Day 24: Shoshoni to Thermopolis

Since the day was only supposed to be 33 miles or so, and since the day before was 10 hours of hard work on a bike, the team slept in until 8 AM. This meant that I got about 12 hours of sleep. I was ready to get up earlier, but looked around and saw people passed out so just stared at the ceiling for a while. My shoulder was stiff, but felt much better than it did at the end of yesterday's ride.

With no breakfast scheduled for just about the first time for the trip (thank you to all of our hosts) BJ jumped into action and whipped up some great pancakes. People meandered about casually, singing BJ's praise, and taking their time getting ready. A couple hours later, the team was finally ready to go and we set out on the highway, north towards the mountains.

We had been told that we would be going downhill into the canyon, but I wasn't expecting to go downhill towards the mountains. It would turn out that the 33 miles was more than 32 miles of downhill. Essentially, it was 32 miles of free ride all the way into town. But first we had to pass through the spectacular canyon.

The day before had consisted of sage brush desert for over 90 miles, so any variation would have been appreciated. As we approached the mountains, we came up on a lake and the rocks started to turn red. It reminded me of the Mediterranean area. We stopped at the mouth of the canyon and took group pictures over the dam, listened to country music and ate food like we had biked forty miles uphill. But we had only gone 15 and it was all downhill.

The canyon started with a series of three tunnels, which we had been told were a half mile long, with no lighting and no shoulder. So we took every precaution by sandwiching all of the riders between the vehicles and staying close to the wall in case someone tried to pass the trailer in the tunnel. A little disappointingly, the tunnels were about 200 feet long (if that) with sidewalks and such. We whooped and hollered through them anyway.

After the tunnels, the canyon walls shot up to what looked like 2,000 feet above our heads. A fast flowing river swept along on our left with white water splashing against the banks. With a steep decline, a lot of the team ripped through the canyons, stopping for pictures along the way. The canyon was the very definition of picturesque with the walls, the river, and even a train chugging up the other side. I deliberately took my dear sweet time since it's not to often we'll get to coast through 20 miles of spectacular canyon.

Biking along, I looked across the river and saw a sheer cliff with grass seemingly cascading from ridge to ridge like a waterfall. With a slight breeze the grass swayed, adding to the effect. I was thinking maybe I should just stop all together to really take it all in when I saw Stephen and Sam on the side of the road changing a flat tire. Even though they said they didn't need any help, it offered a good enough reason to stop. Shortly thereafter Nick, Natalie and Mercedes pulled over. Sam looked over at the river below the bank and said he'd like to jump in.

He was busy so I figured I'd walk over on his behalf and look anyways. Crossed the road, got over the guardrail and walked to the edge of the bank, which was about 20 feet high. Not too much longer, we had a little party going on the edge with the whole group. I wasn't too sure that I wanted to scramble down the bank, but Sam and Nick blazed the trail so we all went over (carefully) down to the river. We took our shoes off and sat on the big rocks while we dangled our feet in the cold water, laughing and joking around. Sam was looking for a little more and actually waded in and completely submerged himself.

After a good 30 minutes or so, we finally got up enough desire to scramble up to the road, although we weren't too eager to get back on the bike once we made it up there. But the road was still all downhill and the cliffs still high so it was an easy coast. Along the way, we met up with the town's newspaper journalist and he snapped pictures of us as we rode by. Then he'd drive a little bit further down and take more pictures.

We came out of the cliffs and into a little green river valley, no more than a quarter mile wide. At the far end were some of the reddest rocks I've ever seen and they jutted out of the ground at odd angles. After 30 miles of downhill, the short uphill was no problem and it was shortly after climbing it that we rode into town. Made the journey through town and up the hill to the church.

We weren't there too long before some of the riders came in with all sorts of free food they had picked up from the local businesses. We ate it up and talked about heading down to the hot springs that Thermopolis is named for.

We started the mile or so long walk down to the state park and then we were surprised to find that we were being let in free, complements of BJ's smooth talking and the owner's generosity. Since it would normally be nine dollars per person, this saved the team a bundle.

In the small water park were two 500 foot slides and a twelve foot diving board. I chose to get in the water via the board and after climbing to the top and jumping in, I was pleasantly surprised at how warm the water was. True, it smelled of sulfur, but it was quite warm. We took turns jumping off the board and swimming around before heading to the slides. The journey to the top was quite the hike, but both were a blast and it was always refreshing to splash into the water below.

We were at the pools for a couple of hours, switching between the slides, hot tubs, and jumping board. At the end, I leaned against a rock and took a nap while soaking in the warm pool. Quite nice. We left feeling relaxed and hungering for some ice cream. Conveniently, there was a stand on the way back and most of us satisfied the ice cream craving with large amounts of it, myself taking in about a pound of the stuff.

Arriving back at the church, we found dinner almost ready. Some of the congregation had made potatoes and salad, and I thought it was wonderful. Even all the ice cream I had eaten didn't slow me down as I cleaned my plate twice. We all introduced ourselves and they in turn talked a little bit about themselves. After an easy biking day, a long swim in the hot springs, and warm friendship from our hosts we were feeling pretty good.

We headed outside to just sit on the steps and talk, but then Mercedes and Stephen suggested we go to the buffalo park to check out the bison there. Sounded good so I joined the little group, which soon picked up Natalie and BJ as well. We went up to the top of the red hills, which in the setting sun seemed to flare, and drove a little way before coming up on a lone bison.

We all got out and looked at it and it looked back. It was only 50 feet or so a way, so we were pretty cautious. But it got a little boring since it just sat there. We inched a little closer, but not so close that we couldn't jump into the car. Probably against better judgment (but in retrospect funny), Stephen picked up a little group of pebbles and tossed it twenty feet away away from the bison to see what would happen. Well, not surprisingly, the bison didn't take too kindly to that and he stood up, turned to us, and snorted. I laughed as people scrambled to get into the car, but not too much later he plopped back down again and started staring off into nothing. In retrospect, though, this was a dumb and arrogant thing to do to the bison and I apologize to it.

We moved on and encountered some very friendly donkeys and talked for a little bit to a gentleman visiting the area as we watched the sun go down over the hills. Mercedes practiced bull chip throwing, but she's going to need some more practice if she hopes to make it further than ten feet. On the way back home, we stopped at the ice cream stand again and ordered burgers and ice cream.

I was in the church for about half an hour before I crashed out hard, well before anybody else. The day had felt almost like a vacation. Almost more so than what our days off tend to be.