I arrived in the Yellowstone National Park today, after only 53miles. It feels a bit like a milestone. I have not seen much so far, but tomorrow will cycle through the Lower and Upper Geyser Basins. Hopefully I will see Old Faithful erupting.
Earlier in my trip I talked to a guy who was of the opinion that compared to the Swiss mountains, Yellowstone is not all that special. However, they are not really comparable: Swiss mountains can go on chocolate boxes and are so, so cute. Obviously not the high Alps but everything below that is cultivated and penetrated. Not so here. You wouldn't put the Rocky Mountains on chocolate boxes. There is maybe a ribbon of road, some houses or meadows here and there, but appart from that, wherever you look, it's nature untouched. Impressive and overwhelming.
For tonight I had booked online into a campsite at a cost of $37. However, when I arrived they told me that I qualified (obviously) for a hiker/biker rate of $11. Although not obliged, they canceled my original booking. It's good to meet reasonable people.
Last night I stayed in Twin Fork, a campsite at the Madison river. I set up my tent and went to get some water. When I got back the three guys camping next to me warned me not to go back to my tent because of the moose. The moose? A first I thought they were pulling my leg, then I saw him, 7ft tall, munching away in the bushes right behind my tent. Later on he was wandering around the campsite as if he owned it and everybody gave him a wide birth. I suppose if you are 7ft tall and have 6ft wide antlers, nobody is going to argue with you.
On the way there I passed the one of these Prairie towns and what struck me was the size of the angled parking spaces on the right and the left of the main street: They could have easily accommodated one of your busses, Tommy. In fact it could have accommodated a whole Stagecoach fleet. Compare that to trying to get in and out of a car in a Scottish parking lot. But then, here they do have a very different relationship to space: There is so much more of it.
For the last few days I rode for some of the time on busy roads without hard shoulder. When there was no traffic from the opposite direction, cars and lorries would usually give me a wide birth. However, when there was traffic from the opposite direction as well, I had to watch, particularly if two lorries were going to cross right where I was. At 65 mph, they were unlikely to slow down so it was best to get off the road altogether. So on these narrow roads it was a matter of continuously keeping eyes open and continuously calculating which vehicle was going to be when where.
So far I have not been bothered by wildfires, although there was some faint smell of smoke in the air. However, I found out that if I would have passed through Sula a few days earlier, I would probably have had either to wait or get a lift through the smoke. It must have been bad, even people used to it were complaining about it. Luckily I just missed it.
The night before I stayed in Bill White's Bike Camp in Twins Bridges. It's free, has a common room, a shower and is run by the town. However, it was Bill's initiative in 2009 to set it up. You would imagine that he was a philanthropist. He was but he was also a business man. He saw all these cyclists racing though the town without stopping and spending any money. According to him it was "like gold running down the river". Anyway, I very much appreciated it and spent $25 there. The town was also a first on my trip for ringing the church bells every hour. Rather cute .
There is a lot more to tell but just to finish a quicky about mechanicals. So far, I have had no problems myself, but I heard a story about a guy who's gears were stuck in lowest setting and he had to get to the nearest bike shop, 60 miles away. Whilst that gear was ok for climbing, he also had to get across 30 miles of flat prairie. Can you imagine him furiously peddling, but getting nowhere? Crossing the prairie is challenging enough if you have all your gears.
Looking ahead, I have now planned my stages right up to Pueblo, arriving there on 6 September. I will spend Labor Day (4 September) in Breckenridge in a hostel or motel. Then it's over the Hoosier Pass the next day. So, the first part of the trip is now all planned out and then it's what some people call the Dreaded Third of the trip, going across Kansas.
