Apology

Turns out, it has been nigh on impossible to blog on this trip. There is simply not enough time to write when we spend every waking moment trying to make forward progress. Here is a typical day:

Wednesday night, we drove up Beartooth Pass in Wyoming and found the road closed at 8:00 p.m. For construction. This is one of the scariest roads I have ever driven, with jaw dropping drop offs and a top elevation of about 10,400 ft. We didn't know the road closed at 8. We got there at 8:16. You could not pay me to drive back down to the bottom of the mountain at dark when we just whimpered up the thing before dark.

Fortunately, there was a motel/campground at the top of the mountain. They were closed, but e guy who ran it, saw us and opened up his little store so we could buy lunchmeat and bread so we could have dinner. It was about 40 degrees out at that elevation, and there was only one motel room left. We drove all day with two other guys we have met along the way. None of us wanted to camp in the cold. Laura and I said we would pay for the room as long as we got the bed. They were free to sleep on the floor, but they had to buy the food for dinner. It was a deal.

By the time we unloaded bikes (couldn't leave any food/gum/Gatorade packets in the bikes or we were told bears might tear up the bikes trying to get at it), ate our pitiful dinner, and took a shower, it was 10:30.

The road didn't open until 8:00 a.m. This is the most sleep we have had in a week, just because we could not possibly progress sooner. So to make up for the late start by riding until 2:30 a.m. At one point, we were in the middle of nowhere, freezing, tired, and we had pulled over at a rest stop. Laura was mad because I would not let her sleep on a concrete picnic table at the rest stop and forced our merry band of four to keep going the 50 miles more we needed to hit civilization.

Again, it was cold by then, we had been driving slowly to avoid hitting deer on Wyoming back roads, and we again decided a hotel was the only way to go. By the time we found one with vacancies, unloaded, and hit the bed, it was 3:00 a.m. We got up at 9 this morning. We will be riding no later than midnight from here on out. I have decreed it. Our tolerance for frustration decreases exponentially after midnight, along with our ability to be kind.

The point is, there isn't much opportunity to type. We are now trying to figure out how to change this trip so we can still complete the trip but in a way that allows us to still have some measure of fun without killing ourselves. Having so many friends and family tracking us on the website has truly, truly kept us going. We are so very appreciative, and I think we will be able to work through this current low point.

The point is, it is a seriously long day, every day, with wild swings of temperatures of about 50 to 60 degrees from the time we start to the middle of the day, back down to 40 or 50 degrees again at night. We are exhausted by the time we finish. The scenery is stunning, but my hands have been numb for 2 days. I am carrying a little voice recorder now so I can record what I want to write, since I have plenty of time to think about it all day.

Somehow that last paragraph that was originally somewhere at the top of the post got moved to the bottom of the post. I apologize for this and all the many typos. It will have to do for now.