Days 41-44: All about that basin
Day 41
We left the RV park in Boulder and followed a road out of town and down into the desert. We had already stocked up on food and increased our water carrying capacity, because we would be spending the next four days crossing part of Wyoming's Red Desert, including crossing part of the Great Divide Basin.
We crossed the Big Sandy River then turned onto Lander Cutoff Road, which roughly follows the Lander Cutoff of the Oregon Trail. This cutoff provided a shorter route for Oregon Trail travelers and was the first federally funded road project.
We had lunch by the Little Sandy Creek, one of the precious few flowing water sources we passed during the day. Of course, we refilled on water here. We pitched a tarp for shade while we ate.
See those wagon tracks to the left of the tarp? Remember that educational computer game about crossing America by wagon train? We're on that Oregon Trail. Only we have it much better than those folks did.
After we ate, we saw the same foursome of Divide tourists arriving at the creek as we were getting ready to leave. After we got back on the road, we encountered a new group of four whom we had not met before.
They were four friends doing the route in sections two weeks at a time and supported by two more friends who carried their food and camping gear for them in a van. We spent a while riding and talking with Miles, a member of the group who was willing to stay back at our pace for a while.
We spent some time riding along the continental divide itself, straddling the Atlantic and Pacific basins.
That night we camped at another water source, the Pine Creek between South Pass and South Pass City, and had dinner on top of a rock outcropping above our campsite.
Day 42
That morning before leaving we did our Bible reading on top of the rock outcropping by our campsite. We were a little over 40 days into the trip at this point, and we were one day into a four-day desert crossing.
Over the course of this trip, we have been reading together the Old Testament account of the Israelites' 40 years in the wilderness after the Exodus. It has been a unique experience reading this while traveling through the wilderness ourselves. While there are probably more differences than similarities between our trip and the wanderings of the Israelites, being in the woods and the desert has still brought with it a heightened sense of vulnerability (e.g. to weather, thirst, injury) that is different from what we experience on a typical day back home and that brings us closer to the story. Before we left for our bike trip, we were reading the book Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster as a "summer reading assignment" along with other members of our church. As a result, Katelyn and I both came away with a better appreciation for the role of meditation in the Christian spiritual disciplines. The Lord put this section of wilderness scripture on our hearts toward the beginning of the trip and gave us the opportunity to practice meditating on it throughout our trip. As it turns out, long stretches of desolate roads can provide great opportunities for meditation... as can long, grueling uphills.
But today, we did not read about the Israelites in the wilderness. Instead, we moved on to Matthew 4, where we read about Jesus -- the son of God walking the earth as one of us -- and his time in the wilderness following his baptism.
We read how Jesus was tempted by the devil after fasting in the wilderness for 40 days. That is about how long we have been on our trip, but forget about our one summer sausage per week, our pound of cheese, 10 bagels, 1-2 pounds of oatmeal, 5-10 packets of Knorr Rice Sides, the Clif Bars, chocolate Teddy Grahams, chocolate granola, and all the many, many other snacks. We read about how Jesus resolutely rejected each temptation, quoting scripture and keeping a clear head about who he was and his purpose, despite his hunger and fatigue.
I was struck by both the parallels and the contrasts between Jesus' time in the wilderness and that of the Israelites (about whom we have been reading previously and whose events have many, many more chapters covering them). When the Israelites were led by God into the wilderness, they had a clear sense of purpose and trusted in God for their safety, guidance, and everyday provisions. This only lasted a little while, though. Before long, they were complaining and seemed to completely forget how God had miraculously and consistently provided for them. They quickly reverted to only thinking about themselves. Time after time God would remind the Israelites of their foolish shortsightedness (often by disciplining them), they would repent and snap out of it, and God would patiently continue leading and providing for them... only to watch them forget him again... and then again.
I tend to follow the Israelites' pattern more closely than the example of Jesus. As a side note, the song that keeps getting stuck in my head ever since riding into the desert is "Horse with no Name" sung by America, which says that "In the desert you can remember your name, 'cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain." This song was not true for Israel who quickly forgot their name and purpose, but when Jesus went to the desert, he remembered his name and his calling perfectly (despite there being someone there to give him pain).
But there is another scripture parallel here. When Jesus went to the desert, he remembered his name and accomplished what the children of Israel failed to do when they were there. In the same way, when Jesus came to earth as a man, he accomplished what mankind's forerunner Adam failed to do: to live a life fully pleasing to and in communion with God. It is because of this and only this that we can have any hope of peace and communion with God -- by accepting God's free gift of grace based on the perfect work accomplished by Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. This was my meditation for the day in Wyoming's Red Desert.
After riding out of camp, we quickly came upon South Pass City, WY -- another ghost town.
