June 15 (Into Yellowstone)

 

Note from the editorial assistant on July 13:

Somewhere around July 2nd or 3rd, Bill dropped his phone and broke it.  He just got the replacement phone a day or so ago.  He's going to try to get caught up with his blog entries in the next few days.  I think Bill can reconstruct/recreate the maps from June 15 till he lost the phone.  If he can, I'll update this entry when I get the map.  We're not sure whether he can manually enter data for the phone-less days. 

In the meantime, he's very backed up on writing any posts.  This one has been sitting around, waiting for me to finish it, for several days.  But after this, he'll have to find some time to sit and write. 

I am trying to keep the U.S. map at the top of the blog pretty well up to date with his actual progress.  He is supposed to arrive in St. Louis this evening, where he'll visit with  Dr. Mark and Mardi Manary from Project Peanut Butter.  He hasn't seen these wonderful people since he volunteered with PPB in Malawi during his gap year between high school and college! They should all have a nice time catching up with each other.

By the way, if you're enjoying Bill's TOURING TERRAPIN blog, you might want to take a look at his Away In Malawi blog that he wrote when he spent his eight months in Africa...

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I woke relatively early today, not wanting to be a burden on my impromptu host. I only talked to him for a little while before I headed off to see Travis' shop – and get my promised shower.

 

Meeting Travis was quite fun. He explained to me that because he had responsibilities - a job, kids - he could not go on a cross country bike tour like me. As such, he opted to sign up for WarmShowers and live vicariously through the cyclists he hosts! He was practically throwing food at me to take on the road, and the shower felt amazing.

I also tried my hand at instant hot plate pancakes this morning, to middling success.

I tried to keep today's ride short to compensate for yesterday's hellishness. As such my ride was a short 30 or so miles into Yellowstone National Park and its outlying town, West Yellowstone.

 

Funny thing about my stay in 'West', as they call it: I managed to receive my spending money (Western Union money transfer) and also spend most of it in the span of about an hour. You see, I've been looking to get a pair of Shwalbe Marathon Plus tires to replace my Bontrager Hardshells that were starting to wear out; I've been hearing that the Shwalbes are the best tires out currently, and that the Marathon Plus is the most puncture resistant of the lot. (I'm all about not getting flats) However, Schwalbe is a foreign brand, so not many retailers carry them, and I wasn't too hopeful that the bike shop in West would carry them. I asked just for kicks though, and they had them! So obviously I had to buy them, right? And there went almost a hundred dollars of my specially wired cash.

Past that, I entertained myself for a while – about an hour – at the Welcome to Yellowstone sign by taking family group photos with the sign. No cameraman left out of the picture if I could help it! One father even gave me five bucks because he was so happy to have the whole family included for once! (I couldn't exactly refuse him with my new found poverty.)

Finally, when I pulled into the hiker-biker site at Madison Junction I got to talk to a pair of Yellowstone regulars, two cyclists who often ride into Yellowstone on their bikes and see the sights. I heard from them that I was actually lucky that I didn't make it to Yellowstone last night; apparently, there was a major storm passing through and they had to suffer through sleet and hail! You see how lucky I am? Imagine what could have happened to me had I been stuck in the hail and sleet last night!