jes’ don’t count the crosses on the way down

grand teton and yellowstone national parks provided a host of new experiences to our intrepid bike squad. experiences like paying to camp, locking our smellables (as if we owned anything that didn’t qualify as a “smellable” by then) to keep them from the bears, and wandering through the biggest single natural threat to humanity disguised as a sort of nature theme park (theme: death). yellowstone isn’t really set up for bikers, as the advice on bison sightings includes rolling up your windows and staying inside your vehicles, and the bike lanes, well, aren’t. still, we saw old faithful erupt to a multilingual chorus of oohs and ahhs, dodged several bison, deer, and elk, and made it safely to montana.

montana is known as “big sky country,” but our first hundred miles were in a canyon, so we were stuck with sheer cliff faces and the gallatin river. us highway 191 is breathtakingly beautiful, and is also the most deadly highway in montana, as the scores of white crosses indicate. in fact, most of us highway 191 consists of redesignations of us highway 666 through new mexico and arizona. of course, we just liked the road because it was downhill for 70 miles through a beautiful canyon with bridges to jump off and decent shoulders to ride on. there were twenty-one, by the way; thanks for the heads up, fellas.

we stopped in bozeman, MT to visit the latest incarnation of camp chesnutt. as we came into town, main st was blocked off with bikers huddled under awnings to keep out of the rain; as adam and i pedaled down the street, gathered crowds started cheering and whistling. without knowing exactly what was going on, we copped our best tour de france poses, tucking in hard and spinning as quick as our loaded bikes would allow. what we had serendip’d was the sprint leg of the only-slightly-less-legendary tour de bozeman, and it marked the only time we’ve had a chute finish to a standing ovation on our own tour. once at the house, katie’s UNC education finally came to some good, as she had gone to school with half of the folks up here (this marks at least the sixth time katie has been recognized by someone who should have been a perfect stranger). continuing our tradition of not resting on rest days, katie took a hike and adam and i saddled up on mountain bikes to run up mt hyalite. by run, i mean half bike, half bike-push. fact: i did not anticipate kicking steps into a 75° snowfield at any point on this trip. the run down was great, and if anyone is curious, there are plenty of plants with thorns in montana; also, i’m pretty sure the headset on katherine’s bike is pregnant now. sorry about that.

this marks the last rest day until we finish; from here on it’s about 1000 miles through western montana, northern idaho, and oregon.

wyoming has 500,000 people and two billion dollars in the bank. get out.

we have to do a lot of small talking to folks, and my favorite method is to introduce said folks to katie and then pretend to go adjust something on my bike. she’s good at it because she’s friendly and genuinely likes to learn about different cultures and lives and whatnot, and it’s fun because people like to tell katie slightly morbid stories. she goes to a coffee shop and sees a giant stuffed bear, and asks if she can take a picture with it on her bike.

“oh, sure, but do know that the bear is very special. it was given to us by a three year old. who’s dead now.”

she rides in a truck cab through a construction zone (there goes ACA rule #2).

“yeah, i drove trucks for thirty-seven years. i tried to look up my buddies a while ago. turns out they were all dead.”

nothing like an innocent face to make you want to talk about dead people to a perfect stranger.

still, wyoming is beautiful–by far my favorite state so far. the mountains are incredible, the desert is breathtaking, and my adjectives are inadequate. we stopped to do some hiking in grand teton national park, and hitched out to cascade canyon with a string of friendly bearded folks in vans (note to children: friendly bearded folks in vans should probably only be hitched with inside national parks or similarly patrolled areas). another nice development: people now tell us how close we are to finishing instead of giving us a skeptical “be careful” and a shake of the head. we’re about to hit three thousand miles, and i’m running out of memory on my camera, so we’ve got to finish soon.

i’m pretty conservative, except i shave my legs and drive a prius.

for the ACA to officially recognize a successful transamerica trek, two requirements must be met. the first one requires that cyclists stay on the official route for more than 90% of the published route, and the second forbids transport by motor vehicle (presumably, one could carry his or her bicycle for 4000 or so miles and still be in the clear). in kansas, we threw out any semblance of obedience to the former, veering wildly north towards nebraska in a state-bagging frenzy.

our greed did not please the cycling gods. within a day, the roads became carpeted with a layer of grasshoppers more numerous than the corn of the fields. things i have learned about grasshoppers in the past two days:

• they eat their dead (sort of a reverse-zombie thing)
• they are excellent jumpers but terrible landers
• they are capable of jumping mid-coitus
• there are a lot of them in kansas
• they feel like a one-pound sand spur when they land on your leg
• they go “crunch” when you run over them.

