It's been awhile since we have thrown ya'll an update... so here goes.
After leaving Sanborn to the tune of John Denver's "Leaving On A Jet Plane" with the "bicycle" replacing "jet plane", sung by the campers and staff, the Zoo rolled out.
From there we continued up to our highest elevation of the whole trip, Hoosier Pass at 11,542 feet! It was exhilarating to know that it was all downhill from there to the coast... not.
After that we had a fast downhill into Breckenridge. Upon arriving in Breckenridge, Jeff decided he couldn't be around that many tourists at once so we went 8 more miles downhill into Frisco where we ate an awesome dinner and watched the MLB All-Star Game. From Frisco we made our way into a town called Kremmling, which turned out to be the lamest town in the world, seeing as how no one wanted us to camp anywhere except miles outside of town. So we just got back on our bikes and kept going, 20 more miles to Hot Sulphur Springs. This town was awesome with free camping right along the Colorado River, and one of the best breakfasts we had eaten the whole trip.
From there the Zoo bike tour rolled into Walden where they each got showers at the city pool, and enjoyed a nice night of sleep in the city park. After Walden we entered our 7th state of the trip (8th if you count 30 seconds in Tennessee); Wyoming. Wyoming is the least populated state in the country with approximately 500,000 residents, and we could tell. You can go 60 miles in Wyoming without seeing anything, which led Jeff to say, "I think we are the only people left on earth," over and over. Though for it's lack of people, Wyoming is a beautiful place despite having almost no trees anywhere, ever!
We rolled into Encampment, WY and found that a Cowboy Celebration Weekend was going on, complete with dutch oven cook-offs, cowboy jamborees, and concerts. Everyone was walking around in full cowboy (and cowgirl) garb, and the Zoo looked hysterical in their spandex and matching bright yellow jerseys. Davo was in hog-heaven and stuck around there for the rest of the evening as the rest of us set up camp in the city park. He almost got stuck in the 1800's before he came to his senses.
The next day included a stop in Saratoga, home of some of the most relaxing natural hot springs we've ever been in. And the day ended in Rawlins, WY where the Zoo feasted on Subway and sprang for a cheap motel because 2 of us were a bit under the weather. Jeff, Boss, and Pick channel-surfed for 3 hours that night... and absolutely loved it. We woke up in the morning just in time to watch Tom Watson almost pull off the upset of the century at the British Open (now you know who is writing this one). We didn't get out of Rawlins until close to 3:30 but we made excellent time in getting to Split Rock. Which is where the Oregon Trail intersects the Pony Express - and we camped up ontop of the rock despite the no camping sign... definitely the best campsite we had to date.
We traveled from there downhill to Jeffrey City - which every Eastbound rider told us was the worst city of all time. It turned out to have an awesome breakfast spot, with an even more awesome Ms. Pacman arcade game (only 25 cents to play!) We spent a solid 2 hours there playing Pacman, drinking coffee, and telling the waitress that her high score was going down. Of course, Boss set the new high score and you would have never seen 5 guys huddled around an arcade game more excited than that!
We moved on to Lander with some wild terrain, crazy ups and downs, and a 10 minutes hailstorm which drenched us only 2 miles outside of the town. That night we had the worst dining experience ever. The food took an hour and fifteen minutes! A basket of saltine crackers came with someone's salad, and I think we asked for two more baskets before the meal started. Being that hungry then set us up to eat everything in sight as soon as the food was set on the table. The only problem was that it was pretty terrible, burgers burnt to a crisp and soggy french fries. It's not worth going into more details but for the first time the Zoo was told to leave the premesis with the threat of calling the police. It wasn't that bad, but the owner really had no sympathy or understanding for our plight. If you are ever in Lander, WY, under no circumstances should you eat at the Maverick.
Now there is another day in here but I can't even remember what happened until we climbed up Togwotee Pass elevation 9,658. Once we reached the top we were sorely let down as heavy construction forced us to put our bikes into pickups and ride 10 miles, stealing us of a well-deserved downhill ride. That night we ate at the Togwotee Mountain Lodge (and got the locals discount)! During which time Doug hopped into the restroom to wash off (a common occurrence for us known as a sink bath). As he was "bathing" Doug struck up a conversation with the head chef, who showed us a great place to camp for free behind the lodge, and asked us to eat breakfast for free the next morning! Talk about awesome, we were loving it!
After that great breakfast we zoomed downhill all the way until the Teton Mountain Range came into view! The Picknallys, in their last package, sent us a whole bag of shelled peanuts, which Pick held onto until this ride and we spent the better part of the morning filling our jersey pockets with peanuts and throwing them at each other on the bikes... sometimes you just get bored riding a bike. The Zoo started a trend of getting hosed throughout national parks when we paid 60 bucks to get into the Tetons... should 5 guys on bikes cost $30 more than 5 people in an RV?? We aren't emitting diesel fuels here. We quickly forgot about the price as we hung out on the shores of Jackson Lake all afternoon. Catching some rays, swimming around, and enjoying beer and wings all with the snow-capped, majestic Tetons in the background. That night, we had a sweet fire and made s'mores at our campsite(28 bucks! and we snuck 1 person in!).
The next day we exited the Tetons which included another 8-mile construction zone, thus we got in pickups again and entered Yellowstone National Park where we biked through the beautiful park and made our way to Old Faithful by the end of the day. Pick continually questioned Old Faithful's faithfulness, but she did eventually blow and we celebrated by cooking grilled cheese and tomato soup right there on the boardwalk. Jeff went off to the visitor center to check out camping options and came back angry. He was told by one of the park rangers that he would have to bike either 20 miles back the way we had come, or 40 miles out of the park... just to camp! Obviously, this wasn't an option seeing as how it was 8:00 pm. Thus, Jeff had some choice words for the ranger and even conjured up some images of John Muir and President McKinley and Roosevelt and the original reason for having National Parks. Luckily, Pick and Doug had more success asking around the Old Faithful Lodge and we were directed to a nice site for the night.
We were glad to be leaving the parks the next day as we entered Big Sky Country - aka Montana! As we were eating a pizza lunch in West Yellowstone (half off discount for bikers) we watched one dude rolling east into the park and we flagged him down so we could give him our ticket into the park. 10 minutes later he came back and walked into the restaurant to hang out with us, telling us that, "he needed some motivation." We proceeded to talk about every cool thing that had happened on the whole trip and Pick got so excited that he gave a bunch of inspirational quotes to him. As he was leaving, Pick told him to "Do it for the story" and he seemed genuinely more happy as he left. Soon after that, our buddy Chase, who we hadn't seen since Missouri showed up. The restaurant almost exploded we were so excited. He had been doing the Western Express route to San Fransisco when he and his companion changed their minds and hitched a ride for 2 days from Utah to Yellowstone... what!?! We were sure that we would never see him again, and all of a sudden he was back in our lives, it was hilarious.
Since then we made our way to Quake Lake, which was formed by a huge earthquake/landslide 50 years ago (you can still see the trees sticking out of the water). And from there we entered Virginia City, which is literally straight out of the 1860's. All the buildings are from the 1800s and well-preserved. We had the opportunity to sleep indoors at the community center basketball court (which is probably where basketball was invented) and it was great.
That just about brings us up to date, we are currently in Twin Bridges, Montana, with no plans of slowing down. Keep on reading, and I promise the next update will happen sooner!
In pressing news, Pick and Jeff bought cowboy hats. They look rediculous, but kind of sweet.
