Day 52, July 9th 2008, beginning in a remote area close to Baggs, Wyoming

I awoke in the middle of nowhere… oh yeah, that's where we chose to sleep the night before. I did the typical morning routine where I tried to take care of some stuff while Pauly bear got some more sleep (he likes that stuff). This morning's work was catching up on some blogging. After a couple hours and countless horn honkings from jokester truck drivers, Paul got up, so we packed up and left. I hadn't had any of the water since the prior night's dinner, so I was looking good enough to make the long stretch of 40 miles to Creston Junction, labeled on the map as a food stop. Paul had only had a little. We made a decent pace towards Creston Junction, althought it was a bit uphill from where we had started.

Riding in from a distance, the junction did not look like much, which was a bit concerning. When pulling up to the junction, it still didn't look like much. There was a beaten up old firework selling store, and that was it. No food, no water, and we were running low. There may have been a few expletives released at this point, but the important thing was that we had to ride another 26 miles to Rawlins, before we could have any refreshments.

We conserved our water as best as possible along the trip, but it was tough since the dry air dries out the mouth quickly. Fortunately, we had the first tailwind we enjoyed since maybe Louisiana, which was a bit concerning for our future in Wyoming, as it was heading directly east. Oh well, we'll enjoy it now. The miles couldn't go by fast enough. When we neared Rawlins, I saw a sign that I saw buffet on it pointing towards a restaurant/gas station (typical trucker stop). We nearly passed it as the sign cycled through all sorts of gas specials and whatnot. As we got very close, I noticed buffet again, for sure this time. We were ecstatic. We actually crossed the interstate over the median to take the most direct route.

The buffet was all we could have hoped for, and more. After feasting on insane amounts of food, shameless Paul actually fell asleep in the booth. While Paul slept, I plugged my computer in an outlet and blogged more. I had a lot of catching up to do, and was making a lot of progress.

When Paul awoke, he and I both got round two of our buffet before we left. We filled our bottles, and headed out again. We headed to the north end of Rawlins, and picked up some cheap granola like bars at a dollar store. We were unsure about what was ahead of us, but we knew there would be nothing for at least 30 miles.

The wind that we enjoyed heading to Rawlins, was now a head on enemy. It slowed our progress a bit, but we eventually made it to Lamont, a speck on the map. There was a restaurant called Grandma's Diner in Lamont, but it was either abandoned or closed for the day upon our arrival. There was someone inside whose attention we were able to get. Clearly the restaurant wasn't open, but the man who came to the door pointed us to a spicket that was outside, as he watched a widescreen tv inside. Come on, clearly we were out of that southern hospitality. He did tell us there was a gas station 11 miles up the road, but it would be closed by the time we got to it. I was still quite thankful, as water was all we really needed; we had food on us, and could get some first thing in the morning.

We headed over to the spicket which was guarded by two boxers… the canine version. The male, was pretty friendly. The female was pregnant, and wasn't backing down, but eventually (after a lot of thinking) we outsmarted her. When Paul, couldn't operate the spicket, a young kid came out hobbling on one badly injured foot and showed him how to do it. We felt for him as he explained he was going to work through it, and we were nearly sure he would never have it properly treated. We were happy to have the water, but very weirded out by the whole place.

Once we were filled up, we figured we would camp as close the gas station as possible while still being somewhat hidden. The wind had died down as it was nearly dusk, and we made the 10.5 mile trip nice and quickly. Much like the night prior, we pulled a safe distance off the road and set up our tent. Another nice cool night would make for a good rest. An earshot from a gas station, we would load up in the morning to make our next stretch through the grand state of Wyoming.

Life was good.