Day 43 – Gillette, WY to Buffalo, WY

July 12^th:

Another century day for the books.  My riding group was Sean, Halle, Zack, and Lindsay.  We started our morning off with our usual dedication circle and 4K cheer at 5:30am.

We headed out of Gillette and hit some big rolling hills through the countryside.  The views were incredible!  Wyoming is so great.

Martha fell biking out of the first water stop, and we couldn’t help but laugh about it.  She couldn’t help it, either.

We passed through a “town” called Spotted Horse with a population of 2.

I took a photo by an informative history sign because it said “Wyoming” and we hadn’t gotten a state sign photo since we came in on a gravel road.

Today was the first day we could see mountains in the distance!!!  I called them the Rockies, but really they’re the Big Horn Mountains, although I’m convinced that they are just a subset of the Rockies.  Anyway, it was SO COOL to round a corner and see the snow-capped mountains in the far distance!  It’s probably too difficult to see them in this photo, but they’re there!!!

Lindsay got in the van at the second water stop.  It was a long and hard day, both mentally and physically.  During the day, I thought about how to explain what we talk about on a day like this.  Really, we talk about nothing in particular.  We talk about whatever comes to our minds.  We sing songs that Halle was playing from her phone, ask each other random questions, etc.  This sounds dangerous (because it is), but we played a game where you had to close your eyes and maintain your position between the yellow line and the white line/rumble strips for as long as possible while riding.  You could see for miles behind and miles ahead, so we didn’t have to worry about cars.  We had the roads to ourselves for most of the day, so we took advantage of it.  My personal record was 14 seconds, while Halle’s was 1 minute 7 seconds… and she opened her eyes by her own choice because it was going on for too long. 

After lunch, Zack and Sean tried to convince us that we had 30 miles left, when really we just had 20.  They actually fooled me at first, but then we saw mileage signs for Buffalo and they were ratted out.  There were horses that we stopped to pet and feed on our final stretch.

We finally made it to Buffalo!!!

Sean thought it was comical to take a snapchat of me laying in the grass near this sign with one of the many filters available on the app:

We picked up some stickers from the visitors center and spoke with the man who worked there all about Buffalo.  He said that bears and mountain lions have come into the town before, although it’s a rarity.  There are tons of hiking trails around town, since it sits at the base of the Big Horn Mountains.  I thought the downtown area was so cute and the surrounding mountains were awesome!