PowerCycle

05/23 I’m pretty much a mess today. Still have a cold and it did a wonderful job of sucking the energy right out of me. Slept for a couple hours no thanks to my runny nose kept and sore throat. Sunrise is at 5:20am and the birds/light make it tough to get back to sleep if something (like coughing) wakes you up. The strong headwind today didn’t help either. To top it off I also have a cut on the fleshy part of my right hand where the thumb and index finger meet. That’s been driving me nuts all day because that’s right where the handlebar presses when I’m riding. So it just keeps getting bigger. I think that just about covers my issues for the day.

By the time I rolled into town I was pretty hungry so I headed over to Subway and inhaled a foot long sub. Then it was off to find a campground/park. There was a police car sitting at an intersection so I went over and asked if there was anything but he said the next town, Gillette is the only place close by. That’s 30 miles away so I grabbed a motel. I might have had a little tailwind heading over there but my 1/4 mile test run left me with little doubt that I’d bonk half way.

The motel has a bit of history to it. There are only 4 rooms in 2 separate buildings. There used to be 6 rooms but someone tried to kill themselves by letting gas fill up the room and then lighting a match. The roof blew off, a fire started and building #3 was no more (the guy survived). It’s the cheapest in town at $48 so there could have been a mass murder in the room for all I care.

The climb out of Devil’s Tower wasn’t that bad. Made it up without stopping. After that it was a quiet ride through the hills and then a drop down into what I think will be grasslands for a while. Saw a lot of deer and mountain sheep. Toward the end of the ride I saw about 30 deer grazing together not far from the road.

Skipping the local cafes for dinner and will be heating up a frozen dinner in the microwave. Also bought some fruit cocktail and cottage cheese for dessert. Yum.

GPX Track