not even in reverse!) I didn't feel comfortable letting Katie drive the car in this condition, and she obviously wasn't fond of the idea. Josh thought we should take the tire off and inspect. I was highly against the idea since none of us actually had any mechanical skills. But, he talked us into it. We poked around and inspected. Nothing blatantly visible. Josh was hoping to go further and take the breaks off but we vetoed that idea. It was getting late fast, the sun was setting and we needed a solid solution. A tow truck was called.

When the tow truck arrived we had him take a look- he also had no solution for poor Katie. We got the car up on the bed and realized we had a problem... there were two passenger seats and three of us. It was dark already and it was about a 8 mile walk back to camp. The towman wasn't thrilled with the idea of all of us piling in but a Jackson changed his mind. He had to go back to the campsite anyway to let Katie pick up her tent and clothes. She packed up everything she needed and left for better lands with better auto care. We were both sad to see her go.

I can't thank you enough Katie.. Yellowstone would had never been as amazing without you. You're kindness and friendship won't be forgotten. Thank you Katie!


Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 0.0 (Day off, 4th day of rest)
Total mileage- 901.58

Yellowstone

Thursday, June 26th. I awoke in a carbohydrate daze from the gluttonous pasta experience the day before. The three of us got up and decided it'd be best to bathe even though no showers were present at the campgrounds. There was on the other hand a lake right next to us and seemed like a reasonable alternative. It was mid summer yet the lake was frigid. I would estimate 55 degrees. I loved every moment of it! You all should know by now how much I love the cold and I must have spent at least 15 minutes just floating and swimming... feeling my appendages go numb and my nervous system shut down from hypothermic shock. Glorious. Katie managed to man up and wash herself (being brief, yet thorough). Josh, eh... not so much. He dipped into the lake. barely getting a thin film of water on himself. He rushed out of the cool water to soap up and barely rinsed it off. I can't blame him terribly though. We were at about 7500 feet in elevation and the air was a crisp 70-75. I think his thin, hairless body might not had been made for these arctic temperatures.

On the walk back to the campsite I noticed this lovely sign. What a confidence booster, eh? Lets be serious though, someone at the campsite had to be more foolish then ourselves when it came to food storage, right? I figured the bears will get them first and their screams will be like a warning system to the rest of us.

We got everything in order and piled into Katie's car. I must admit, it was heavenly to be wearing casual clothes. We went into town and grabbed a late breakfast and were ready to get moving. Sadly though, when we stepped out of a local diner we discovered my bad luck was spreading! When we returned to Katie's car we found it's rear tire flattened limp. Her poor little Honda Civic was out for the count. Luckily, there was a tire center right across the street (literally across the street. What are the chances?). Turns out we had been impaled on a nail in such a way that the tire was unpatchable. So, we were forced to get a whole new tire. It really kinda sucks because it was a new car and everything is covered under warranty save the tires really. El shitty.

Katie's car getting gutted.

By the early afternoon we were mobile again and were Yellowstone bound. We got to the gates and start discussing our pricing options with one of the park rangers. Apparently it's 25 bucks a day to drive through the park. 7 dollars per cyclist to go through. Considering we knew we'd be driving through the park 2 days and 1 day of cycling, (totaling 64 dollars) we decided to get an Annual National Park Pass. Admittance to every National Park for one year for 80 bucks. Theoretically we'd practically break even on Yellowstone alone.

I was quite excited! I just didn't know what to expect.. I mean I knew it'd be cool and all that. I just had an odd sensation coming toward the park, very... other-worldly. I don't know, It's hard to explain.

Let me put it this way- Remember watching Jurassic Park for the first time? And when they go through those big gates and you kinda wonder "Hmm, I wonder what EXACTLY it'll be like in there?" That's how I felt entering Yellowstone. I mean stop and think for a moment. Imagine you're about to enter Yellowstone. What would you expect?

The initial experience of the park was definitely not what I expected. Everything seemed somewhat smaller. The trees just weren't as big. They seemed somewhat more... natural. Almost sacred. Not to sound terribly gay, it was just a bit moving. It also did not take us long to notice that there were dead trees everywhere. Not what I would had expected, but apparently back in 1988 there was a wildfire in respect of the normal cycle of nature forest rangers allowed the fire to burn and it wiped out most of Yellowstone. But, that fire also reseeded the entire forest and all the trees we were seeing were the adolescent saplings from that event.

A bit further down the road the valley widened and that's when we got our first true Yellowstone experience. You look off into the field and just see Bison. Small little groups of Bison.. grazing. Almost completely oblivious to us. It was amazing! You wouldn't believe how huge these things are. I'd dare say a large one stood 6 feet tall? Maybe even more. Just absolutely huge animals. As you follow the river meandering through the valley you'd look and see people just out in the valley wading through the river fly fishing. It was a bit confusing at first. I wouldn't had thought you'd be allowed to fish in an animal sanctuary like that. I wasn't even sure you were allowed off the beaten path like that. No one else seemed to be wandering off into the habitat. We cautiously stayed far away.

