June 21 (Headwinds, crosswinds, and construction oh my!)

I got up really late again today. I was actually worried that Nate might have already passed me in the morning and that I would never see the guy again. (I think I left at 10 a.m.) In any event, I pushed through some irritating headwinds until I hit this little café called "Annalope." It really was how the cute name that made me stop for lunch there. I was glad I did, the food was pretty good.

 

Oh yeah, and I crossed the great divide again at some point on the way to that, I forget where.

 

Right as I was leaving, Nate arrived at the cafe, which was funny to me. (Nope, no chitchat for you guys!) It was lucky for him too, the cafe was almost at closing time. In fact, I encountered most of the cyclists I met today near this cafe. A little before it I met this really interesting couple on a recumbent-standing tandem bicycle...

 

Another cyclist on a straight recumbent bicyclist...

 

And a group of five who were coming into the café as I was hitting the road...who I apparently forgot to take pictures of.

The next leg of the ride was one of the most grueling and demoralizing sections I have ever ridden on. Again, the wind was strongly in my face/sides, so the going was extremely slow even though it is so absolutely flat. To make that aspect worse, there was a really large hill/mountain ahead to climb, and it was close enough that it didn't look that far away, but far enough that no matter how long you rode it didn't feel like you were getting any closer... which is really demoralizing. Aaand the road was crappy and had no shoulder, which made the fact that there were miles of construction up ahead that much worse. (When there is construction on a road, they only let through one side at a time...which means that when the oncoming traffic comes through there are a torrent of cars coming at you, and the cars on your side have nowhere to go around you. Add that to no shoulder and half the time I had to pull over to not get hit.) And finally, all you had to look at the entire time was this.

 

Nate passed me halfway through, which did not help the demoralization problem.

Eventually though, at long last, I reached and passed over the mountain, once more...crossing the great divide. Seriously though, how many times am I going to cross this?

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur; I think my brain may have ceased functioning correctly, or maybe it just doesn't stand out as much as the previous section. Either way, I eventually reached Rawlins, and treated myself to some delicious Thai food. I even met another guy (hippie) on a cross country tour of his own. He however, was walking, though not above hitchhiking if offered.

 

Now I have been hearing about this place 40 miles away from Rawlins called Saratoga, and specifically its AMAZING hot spring from just about every cyclist I pass up until this point. I really wanted to stop there, but I was struggling with it. I mean, if I stopped in Rawlins today and wanted to go there I would have to settle for a 40 mile day tomorrow, and that's no good. On the other hand, it was getting dark...

Eventually I settled on, "Meh, what's 40 more miles?" And for once I did not regret my impulsive decision. In fact, it was one of the best decisions I've made so far! There was a full moon so I could see well even when I turned my headlamp off, and the stars were beautiful with no light pollution around to cover them. Plus, since I was riding at night the wind was almost nonexistent, and even though I passed through some (usually) extremely windy areas it was almost still.

Bill PSA:
For any of you that are going to respond like my parents did, "Bill, night/day time has nothing to do with the wind, the cyclists that told you that are pulling the wind over your eyes or fooling you..." YOU'RE WRONG. I have by the time of this writing done numerous night rides, and I can guarantee you that as a general rule - storms and other exceptions aside - the winds die down at night. I do not know why this is the case, but it is a real phenomenon.

Note from the editorial assistant:
He's right.  I didn't believe him but now I see there is a plethora of websites that explain this phenomenon.  Here is a Texas A&M answer about why the wind dies down at night.

So after a few more hours of glorious riding I arrived in Saratoga, and had absolutely no idea where the hot spring was. Luckily, there was a man working in his shop at midnight, and he gave me directions to it. And let me tell you, that 1AM hot spring after riding 90 miles was INDESCRIBABLY good. I think I just laid in there for an hour at least. OH YEAH, and they had hot showers there too. There are just no words. 

Afterwards I rode around for a little bit and ended up camping on a dune near the lake. What a day.