TOP: A portable tattoo parlor we passed along the way. Gill of course wanted to add to her "tramp stamp". She was going to get a giant eagle across her butt such that the wings would flap when she ran. Unfortunately, the RV couldn't stock that much ink, so she had to pass.
BOTTOM: Sunset over flaming gorge.
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Flaming Gorge was an incredible downhill, and luckily, I had the road when we got to it. It had something like 25 switchbacks, and a several thousand foot drop. While I was unable to set a new speed record due to the curviness, I just hammered the downhill; it was over an hour ride, and just incredible. Following us in the RV, Karen, Ben, and several of the others got out and did the downhill themselves, so incredible was it.
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We finally rendezvous'd at a lovely KOA (read: hot showers and a pool!) and after a good meal, bedded down for the night. The next morning, I had the sunrise pull, and headed off solo about an hour or two before my sag was supposed to switch me. I'm cycling along the rim of the Flaming Gorge, watching the reservoir and the sunrise, and, low and behold, a huge buck comes up alongside me, looks me over, and then proceeds to run alongside me, for maybe a mile or so. It was incredible, he wasn't spooked at all, basically just wanted to see if he could be "more deer" than me. I was hammering, he was loping along. Very, very cool.
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We were heading to Jackson, WY today, and expected a rough ride. It was a much narrower road, more traffic headed up to Yellowstone, and lot's of truck traffic from the WY energy firms...oil tankers, coal trucks, etc. We made Green River easily, but when we got there, the connector road that was supposed to allow us to bypass I-80 for the 10 miles to Rock Springs was nothing but a rocky creekbed. I guess it would be a road if you were on a mountain bike, or an ATV, but not on a road bike. We went and scoped out I-80 (you're legally allowed to ride on some interstates out in the west), but it was under heavy construction, down to one lane, and really not safe for a cyclist. So, we made the executive decision to pickup our rider, drive I-80 due east, and put her back down (it was Karen on the road). Discretion is the better part of valor.
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Anyhow, we put Karen back on-road in Rock Springs, just in time for the winds to pickup. So, here she is, all 120 lbs of her (ED NOTE: You owe me for writing this without comment...), with a 30mph headwind, minimal shoulder, big tractor trailers flying by at 80-90mph (oh, did I mention the speed limit on this secondary road was 75mph), just plugging along. Yeoman's effort for that leg!
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We slugged through the day, headed towards Jackson, where we knew we'd get a good meal and scenery. It was so bad that on one pull, John had us feeding him advil out the SUV window to minimize the brain pain! During the afternoon, we started having problems with the SUV (our sag wagon, a toyota highlander hybrid), where it wouldn't come out of park easily. We chalked it up to rental car trauma, and kept slogging along. That would come back to haunt us....
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"At least we didn't meet the green river killer" Lumpy out
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