GDMBR Day 36
Start: Rawlins, WY
Finish: Abandoned ranch somewhere
Miles: 90.2 miles
Odometer: 1,442 miles
Ascent: 3,100 feet
Descent: 2,900 feet
Location: https://share.garmin.com/Judice
Highlights:
I rode 90 miles today through Wyoming’s Red Desert (Continental Divide Basin)! Not by choice. The wind was fierce. There was no place to stop without being exposed to high winds. It was either sit in the wind (which is pure misery) or try to make miles by riding through the wind (only slightly less miserable). Around 6 PM I came across an abandoned travel trailer with a missing wheel and the axle sitting on an old stump. I considered spending the night in it, but I was afraid that it would come crashing down. Five or 10 miles down the road I discovered what appeared to be an abandoned old ranch. It was a number of dilapidated wood buildings with tin roofs interspersed with a few abandoned travel trailers. I set up my tent between two of the old buildings to get some reprieve from the high winds. I looked inside one of the buildings and saw barrels of what looked like industrial chemicals (but it could have been anything). The winds were rattling the roofs and making all kinds of noise. Just as I was finishing setting up my tent when the skies opened and spewed down rain. I cooked my dinner and ate inside my tent. Throughout the night the wind whipped and tugged at my tent while the metal roofs banged their chorus. I thought the wind was gonna blow us away. I did not get much sleep. And then my imagination ran away and I thought, what if I’ve stumbled across a methamphetamine lab. So then I started calling the place “meth camp”. I imagined being shot dead in the middle of the night right in my tent. That did not help bring on sleep. On the positive side, meth camp had an excellent, clean outhouse.
Today, I ran across a CDT thruhiker that I breakfasted with down near Pie Town, NM on May 12. Remember the three Canadian military veterans from Nova Scotia? All three “flipped” up to Wyoming to hike the desert since the snow in northern New Mexico and Colorado has rendered their trail impassable for most. I am riding down this old dirt road through the desert and here is one of the these guys. We both laughed and caught up a little. He told me that his two buddies are a day or so behind him.
I am used to carrying more water than I need, except today. I left Rawlins with about 2 ½ L of water and would discover that was not nearly enough. The Red Desert was completely dry. I ran out of water at about mile 60 and began thinking that I had another hundred miles before I got out of the desert. I road a mile off the route looking for the CDT trail in hopes that there might be a water cashe nearby. I came over a little rise and down below was a large reservoir. I didn’t see that on the map. The sight of water made me very happy.
I have a pretty eclectic taste in music. Many years ago when the iPod was in its infancy, I was given a hard drive with some 30,000 songs on it. They were MP3 tracks. Over several years I went through that long list of music and rated each song in iTunes from one to five stars. And then I deleted all the one and two star tracks. The four and five-star tracks are downloaded and available off-line on my iPhone. So I have a lot of music from all different genres ranging from country music to showtunes to rap to R&B to alternative to jazz to blues and everything in between. It’s just so happens the Tom Jones song entitled “It’s Not Unusual (To Be Loved By Anyone)” started playing while I’m climbing a hill. What can I say I like Tom Jones. So I’m climbing over this hill and I have a strong headwind. This combination (hill and headwind) always puts me in a good mood. Just as I get to the top of the hill I see a bull mounted on one of the cows. The scene with the sexy background music made my day. Or at least help me get through another few minutes of hard riding.