This town, which still actually has a few residents living on one street, has a similar story to Bannack, MT: a gold rush town of former statewide significance that virtually fell off the map when the gold industry fell on hard times. One of South Pass City's claims to fame, however, is that the first female justice ever appointed in the United States was appointed there.
Something else interesting about our experience in South Pass City was the fact that almost everybody we met there were either Great Divide tourists or CDT hikers. We met John, the CDT hiker from Alaska; a couple riding northbound on the Great Divide who gave us encouraging intel on the road ahead (Diagnus Well is a good place to camp, and the A&M Reservoir still has water in it); and Ian, whom Kateyn met at the Pinedale hardware store/bike shop (then with his old companion Dave). Ian was now joined by new companion Tommy (now nicknamed Dave 2.0).
After South Pass City, it was a short ride to the next town of Atlantic City, WY. This town joins Pole Bridge, MT on the list of non- ghost towns we've visited that have no paved roads either within them or leading to them. This town has twice as many saloons as Pole Bridge, but unfortunately no free hiker/biker pastries the food we had for lunch at the saloon was great, though!
While we were there, the saloon filled up with cyclists. Ian and Tommy rolled in behind us, and the same foursome we met at Turpin Meadows showed up also.
After a long lunch break in Atlantic City, we climbed out over a steep ridge, leaving behind the last inhabited place and the last trees we would see for three days. What we saw on the other side was an endless expanse of rolling golden high desert below us.
The other thing we found was extremely bumpy "washboard" road surfaces (captured somewhat in photo above), which are nothing new for this trip, but which are like biking over a million tiny speed bumps and have a similar slowing effect, shaking your bones as you go. This was a bit demoralizing for a while, but eventually they did let up, and we still made it to camp before dark. On the way we also met a 75-year-old CDT hiker named Solar Sam to whom we gave some rasberry lemonade.
We camped at Diagnus Well, an artesian well out in the desert.
We were also joined by Ian and Tommy, who shared with us some of the jalepeƱo poppers and cheesecake they had bought in Atlantic City. Mmm... While making a late dinner, we also got to witness a beautiful desert sunset.
Day 43
The next morning we left camp a little after sunrise. The temperature quickly went from chilly to fairly warm. We passed a shepherd's living quarters (at junction in distance)
and then later the shepherd and his sheep.
We also rode through the Bison Basin oil field.
We were soon passed by the group of four supported riders we had talked with two days before. Their friends Jeff and Leslie who were supporting them set up a lunch stop on the side of the dersert road with sandwiches and shade, and they shared both with us! It was so nice!
We entered the long-awaited Great Divide Basin -- the geographic anomaly in which the continental splits in two, leaving a basin in the center in which rain water neither flows to the Atlantic nor the Pacific; it just goes... nowhere... until it evaporates.
We also saw...
(For those of you who appreciate the Bill and Ted reference)
... some of the feral horses that make the Great Divide Basin their home.
The third- or fourth- most pleasant surprise we got that day was a lovely little cloud that blew along in our direction of travel and gave us shade for a while in the afternoon.
The most pleasant surprise we got was getting to share camp and a big dinner with our four new friends from the last few days Lars, Hans, Miles, and Chuck, as well as their excellent support crew Jeff and Leslie, and our other recent rider friends Ian and Tommy. Jeff and Leslie made an amazing dinner of spaghetti and salad, and we contributed some of our cheese :)
Not only did we enjoy getting to share camp and a great meal with a bunch of our new riding friends, but this was also the realization of our fantasy developed over many long days of riding that someday, maybe we would find ourselves camping with some kind supported riders who would invite us to eat their food and store our food in their car instead of hanging in a tree (which is a daily ordeal). It actually happened! (The food storage part wasn't really necessary because of the lack of bears in the middle of the desert). Thanks, friends!
We also enjoyed our camping spot by the mini-oasis of the A&M Reservoir, as well as another beautiful desert sunset.
Day 44
The next day we had a fairly smooth ride to the other edge of the Great Divide Basin.
We climbed up out of the basin and were quickly in civilization again in the town of Rawlins, WY. Fun fact: Butch Cassidy (think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) spent some time in prison here and also robbed a train not too far from this town. On the way, we passed two CDT hikers walking down the highway whom we had seen way back in Lima, MT. They were moving fast!
We treated ourselves to a motel room in Rawlins and dinner at Buck's Sports Bar with Ian and Tommy.
The next morning we spent some extra time in town finalizing our travel plans for getting back to Atlanta. We decided to leave the Great Divide route after Steamboat Springs, ride east through Rocky Mountain National Park, finish riding in Denver, then drive a rental car all the way from Denver back to Atlanta.
