July 5, 2018
Dubois – Lander
122 km (75 miles)
593 m (1945 feet) elevation
4:23 moving time
2541 km (1579 miles)

Today was a great day riding mostly downhill and with the occasional tailwind. The area is called Wind river because there is apparently constant wind here.

At one of the photo spots we met Ed and Rita from Arizona who are riding around in their Harley Davidson. Ed showed me his pistol in the side bag which is for ‘protection’.

At a snack stop we met Rob whose blog we started reading before we started our own journey. We had a great conversation. His blog is https://rustycrankc2c.blogspot.com, check it out.

We are finally out of bear-land and into rattlesnake-land. Seen a few dead ones by the road. Much easier to avoid snakes than bears! There are fewer trees now and much more desert like scenery.

Got shouted at today for the first time. We were riding on the white line between the road and the shoulder as the shoulder was barely ridable. There was basically no traffic so the driver had plenty of room. The only thing we heard was “over” but not sure what it meant. Some possibilities:

• Dover (maybe his birth town)
• Red rover (somewhat childish and we had not time to play that game)
• I bend over (Good for you about being openly gay but TMI)
• Move over (probably not but while knows)

We have noticed that there is very little trash laying around unlike in many places in Iceland.

Many people travel with huge RVs. Some are bigger than some apartments and have a car in tow. Once we saw a pickup pulling a trailer-home and the trailer was pulling a boat. It was like a small train all by itself.

About 10 km out of Lander a big cloud was building above our heads and we felt a few raindrops. We powered the pedals as hard as we could and outran the rain until we hit a hill when the rain caught up with us briefly. The race was back on down the hill and into town and we are proud to say that we won this round.

When we arrived in Lander we went to the bike shop which gives TransAm riders free ice cream and beer. What a wonderful way to greet people! We had them clean our chains and cassettes.

We recently got an explanation about the less than friendly attitude we experienced in Montana. Apparantly the old time cowboys recent the number of rich people from the west coast buying real estate in their state and they fear that their culture is under attack. Our cycling clothes are probably not what hardcore cowboys would like to see in their home towns.

We forgot to mention that when you go camping in Yellowstone there are locked ‘bear boxes’ next to all camp sites where people must put all their food and items that smell such as toothpaste, sunscreen, etc. The reason is that if the bears come into the campground they will not look into your tent!