An Excellent Adventure

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. 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...

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 laundroma...

Day 36 We packed up and got ready to leave Grand Teton National Park, but as we were packing, one of my bike's shifter cable housings got tweaked, which threw the shifting on the rear side out of whack... poor Buttercup... (Buttercup is the name of my bike). I threw on some good ol' electrical tape and then took the opportunity while I was adjusting stuff anyway to finally install the shiny new derailleur hanger I had picked up at the West Yellowstone bike store. It was great! My bike shifted like new again! After our late start, we rode out of the park east along U.S. 26 then turned off onto Buffalo Valley Road. On the way, we picked up some more HEET at a gas station to power our alcohol stove. We still had some iso-HEET (red container), which we had nicknamed "atomic HEET" because of the large fiery ball and copious soot it creates when you cook your food over it, but we were growing tired of cooking over a fireball, so we wanted to switch back to the yellow ki...