We left the RV park in Boulder and followed a road out of town and down into the desert. We had already stocked up on food and increased our water carrying capacity, because we would be spending the next four days crossing part of Wyoming's Red Desert, including crossing part of the Great Divide Basin.
We crossed the Big Sandy River then turned onto Lander Cutoff Road, which roughly follows the Lander Cutoff of the Oregon Trail. This cutoff provided a shorter route for Oregon Trail travelers and was the first federally funded road project.
We had lunch by the Little Sandy Creek, one of the precious few flowing water sources we passed during the day. Of course, we refilled on water here. We pitched a tarp for shade while we ate.
Lunch on the Oregon Trail |
See those wagon tracks to the left of the tarp? Remember that educational computer game about crossing America by wagon train? We're on that Oregon Trail. Only we have it much better than those folks did.
After we ate, we saw the same foursome of Divide tourists arriving at the creek as we were getting ready to leave. After we got back on the road, we encountered a new group of four whom we had not met before.
They were four friends doing the route in sections two weeks at a time and supported by two more friends who carried their food and camping gear for them in a van. We spent a while riding and talking with Miles, a member of the group who was willing to stay back at our pace for a while.
We spent some time riding along the continental divide itself, straddling the Atlantic and Pacific basins.
That night we camped at another water source, the Pine Creek between South Pass and South Pass City, and had dinner on top of a rock outcropping above our campsite.
Day 42
That morning before leaving we did our Bible reading on top of the rock outcropping by our campsite. We were a little over 40 days into the trip at this point, and we were one day into a four-day desert crossing.
Over the course of this trip, we have been reading together the Old Testament account of the Israelites' 40 years in the wilderness after the Exodus. It has been a unique experience reading this while traveling through the wilderness ourselves. While there are probably more differences than similarities between our trip and the wanderings of the Israelites, being in the woods and the desert has still brought with it a heightened sense of vulnerability (e.g. to weather, thirst, injury) that is different from what we experience on a typical day back home and that brings us closer to the story. Before we left for our bike trip, we were reading the book Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster as a "summer reading assignment" along with other members of our church. As a result, Katelyn and I both came away with a better appreciation for the role of meditation in the Christian spiritual disciplines. The Lord put this section of wilderness scripture on our hearts toward the beginning of the trip and gave us the opportunity to practice meditating on it throughout our trip. As it turns out, long stretches of desolate roads can provide great opportunities for meditation... as can long, grueling uphills.
But today, we did not read about the Israelites in the wilderness. Instead, we moved on to Matthew 4, where we read about Jesus -- the son of God walking the earth as one of us -- and his time in the wilderness following his baptism.
We read how Jesus was tempted by the devil after fasting in the wilderness for 40 days. That is about how long we have been on our trip, but forget about our one summer sausage per week, our pound of cheese, 10 bagels, 1-2 pounds of oatmeal, 5-10 packets of Knorr Rice Sides, the Clif Bars, chocolate Teddy Grahams, chocolate granola, and all the many, many other snacks. We read about how Jesus resolutely rejected each temptation, quoting scripture and keeping a clear head about who he was and his purpose, despite his hunger and fatigue.
I was struck by both the parallels and the contrasts between Jesus' time in the wilderness and that of the Israelites (about whom we have been reading previously and whose events have many, many more chapters covering them). When the Israelites were led by God into the wilderness, they had a clear sense of purpose and trusted in God for their safety, guidance, and everyday provisions. This only lasted a little while, though. Before long, they were complaining and seemed to completely forget how God had miraculously and consistently provided for them. They quickly reverted to only thinking about themselves. Time after time God would remind the Israelites of their foolish shortsightedness (often by disciplining them), they would repent and snap out of it, and God would patiently continue leading and providing for them... only to watch them forget him again... and then again.
I tend to follow the Israelites' pattern more closely than the example of Jesus. As a side note, the song that keeps getting stuck in my head ever since riding into the desert is "Horse with no Name" sung by America, which says that "In the desert you can remember your name, 'cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain." This song was not true for Israel who quickly forgot their name and purpose, but when Jesus went to the desert, he remembered his name and his calling perfectly (despite there being someone there to give him pain).
But there is another scripture parallel here. When Jesus went to the desert, he remembered his name and accomplished what the children of Israel failed to do when they were there. In the same way, when Jesus came to earth as a man, he accomplished what mankind's forerunner Adam failed to do: to live a life fully pleasing to and in communion with God. It is because of this and only this that we can have any hope of peace and communion with God -- by accepting God's free gift of grace based on the perfect work accomplished by Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. This was my meditation for the day in Wyoming's Red Desert.
After riding out of camp, we quickly came upon South Pass City, WY -- another ghost town.