We went a bit further down the road and stopped to look at some more buffalo, this time closer up. It was a bit more challenging this time in that a small group of people, 10-15 had gathered to get up close, photograph, and gawk at the beasts. Right before we left though I turned around and was stunned. About 20 feet away were three buffalo off in the woods on the other side of the road! Somehow everyone had missed the 6000 lbs of giant cow to our left. Josh decided we weren't close enough and whipped out his camera phone for a close up.

Josh biding his time before he's impaled by a bison.

After a bit of a animal-induced high we jumped back into the car and started heading toward some of the main attractions. Well, before I go into the attractions maybe I should explain a bit about Yellowstone. Yellowstone is a park composed of two main loops. There's the larger southern loop and a smaller northern loops. There's probably a good 250ish (Maybe more?) miles of road to traverse in the park and the average speed limit I'd say is about 30mph (max 45). In other words- it's a pretty damn big park and you gotta go pretty damn slow through it. Kinda a big pain in the ass. To get a better idea here's a link to the official map.

So we started heading down the western side of the big loop toward the Lower Geyser Basin. You park and follow this wooden path raised over a sandy-muddy foundation. You walk along and can smell a faint sulfur scent and it's surprisingly warm. As you walk along there are these pools, gorgeous pristine blue pools, that have clouds of steam billowing off them. You'd never guess it by looking at them, but the pools are steaming hot. Like 190 degrees hot. Like people fall in/jump in and are scalded to death hot. It turns out the coloration of the water is due to certain bacteria growing in all these odd sulfery pools. Kinda interesting. Kinda smelly.

There was just all sorts of cool stuff! And this was just our first stop. Look at all this cool stuff...

Next stop was the "Grand Prismatic Spring." I think I like this one solely based upon it's kickass name. I wonder who's the guy who went so over the top with the naming? Anyway I really liked this spot. It just had some really cool scenery. Check it out.

This one might be my favorite. It's a photo of the warning signs they had all over... "Don't fall into the scalding water little Jimmy!"

Continuing we headed south to Old Faithful. As pretty much the largest attraction at Yellowstone old faithful has it's own lodge nearby and a large parking area etc. Issue is our faithful companion isn't quite as regular as you'd think. Right as we got there he was about go to off and frankly I wasn't about to go running to see some water shoot into the sky. Josh on the other hand went running like a school boy to the playground. He caught the last couple moments of the eruption. There would be no old faithful for me. And no pictures for you.

Directly south of Yellowstone National Park are the Grand Teton Mountains. Josh was interested in seeing them (I was a bit more partial to Yellowstone) but we all agreed to have a look. Josh tried to inform me that Grand Teton was french for "large breast." I couldn't believe that any pioneer could had been so horny that these jagged peaks reminded him of some tatas. But lone behold, Josh wasn't lying. Unbelievable.


The Grand Tetons were nice. Josh seemed to enjoy them more than Yellowstone. They were similar in many ways, but they just had a different feel to them. Probably the most noteworthy part was a large gathering of people. We pulled over to see what it was for ourselves when we saw it. Off in the distance, a Grizzly Bear. About 100 people all gawking at a Grizzly. What protection did they have? None. There was a ranger there with a large can of bear mace but honestly, I don't think it would have stopped them. We all took some photos and decided not to stick around and tempt fate. I think we've seen enough bears for one cross country trip.

Tad tough to see, but that's a grizzly.

Afterwards we decided to head back, we were all pretty exhausted. Sightseeing is shockingly taxing physically. And frankly it was going to take quite some time to make it to camp going 25 mph. On the way out we did catch a beautiful sunset though!



Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 0.0 (Day off, 3rd day of rest)
Total mileage- 901.58

Katie's Arrival

Wednesday, June 25th. Josh woke up significantly earlier than me. I dare say an hour or so earlier and I found him working on his journal (if i haven't mentioned, he writes a hand journal). We chomped some food and took another quick dip in the river to wake my ass up, and started back on the road. It was a good day- the wind was no longer at our heads and if so long as everything went smoothly we were scheduled to arrive at the western entrance of Yellowstone! Sadly though, before we get there we had to cross a couple decent sized hills. Give and take, that's how it goes.

So we're coming up on the first hill and Josh is in the lead. I see some man walking out into the road, across the street from his parked SUV. He walks right up to Josh, talk a minute, and then Josh moves over to his car. I figured the guy was having car issues or something, but as I approached he held out a bag of treats. Before I even got off my bike I had the bag of trail mix in my hands. The guys name was Bud, and apparently he was a support vehicle for his friend who I believe was named Roger. See, Roger was an old time Iron Man athlete and was riding cross country, coming from East to West. Now, Roger wasn't exactly young, but still doing his best to complete his trip. I mean, give him a break, he was a freaking Iron Man for God's sake! Roger had been breaking up the trip into a couple hundred mile segments and completing it year by year. Good for him. We waited a while for Roger to meet us at Bud's location and we all discussed the road ahead and his experiences. Very cool guys. I personally enjoyed Bud's departing words to us... "Someday you'll be a rich old man too and you can help people too!"

