Looking for Hannah Montana

We're in Twin Bridges, Montana and are headed to Dillon for the night. We had a great morning riding downhill with a tailwind and crossed our 3,000 mile mark (17 mph avg!). We then went up and over a 2,000 ft. climb and descended into the Ruby Valley and some historic mining towns. Yesterday afternoon we watched the smoke from a forest fire from our campsite and have been biking in brown haze today. We've had a great few days biking through the national parks and met some great people along the way.

After we left the Rawlins Public Library, it took us 40 minutes to bike 4 miles out of town. We battled headwinds the whole way. With our intended camping spot 30 miles up the road we might have made it by 10. Instead it took us 8 minutes to get back into Rawlins. While in Rawlins, we restocked the cliff bars that Terry and June had given us in Boulder to fuel our legs. We found a deal for 25 cents a bar and spent a total of 11$ for breakfast, bars, juice and sandwich fixings. Thank you to the man that let us borrow his savings card. We also bought $6 worth of fleece at the Family Dollar. We'd had some cold mornings and the weather predictions were calling for a cold front to arrive from N. Dakota the next day and sit over Wyoming and Northern Colorado. It was expected to bring colder temps, rain and snow above 9,000 feet.

We left Rawlins the next morning wearing our new fleece gloves and hats. We were biking through a sparsly populated area and there weren't many services so we decided to go 124 miles to the next larger town, Lander. It was as if we put our bike tires in old wagon ruts that day because our path criss-crossed the Oregon Trail. We stopped to check out Split Rock, where the Oregon Trail and the Pony Express Route met and biked along the Sweetwater River. We spotted a Pronghorn on the road as we were leaving a snack break in Jeffery City. It was neat to see one so close.

Wyoming had the widest shoulders by far and we rode away from traffic through most of the state. However, the road surface often left a little to be desired. At times it was like riding on the rumble strip--for miles. On one particularly long descent into Lander the shoulder was covered in long cracks that parralleled the white line. We tried to steer our bike to keep our wheels out of the cracks. At the same time there were strong cross winds doing their best to force our tires into the cracks. It was a bit like a video game steering around obstacles with your seat tilting and vibrating underneath you.

We found a great camping spot in Lander at the Holiday Lodge that featured hot showers, a jacuzzi and free continental breakfast. Unfortunately the cold front arrived that and it rained on us all night long. Many things got soaked including one of Kristin's bike shoes, Nick's new fleece apparel, the rain fly, the bottom of the tent, the ground cloth and the bottom of our sleeping pads. We ate breakfast while we put a load through the dryer and packed up the tent and fly wet. Our ride that day was gorgeous. We biked through the Wind River Gorge and up into the Wind River Mountains. We even had a tailwind for most of the day. We passed through Dubois (prounounced Dew-Boys) and stayed in a cabin 10 miles beneath Togwotee Pass (elevation 9,658 ft.).

We were a bit concerned about snow through the pass because it had snowed south of it, but it was clear. We dried out and woke up to another cold morning--34 degrees and a pass to climb. The descent down to Teton National Park was COLD. Our coldest yet by far. We stopped for coffee and hot chocolate at the first lodge we came to after summiting (about 10 miles downhill). The hot drinks were not enough to warm us back up. It took hitting road construction where a 2 mile stretch of road was unpaved. A pilot car lead traffic through the construction vehicles. We got to put our bikes in the back of the pilot pickup truck and ride in the cab. That heater did the trick. We entered Teton National Park after sharing our peanut m&ms with a hiker on the continental divide trail whose package hadn't arrived at the post office. We biked past Jackson Lake and enjoyed the scenery before climbing up the caldera and into Yellowstone.

When we woke up in Grant's Village in Yellowstone the next morning it was 31 on our pocket thermometer. The fleece was not enough and we ended up not getting started until 9:00 and spent the time in the camp store staying warm. We watched Old Faithful go and saw some hot springs and boiling mud pools. Nick also got another flat tire. He had the same problem Kristin did where the valve came off the inner tube. We were about to bike out of the park without seeing much in the way of wildlife when we biked right past a moose on the side of the road. We crossed into Montana and entered West Yellowstone to do some grocery shopping and eat Blizzards before headed on to Hegben Lake and Quake Lake. Quake Lake was created during a 1959 earthquake when a landslide blocked the Madison River. It was cool to still see the huge debris pile and the dead trees. The Army Corps of Engineers dug out a path for the river before there was flooding downstream. We camped last night right below it at the Slide Inn.

Nick and Kristin's Daily Diet:
It has been a long time since we've had to stock up in a convience store (sometime in KS) so this is our current grocery store diet.

Breakfast:
2 containers of fruit yogurt (each)
granola (we usually eat 1 lb. every two days)
bananas

Snacks:
peanut butter and honey sandwiches, cliff bars, peanut m&ms, or gorp (depeding on where we are in the day)

Dinner:
A one pot wonder (we've tried lots of things and have recently enjoyed the boxes that have a can of meat and sauce, pasta and cheese -- if the servings per container says 5 it works)
1/2 gallon of fruit juice (we enjoy the Dole variety with Pineapple)
fruit (kiwis, apples, bananas, peaches, plums, etc.)

The numbers:
3050 -- miles ridden thus far
5 -- erupting geysers in Yellowstone
8 -- times crossing the Continental Divide
6 -- flat tires
3 -- more west bounders met and passed in Yellowstone (many more east bounders but we've lost count for the moment)
2 -- more state lines to cross!