Thursday, May 11, 2006

Day 37: Thursday, May 11

My computer has a temperature feature on it, and when I woke up this morning it read 16 degrees inside my tent! That is the coldest it has been so far. Unfortunately, we weren't aware that there was a water outage scheduled in Walden this morning. Of course our water bottles had frozen over night. We rode the 21 or so miles to Rand, but everything in the town was still closed for the winter. We had no choice but to push on.

















By late morning, we rode over the third highest pass on the trail, Willow Creek Pass (9,683 feet.) The next pass is Hoosier Pass, the highest point on the trip. Then it is all down hill to the Mississippi River (or so we hope!) The next town we came to was Hot Sulphur Springs, where we stopped for a well-deserved late lunch/early supper. As we were paying our bill, the server gave us a pass to get into the Hot Sulphur Springs Resort for free. We are really getting spoiled! This is the second day in a row that we have been able to soak in a hot spring. This resort is really nice. The water spills into 24 different pools built into the landscape.





We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the springs. I am certainly going to get a good night's sleep tonight! We set up camp in the city park that is across the street from the Resort. The plan is to ride the 56 miles up to Silverthorne tomorrow where we will meet Doug, Shayne's friend, who is planning on hiking in the area over the weekend. Then Saturday will be a leisurely day as we ride the 15 miles from Silverthorne to Breckenridge where we will meet Shayne's brother, Rex, who will take us back to their parents' place for Sunday. As I lay in my tent tonight, I am reflecting back on the seven days we spent riding through Wyoming. While it is hard to put into words, I would have to say that Wyoming's "theme" is the state that could have been a lot worse. Beginning with Yellowstone and the possibility of having to ride around the park to my stomach virus and the possibility of having to stop to the potential for 50 plus mph winds that either never materialized or seemed to always be at our backs.