After a night of virtually no sleep at the Muddy Gap Gas Station, we awoke to rain and cold which hampered our plan to get an early start to try and beat the winds which we were told, if we were lucky, normally didn't come up until 9am.
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| Saying goodbye to Chuck at Muddy Gap |
The noisy air conditioner kept cycling through very 10 minutes or so keeping me awake all night, the floor was rock hard and I was suffering from a royal pain in the butt. But we were also thankful to be out of the wind and the thunderstorms that came rolling in throughout the night.
Warning: if you're uncomfortable reading about some of the intimacies that you can suffer whilst bike touring, then it might be best to skip the next couple of paragraphs and move on a few days.
What started as a pimple in a delicate position when sitting in a saddle all day, had blown up over the last couple of days into a full blown, large, nasty, angry boil, expanded to the size of a hardboiled egg on my right butt cheek. Riding was extremely painful and today of all days I just wanted an easy day.
But it was not to be. We left Muddy Gap during a break in the rain at 7:30am but by this time the winds had already come up, brought on early by the cold weather and the storms. Not quite as strong as yesterday, but close enough, we took off into a cross-headwind yet again!
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| 6th crossing of the Great Divide |
I don't have much to say about today except that Wyoming is no longer one of my favourite states! My head was down for most of the ride, not caring about the scenery around me, just trying to get through the day without breaking down in agony, without getting taken out by a truck if I lost concentration and let myself get blown into the road, trying to negotiate the cold wind and rain, as well as the worst stretch of poorly maintained, cracked road we had come across in Wyoming whilst dodging dead dogs and snakes on the road.
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| A roadside break with nowhere to take shelter out of the wind |
Thankfully when it counted we turned a corner to start another 6 mile climb over the Continental Divide and was able to let the tailwind push us all the way up the climb.
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| 7th crossing |
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| A barren land of nothingness |
Steve had promised us a hotel and a rest day in Rawlins to try and sort myself out so we can continue riding, calling it a "Medical Time Out". I think he was using my predicament as an excuse to get himself out of the dreaded wind for a day as he went to town, booking us into the Holiday Inn Express for 2 nights, his favourite in and out business hotel chain.
Ridiculously, the US government has taken the two or three boil medications that exist off the market and there is nothing I can get in a pharmacy to help me out. The pharmacist suggested a very, very long soak in Epsom salts ("if you have the time") to try and draw the thing out, so that is what I have been doing for the last day and a half, soaking in the bathtub in the Holiday Inn trying not to turn into a prune.
CRANKING ODYSSEY STATS
Total Odyssey miles: 1,715
Overall Fastest Speed: Steve (46 miles per hour) Mandy (36.3 miles per hour)
Bludge Days: 2
Bonks: nil
Dog chases: 3
Dummy Spits: Steve (3 - Day 10 because it rained; Day 16 - because the rocks in the river were slippery; Day 29 because it takes me so long to get ready in the morning)
Mandy (2.5 - 0.5 Day 14 those freakin' wreckless Idaho drivers!; Day 26 because my bike computer had a meltdown; Day 28 because Steve wouldn't help hold my bike up in the wind after watching it nearly fall over 3 times whilst I tried to put my clothes away in the panniers because it looked like rain ahead)
Flats: Katie (4)
Wrong turns: 6
Beer of the day: Snake River Brewing Zonker Stout
Lesson of the day: sleeping pads are not designed for use on cement floors
No. of days with no shower: 12
No. of days in a hotel: 8
Starting weight: Steve (90kg) Mandy (51.5kg)
Day 30 Rawlins weigh in: Steve (183 pds / 83kg). Mandy (110 pds / 50kg)
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