This town, which still actually has a few residents living on one street, has a similar story to Bannack, MT: a gold rush town of former statewide significance that virtually fell off the map when the gold industry fell on hard times. One of South Pass City's claims to fame, however, is that the first female justice ever appointed in the United States was appointed there.
Something else interesting about our experience in South Pass City was the fact that almost everybody we met there were either Great Divide tourists or CDT hikers. We met John, the CDT hiker from Alaska; a couple riding northbound on the Great Divide who gave us encouraging intel on the road ahead (Diagnus Well is a good place to camp, and the A&M Reservoir still has water in it); and Ian, whom Kateyn met at the Pinedale hardware store/bike shop (then with his old companion Dave). Ian was now joined by new companion Tommy (now nicknamed Dave 2.0).
After South Pass City, it was a short ride to the next town of Atlantic City, WY. This town joins Pole Bridge, MT on the list of non- ghost towns we've visited that have no paved roads either within them or leading to them. This town has twice as many saloons as Pole Bridge, but unfortunately no free hiker/biker pastries the food we had for lunch at the saloon was great, though!
While we were there, the saloon filled up with cyclists. Ian and Tommy rolled in behind us, and the same foursome we met at Turpin Meadows showed up also.
After a long lunch break in Atlantic City, we climbed out over a steep ridge, leaving behind the last inhabited place and the last trees we would see for three days. What we saw on the other side was an endless expanse of rolling golden high desert below us.
The other thing we found was extremely bumpy "washboard" road surfaces (captured somewhat in photo above), which are nothing new for this trip, but which are like biking over a million tiny speed bumps and have a similar slowing effect, shaking your bones as you go. This was a bit demoralizing for a while, but eventually they did let up, and we still made it to camp before dark. On the way we also met a 75-year-old CDT hiker named Solar Sam to whom we gave some rasberry lemonade.
We camped at Diagnus Well, an artesian well out in the desert.
We were also joined by Ian and Tommy, who shared with us some of the jalepeƱo poppers and cheesecake they had bought in Atlantic City. Mmm... While making a late dinner, we also got to witness a beautiful desert sunset.
Day 43
The next morning we left camp a little after sunrise. The temperature quickly went from chilly to fairly warm. We passed a shepherd's living quarters (at junction in distance)
and then later the shepherd and his sheep.
We also rode through the Bison Basin oil field.
We were soon passed by the group of four supported riders we had talked with two days before. Their friends Jeff and Leslie who were supporting them set up a lunch stop on the side of the dersert road with sandwiches and shade, and they shared both with us! It was so nice!
We entered the long-awaited Great Divide Basin -- the geographic anomaly in which the continental splits in two, leaving a basin in the center in which rain water neither flows to the Atlantic nor the Pacific; it just goes... nowhere... until it evaporates.
We also saw...
(For those of you who appreciate the Bill and Ted reference)
... some of the feral horses that make the Great Divide Basin their home.
The third- or fourth- most pleasant surprise we got that day was a lovely little cloud that blew along in our direction of travel and gave us shade for a while in the afternoon.
The most pleasant surprise we got was getting to share camp and a big dinner with our four new friends from the last few days Lars, Hans, Miles, and Chuck, as well as their excellent support crew Jeff and Leslie, and our other recent rider friends Ian and Tommy. Jeff and Leslie made an amazing dinner of spaghetti and salad, and we contributed some of our cheese :)
Not only did we enjoy getting to share camp and a great meal with a bunch of our new riding friends, but this was also the realization of our fantasy developed over many long days of riding that someday, maybe we would find ourselves camping with some kind supported riders who would invite us to eat their food and store our food in their car instead of hanging in a tree (which is a daily ordeal). It actually happened! (The food storage part wasn't really necessary because of the lack of bears in the middle of the desert). Thanks, friends!
We also enjoyed our camping spot by the mini-oasis of the A&M Reservoir, as well as another beautiful desert sunset.
Day 44
The next day we had a fairly smooth ride to the other edge of the Great Divide Basin.
We climbed up out of the basin and were quickly in civilization again in the town of Rawlins, WY. Fun fact: Butch Cassidy (think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) spent some time in prison here and also robbed a train not too far from this town. On the way, we passed two CDT hikers walking down the highway whom we had seen way back in Lima, MT. They were moving fast!
We treated ourselves to a motel room in Rawlins and dinner at Buck's Sports Bar with Ian and Tommy.
The next morning we spent some extra time in town finalizing our travel plans for getting back to Atlanta. We decided to leave the Great Divide route after Steamboat Springs, ride east through Rocky Mountain National Park, finish riding in Denver, then drive a rental car all the way from Denver back to Atlanta.
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