when we failed to turn back from this plague of erstwhile locusts, the gods’ wrath manifested itself as a great and furious storm, gathering tall and menacing over complicit acreage; the only shelter in sight a lonely split level ranch home.

the gods were steering us towards the great prophet william bean. much like yoda on dagobah, billy was a wyoming native in exile, eeking out a living in northwestern kansas. he gave us shelter from the storm, breakfast for dinner, and told us that to make up for our gratuitous bushwacking we would have to climb the great snowy mountains to the north.

we were still but unrepentant sinners. ignoring the prophet’s words, we hastened to the town of fort collins, meeting a false prophet (and state senator) along the way who boasted of dura-ace components, hybrid vehicles, and cheap mexican food. once in the city, we were lured by the siren symphony of free, wind-powered, bike-friendly beer, cool rivers, and discount sporting goods. we stayed for two days before heading on.

the cycling gods were now furious. the land buckled like a deflated mylar balloon. the winds howled their furies, from foreboding falsettos to terrible tenors, unrelenting and evil. the air reeked of rotting flesh and sin, and wyoming didn’t even have a welcome sign. our couchsurfing friend in laramie lost her phone (one assumes into an abyss or reasonable facsimile thereof) and katie’s friend’s sister’s uncle’s brother’s former tennis partner’s palm reader was at a wedding reception. when all hope seemed lost, and we were circling the lonely blocks of laramie, the gods sent the mighty and wise prophet dwayne flowers running from a bar.

“are you guys touring? i tour all the time! honey! go clean the dog shit out of the yard. i’m gonna buy these guys a beer and bring ‘em home!”

an aside: this is pretty much the touring experience in a nutshell. your plans fall apart, deus ex’s the machina every six hours or so, and you keep moving.

dwayne bought us more beer than we wanted and spun wildly into the night, beckoning us to follow with arms and legs that seemed more numerous than one’s usual allotment at birth; a sort of hindu god of bicycling and hospitality. he plopped us safely in his backyard, and left us early the next morning with our task: climb the snowy mountains.

the snowy mountains lie about thirty miles south of the interstate, which rises a mere 1000 feet to the snowies’ four. we had planned to take the interstate (or rather it’s frontage road, or the old highway, or really anything that didn’t involve going over a mountain), but the weight of two prophets’ words hung heavy on our panniers. we had no choice; we had to try.

you see, by bypassing southern colorado, we were dodging (innocently) the highest pass on the transamerica trail. all we wanted was a little adventure, a little fat tire-ing, and a little break from the map (although we did resort to rand mcnally after a few days), but the cycling gods are uncompromising in their integrity and insist on the same from us. so we climbed, it was beautiful, and now we’re back on route with consciouses cleansed.

man, i didn’t say no f%#ing f word!

the sunflower state, as it turns out, is like biking across a giant, hot, flat, smelly cheese pizza. we dodged one heat wave (or rather, took the brunt of it in kentucky), but apparently we are in for a second, starting tomorrow. although the lack of major hills seems nice at first, the lack of position changes leads to sore knees and bum pretty quickly, not to mention the macarena one ends up doing on the handlebars. unfortunately, we said goodbye to the cycle vikings in pittsburgh, but gayle the road warrior miraculously appeared rescue us from boredom and flat tires, shuttling katie all over kansas while adam and i slackpacked to victory.

while kansas is lacking in any sort of physical high point, the abundance of public pools helps to ease the burden of 105 degree days and surprise thunderstorms at night. of course, we all enjoy different aspects of pool culture–katie likes to start games of sharks and minnows with the local ruffians, adam likes to float down the lazy river and make eyes at the lifeguards, and i like to do 3/4ths of a front flip off the diving board and try to take my butt from vermillion to sangria. we like the pool/big miles combo so much that we’re detouring north to extend our stay in the sunflower state before heading west to ft collins.

did you know that there exists an agricultural machine specially designed to cover large areas of the ground with feces as quickly as possible? did you know, further, that kansas is one of the windiest states in america? it’s true!

as soon as they give me new knees im’a be out there with ya’ll

the show-me state (viewer discretion advised).

after crossing the mississippi and passing the first of several hundred firework stands, we spent the night in the mobile command center of the farmington fire department, which is exactly as cool as it sounds. we moved on to houston, texas county, MO, but didn’t see a rodeo until marshfield, MO. way to waste a sweet name, houston. The fact that MO boasts the best swimming holes in the country so far is worth noting. Alley Springs marks the convergence of said spring (cold) and a river (hot), which run side by side without mixing for a few hundred yards. I hit a new speed record in the Ozarks–46 mph–but this was quickly shattered by kev (51!). DIY fireworks plus the best pie ever in golden city, MO, and then on to kansas.