Stocked up on granola bars and trail mix we trekked on. It was very odd biking for a while. It only happens once in a while but sometimes you'll bike up the oddest roads. You'll be cycling.. pedal pedal pedal and all the sudden you'll be thinking "Why is it so hard to keep going?" The road looks flat. There's no wind. But it's just hard. Sometimes the road even looks downhill. I'm not really sure how the perspective gets skewed but it happened to both Josh and myself so it definitely wasn't me. It turns out you're actually biking up a hill and would never know it less you turn around. Steep hills at that. I'd often find myself checking my tires to see if they were flat because it just seems too difficult for something to not be wrong with my bike. I suppose I should had been happy though, it was one of the rare occasions something wasn't wrong with it.

We made it over the hills and kept pushing closer and closer to Yellowstone. The area there was simply beautiful...

... and Josh makes me look so fat.. but still not a bad picture.

And later I spotted two mountain goats going up a cliff. You ever seen a mountain goat climb? It's friggin' crazy! Now I'm no geologist, but it had to of been at least a 60% grade or more. Or I could be completely wrong. But regardless, it was steep. And they were walking up it like it was nothing. I can hardly look up a 8% grade, let alone what they were doing.

About ten miles outside of West Yellowstone (the town on the West entrance of Yellowstone- our destination) we had a pleasant meeting. A friend of mine, Katie, had decided to drive out to Yellowstone to meet us. I mean, who wouldn't want to see Yellowstone? And us of course. It was going to rock. Yellowstone's a big place and I wasn't particularly looking forward to having to bike through the whole damn thing. With Katie here now we'd have the pleasantry of having two full days to rest and get chauffeured around the national park. Katie- you're the freaking best. We sent her ahead to see if she could find a campsite for us to stay at for the following days. She did, and it seems like a decent place. The only problem was that it was six miles off the beaten path. I wasn't thrilled about the detour, but I was thrilled to be done biking for a while.

But hey! On the way up to the campsite we hit our 900th mile!



Milestone 9 of 35ish.

We set up camp and got organized, discussed and chatted and decided to head into town for some grub. I can not begin to tell you how excited I was. We found an all you can eat pasta place! Josh you sure ate a lot of food on this trip.. but I definitely manned up and took you down on this one. Three? Four plates? I forget. But a damn lot of pasta. I was in heaven.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 47.26
Total mileage- 901.58

Prince of Garbage

Tuesday, June 24th. Really, not a horrible night for sleep considering we were in a garbage dump. Alright, so it wasn't like "a garbage dump" more like the local area where to 300 people who lived in a 50 mile radius brought there garbage to dump it. The only bothersome part about the place was the wind was the wind. It was so strong it was pushing the tent over on me during the night, and that was a bit annoying. Certainly more annoying was what we had to look forward to that morning.

Typically I like the idea of waking up to a moderately easy morning. A bit of a warm up period before we get the real sweat on, ya know? No such luck. We woke up facing a pretty damn big hill. I don't have exact measurements, but it was a good couple mile hike with a slight head wind and let me tell you- it kinda blew. I freaking hate hills.

So after being awake an hour or so I'm already drenched in sweat and moderately winded. We get to the top where Josh demanded I take a video of him but wouldn't explain why...

I suppose Josh enjoys some of the simpler things in life... I suppose you can't blame the man. Who wouldn't want to run over a bunch of potato chips? It's a memory we'll cherish for life. Thank god I taped it.

So we fly down the hill. Always fun. We stopped at the post office and shipped some more stuff home.. nothing too exciting. The views were nice. One thing Montana is always good for- seeing beautiful valleys surrounded by snow capped mountains. Very nice.

We pushed on through the day, eventually coming to a long stretch of nothing. Just a long vast road with a moderate head wind. It's just so draining. Not so much physically, more mentally. See, typically with direction of wind save head you get gains for your work. You're going 12mph and start to work harder and go 14mph. Then you can cruise comfortable there. But with the head wind you're going 12 and push harder just to maintain speed. But mostly you lose and soon you're going 11... then 10... then 8... and before you know it you're just thinking "How am I still pedaling and going so slow? This blows." Then the math kicks in. I start calculating how long it'll take me to big certain mileages at certain speeds and before you know it I'm depressed knowing I have four hours of biking left with a headwind just to make 30ish miles. This is the point where I'm ready to give up for the day. Luckily, this was also the point Josh was ready to give up as well.

We found a nice little campsite next to a river and a sheer rock wall. We pitched our tent and I went for a little dip in the river. Honestly the water was moving really fast and I was a little concerned. But, in the interest of cleanliness and stupidity I took my time wading waist deep in the freezing stream and felt quite refreshed afterwards. I was amazed, even Josh got in. For all of about 35 seconds... but he still got in. Good work Joshyboy.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 41.46
Total mileage- 854.32