Day 25: Rough road, happy camper

Day 25
Destination: Lusk, Wyoming
Thursday’s mileage: 52. Total: 1,412

So I left Douglas, Wyoming, after a great night’s sleep and decided to trust not one but two GPS maps that directed me to a road that, for a change, wasn’t a state highway. I was so excited to travel a bit off the beaten path that I didn’t ask the locals if my plan was sound.

Turns out, that was my first mistake.

After about six miles on a beautiful, rolling country road, I passed a sign that I will never again ignore: “Pavement ends.”

And so it did.

My road to perdition, the punishment for ignoring the “pavement ends” sign.

The road was gravel and dirt, and for at time I thought: “Hmmm, this isn’t so bad. It can’t go on much longer. I’m sure there’s a ‘pavement ends’ sign at the other end — it must be just over this next rise. … Or the one after that.”

That was my second mistake.

For 14 miles, I kept riding my skinny-tired road bike along this unwelcoming road, which became less and less forgiving. The rocks became bigger. The compressed dirt became loose dirt and then sandy dirt. I had to walk at times. At other times, I just plodded along at about 6 miles an hour trying to reach pavement. I considered turning back, but by the time I actually considered that, I was too deep. I had to keep going.

There were very few houses. Then no houses. A few signs forbid passage because, I’m assuming, there were active drilling or mineral extraction sites (or something else?). I made friends with a few horses. I listened to a book. I tried my best to conserve water on this 90 degree day. And after a little more than 2 hours, I put my tires down on blacktop. I was sapped. Riding 14 miles like that felt harder than 60 miles on the road. And I still had 32 miles more to go. Seemingly all uphill and into the wind. Always uphill and into the wind. This idea of prevailing westerly  breezes is a good one. And when it happens, it’ll delightful. … Maybe today’s the day.

Just before we reached our ultimate destination, the town of Lusk (or more accurately, the Prairie View Campground on the outskirts of Lusk), Melody spotted a truck stop. You know what happened next. Pie and ice cream, is what happened next. It had to be.

I hesitated writing today, knowing that the internet would be ablaze with news and commentary and hate-filled speech and sad accounts of the horrific shooting in Dallas coming a day after the cop-involved killings in Minnesota and Louisiana. But this morning, Bruce (who owns the campground) said: “We have plenty of that kind of negative stuff on the internet. That’s what’s dividing us. Maybe what we need is more stories like yours, from the road.”

So I wrote. Peace everyone.

A little pie porn from the 3 Sisters Truck Stop in Manville, Wyoming.