You are not going to believe what happened today...
But first, last night. At 11:30 PM I was awoken by 3 loud couples at a house next to the Lava Mountain Lodge. They would intermittently come outside every hour or so (to smoke?) until after 3 in the morning.
I can sleep through a tremendous storm but evidently not through loud conversation....
Adding to that delightful experience, another person came home around 1 AM and cranked his stereo to what I can only imagine were ear melting levels because outside the house, he was filling the valley with, I hate to say, country western music. I think that only lasted until a reasonable 2:30AM.
But there was a silver lining. After I was awoken, I decided to use the facilities at the lodge and OMG, the sky was absolutely exploding with stars! The bright band of the Milky Way stretching through the heart of our frail dome. Local stars twinkling brightly against the backdrop of an inky black sky. I struggled to even find the Big and Little Dippers, hidden as they were by so many other, unfamiliar stars.
Thank you, loud couples, for getting me out to see the universe. NOW GO TO BED!!!!!
I was on the road a bit after 7AM hoping that the still air would hold for a few hours, and nearly froze off every appendage. As I was breaking camp, I didn't think it was all that cold, but there was that frost on the bottom of the ground cloth...
As I struggled by numerous ponds, many of them had a thin sheen of ice on the surface. Er, I guess it's below freezing.
I had to climb 2500' to a pass over 9500'. The freezing cold and extremely slow progress to altitude got me thinking that maybe I should just ride to Jackson Hole and fly home.
Maybe that was sleep deprivation talking?
I reached the pass at an average speed of less than 5 MPH.
Then, 17 screaming miles at an average 6% grade. That was when my feet turned into two blocks of ice, clipped into pedals. I was in my hunched over racing POSITION to reduce drag and must have been quite a sight to see with my ski mask pulled over my face and every layer I had wrapped around my upper body.
On the way down I stopped and talked to a southbounder: he had put in 120 miles yesterday and stopped so late, he slept in the Moran Junction post office.
I think 60 miles a day is a big day?
I didn't have the heart to tell him that he still had 15 miles of uphill ahead of him. At least the growing wind was at HIS back...
On that freezing but glorious downhill I came around THE turn and the entire Teton range sprang up in the clear morning sky. Patches of snow graced the stern, gray spires. Spectacular and a nice reward for the ice box treatment.
Then it happened when I reached the end of the long downhill: front tire went flat.
+&%-) +=:!_) %==++%:() $&
I don't have a spare so I'd have to try to patch one of the punctured tubes and hope that it would hold until I could get down to Jackson Hole, a long way away.
But as I'm cursing my fate, a Subaru pulls over a hundred feet down the road and STARTS BACKING UP! Turns out it was Scott and Sylvia who live within 5 miles from me back in Denver. Seriously? Scott saw me wobbling, knew I had just flatted and stopped to help. I asked for a ride to Jenny Lake but it was out of their way, so they dropped me off outside the park entrance: they didn't even take me in to the main road where they had to go anyway.
Needless to say I was disappointed, but it is what it is and I started the process of finding a tube to patch. Not 5 minutes later, Johnny, who works for a concessionaire at the park, slowed on the other side of the road and asked if I needed help.
"Are you going to Jackson?"
"Yep, let's get your gear loaded in the SUV."
THAT'S why Scott and Sylvia dropped me off in the "wrong" place: so Johnny could give me a ride to the bike shop in Jackson.
But wait, it gets better still. He volunteered to take me all the way back to Colter Bay later in the day, putting me right back on track for the continental bike route.
Are you kidding????
Nope...
At the bike shop in Jackson I got two hopefully more study tires and 3 tubes. I installed the new tires and tubes in front of the bike shop (they let me use their pump) and kept the tube that hasn't flatted as a second spare.
So, I'm sifting through my stuff, sitting on the floor in the bike shop, looking for my GPS which I thought I had lost in all of the loading and unloading (it was in a jacket pocket. Yay!), when someone walks up and says,
"Hey, mate!"
It was world bike traveler, Ben, who I had met a week ago just north of Steamboat Springs. Why would he be in that bike shop at that time, miles off the official route?
Crazy stuff is happening to me...
I bought him a tube and a patch kit...
Johnny was good to his word and, incredibly, on Labor Day weekend, late in the day, there were several campsites available when we pulled into Colter Bay (43.91002 , -110.64311). Plus, he used his employee discount to save me some money.
He dropped me and my gear right at the campsite. I asked if I could repay him in any way. Nope, just pay it forward.
I certainly will.
I don't have my maps here in this cafeteria, but I think I hit a city tomorrow and might be able to sneak in an update. After that it may be a long stretch before the next update.
Follow me on Spot.
BTW, when I tried to send my "I'm OK message" tonight the power indicator on the Spot was off: the batteries finally died. The power indicator had been blinking red rather than green; I now surmise that this means the battery is low.
GPS battery died yesterday, right on schedule: I get 6 days out of a set of batteries.
What a day 14, two weeks on the road. I'm hoping that mechanical difficulties are behind me now and, as the route turns more north later tomorrow afternoon, my headwind issues will be less significant.
JK
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