Mine (town) Oming

Day 32 - July 8th
37.5 miles
Total: 1302 miles
Moving Avg: 6.8 mph

After yesterday's hard battle, we opted for a no alarm morning. We slept hard, and woke at 6:45. As we packed up, Phil woke up, and we ate breakfast together before making a dash for Atlantic City, 21 miles away.

The three of us rode at roughly the same pace, though it is apparent that Phil is a stronger cyclists. He has biked in Bolivia, Chile, and Peru (and probably some other places). The ride was a fairly standard fare great basin ride, through low laying shrub, and a sandy gravel road. The difference this day brought was that there was a mountain range in the distance to look upon.

And, just when I thought Wyoming had a ban on trees, I beheld a magnificent shade giving, wind blocking, shrubbery of such great girth it must be a tree. Sure enough, we had reached an elevation where trees could exist in nestled valleys of burger bearing buildings.

Yes, we arrived in Atlantic City, and the three of us plunged down a steep ravine straight into the only restaurant in town and ordered big juicy succulent burgers and soda. By meals end, we each had consumed four sodas with our big burgers, and we bought one for the road.

Since we have a care package to pick up in Pinedale, our pacing is being adjusted for a Sunday arrival, and a Monday pickup. This means we get to enjoy a couple low mileage days. As such, we only needed to knockout 15 miles after Atlantic City.

We rode out of the deep ravine of Atlantic City, back into the wind, and down into the next deep ravine of South Pass City. South Pass was a boom bust town of the gold mining era. It rose to a population of around 3000, and was the biggest city in Wyoming at the time. Now it has a population of four people and two dogs.

The state has worked to restore several buildings to their Gold Rush days, and now the town functions as a walking museum. We stopped in the general store, where all goods are packaged with their antique labels, and the shopkeeper is dressed in antique garb.

We bought a fat boy ice cream sandwich.

Then we pulled away from town, and cycled the remaining miles to camp, passing by historic landmarks on the Oregon Trail and Pony Express.

We are camped up river from a rest stop on the highway. It is out of the wind, there is a tree, and aside from the large volume of mosquitos, it is a rather pleasant site. All three of us even wandered over the Sweetwater River and took a pseudo swim, pseudo bath in the water. We even found some gold nuggets in the water, but we didn't want the extra weight, so we threw them back in.

Live life at a slower place.

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