Days 39-40: Pining for Pinedale
Day 39
We woke up in John and Lucy's lovely cabin, packed our things, then ate breakfast and did our prayer and Bible reading on the porch of the cabin.
We rode on toward Pinedale, where we had reserved a room in a bed and breakfast for the night -- our first planned indoor lodging since the Man Cave a little over a week ago (John and Lucy's cabin was not planned far in advance, and being indoors then was a pleasant surprise!). On the way, we stopped for a lunch and postcard-mailing break at the Cora, WY post office. It turned out to be a very cool place one of the only buildings in Cora, this post office used to be a general store, and it still has historic general store merchandise and decor in the front.
That afternoon, we arrived in Pinedale, WY, a big small town with our first grocery store since West Yellowstone. Historically Pinedale was a big cowboy town, and it still has a lot of that character today.
When we arrived, we made a trip to the laundromat, which happened to have about 12 more deer, elk, and moose heads on the wall than our laundromat back home.
Also in Pinedale, we got ice cream, grocery shopped (including buying our first chocolate Teddy Grahams of the trip -- something our friend April accidentally got is hooked on after staying with them on our East Coast bike trip, and which we had been craving on and off on this trip), tried to visit John and Lucy's son's saddlery (which was closed when we got there), and ate dinner at the Wind River Brewery, where we once again saw the same foursome we had been tracking with over the past few days.
Day 40
We so enjoyed our time at the bed and breakfast, including, not least, the breakfast! It was so good, and they made so much for us.
We spent the majority of the day in Pinedale taking a near-zero day (or "nero day," as it was called by a hiker lady named Jan whom we ran into twice around the small town). We actually spent most of the day in the Pinedale library doing things like writing postcards, blogging, checking email, downloading topo maps for the route ahead, and figuring out how we would get back home to Atlanta. We also made a trip to A-Z Hardware, which doubles as the town's bike shop, to get Katelyn's noisy bottom bracket checked out (there were no apparent critical issues).
Late in the afternoon when it was time to move on from Pinedale, we took one more trip to the grocery store to ensure we had all we needed for the next several days' stretch with very limited commercial services, then we rode out of town. It was a little sad leaving Pinedale, because we had enjoyed our time there so much.
After a short 10-mile ride (hence the "nero day"), we arrived in the much smaller town of Boulder, WY where we would stay for the night.
But before checking into our campground, we did something we had been looking forward to ever since we arrived in Pinedale -- attend Connie's birthday party!
We had not met Connie yet, but we had seen invitations to her 80th birthday party in public places all over town, and we thought she sounded cool. It turned out, she was! When we arrived at the Boulder community center for her party, we were greeted by Connie's children who welcomed us and told us that Connie would be genuinely happy to have us here and meet us. They also asked us if we were the couple Connie had met at the brewery the night before and invited then, which we were not, though we were at that same brewery the night before, probably while Connie was there. We met the birthday girl, who was lots of fun to talk to, and we also got to enjoy a great western potluck with a bunch of friendly, welcoming locals!
One of the conversations I overheard that was most interesting and foreign to me was two men talking about somebody they both knew who went out hunting and shot what he believed to be a black bear. According to them, he then got in trouble with Fish and Wildlife, because they believed he had illegally killed a grizzly bear. Fish and Wildlife proceeded to do a DNA test on the dead bear, concluded that it was indeed a diseased grizzly bear with no hump on its back (normally a distinguishing feature between black bears and grizzlies) that had wandered outside of the typical range for grizzly bears, and then they preceded to charge him with illegally killing a grizzly. The two men talking sided with their hunter friend.
That night we camped in the High Line Trail RV park (which happened to be next door to a llama ranch) and prepared for full day of riding into the desert the next day. When we checked in, the campground manager and his wife were in their trailer watching the Atlanta Braves play the Denver Rockies in Atlanta. The Rockies won.
We woke up in John and Lucy's lovely cabin, packed our things, then ate breakfast and did our prayer and Bible reading on the porch of the cabin.
We rode on toward Pinedale, where we had reserved a room in a bed and breakfast for the night -- our first planned indoor lodging since the Man Cave a little over a week ago (John and Lucy's cabin was not planned far in advance, and being indoors then was a pleasant surprise!). On the way, we stopped for a lunch and postcard-mailing break at the Cora, WY post office. It turned out to be a very cool place one of the only buildings in Cora, this post office used to be a general store, and it still has historic general store merchandise and decor in the front.
That afternoon, we arrived in Pinedale, WY, a big small town with our first grocery store since West Yellowstone. Historically Pinedale was a big cowboy town, and it still has a lot of that character today.
When we arrived, we made a trip to the laundromat, which happened to have about 12 more deer, elk, and moose heads on the wall than our laundromat back home.
Also in Pinedale, we got ice cream, grocery shopped (including buying our first chocolate Teddy Grahams of the trip -- something our friend April accidentally got is hooked on after staying with them on our East Coast bike trip, and which we had been craving on and off on this trip), tried to visit John and Lucy's son's saddlery (which was closed when we got there), and ate dinner at the Wind River Brewery, where we once again saw the same foursome we had been tracking with over the past few days.
Day 40
We so enjoyed our time at the bed and breakfast, including, not least, the breakfast! It was so good, and they made so much for us.
We spent the majority of the day in Pinedale taking a near-zero day (or "nero day," as it was called by a hiker lady named Jan whom we ran into twice around the small town). We actually spent most of the day in the Pinedale library doing things like writing postcards, blogging, checking email, downloading topo maps for the route ahead, and figuring out how we would get back home to Atlanta. We also made a trip to A-Z Hardware, which doubles as the town's bike shop, to get Katelyn's noisy bottom bracket checked out (there were no apparent critical issues).
Late in the afternoon when it was time to move on from Pinedale, we took one more trip to the grocery store to ensure we had all we needed for the next several days' stretch with very limited commercial services, then we rode out of town. It was a little sad leaving Pinedale, because we had enjoyed our time there so much.
After a short 10-mile ride (hence the "nero day"), we arrived in the much smaller town of Boulder, WY where we would stay for the night.
But before checking into our campground, we did something we had been looking forward to ever since we arrived in Pinedale -- attend Connie's birthday party!
We had not met Connie yet, but we had seen invitations to her 80th birthday party in public places all over town, and we thought she sounded cool. It turned out, she was! When we arrived at the Boulder community center for her party, we were greeted by Connie's children who welcomed us and told us that Connie would be genuinely happy to have us here and meet us. They also asked us if we were the couple Connie had met at the brewery the night before and invited then, which we were not, though we were at that same brewery the night before, probably while Connie was there. We met the birthday girl, who was lots of fun to talk to, and we also got to enjoy a great western potluck with a bunch of friendly, welcoming locals!
One of the conversations I overheard that was most interesting and foreign to me was two men talking about somebody they both knew who went out hunting and shot what he believed to be a black bear. According to them, he then got in trouble with Fish and Wildlife, because they believed he had illegally killed a grizzly bear. Fish and Wildlife proceeded to do a DNA test on the dead bear, concluded that it was indeed a diseased grizzly bear with no hump on its back (normally a distinguishing feature between black bears and grizzlies) that had wandered outside of the typical range for grizzly bears, and then they preceded to charge him with illegally killing a grizzly. The two men talking sided with their hunter friend.
That night we camped in the High Line Trail RV park (which happened to be next door to a llama ranch) and prepared for full day of riding into the desert the next day. When we checked in, the campground manager and his wife were in their trailer watching the Atlanta Braves play the Denver Rockies in Atlanta. The Rockies won.
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