Bye-Bye Wyoming Hello Colorado

Wine Cellar / Bomb Shelter, Home On The Range, Route 80, Two Story Outhouse

I'm in Encampment, WY an old mining town about 30 miles north of Colorado. Following three 110mile plus extremely windy days sleeping in some really odd places I checked myself into the Saratoga Hot Springs Spa last night....I avoided the mud bath but did go for a massage. My legs are feeling rather gelatinous so not thinking I'll make it very far today, really just want to get out of WY so probably only to Walden, CO on the edge of the Arapaho Wildlife Refuge (should be some pleasant camping). It's been non stop climbing in the wind going up from one plateau to the next the worst was a 23 mile climb up to the Beaver Plateau where I stayed with Bob at the "Home On The Range" in Jeffrey City. I met Bob while waiting for one way traffic through a construction zone at Togwotee pass two days earlier, he said "if you make it to Jeffrey City look for the yellow wind mill and you're welcome to stay with me". Bob's great great grandfather built the first homestead in Freemont County WY and 150 years or so later on his vacations Bob from Tacoma is renovating it so when he retires he can run it as a B&B. It's a really neat place right down to the autographed Roy Rogers picture...the place is loaded with that type of stuff. Too much to jot down here but the evening with Bob spanned visits to an old Indian graveyard (really spooky), collecting sea shells since a gazillion years ago the plateau was an ocean, some home made liquor, some of the brightest star gazing (of course there's an observatory at "Home On The Range" and sleeping in a wine cellar / bomb shelter. 40 years or so ago Jeffrey City was a major uranium mining town, Three Mile Island put a damper on the that but given recent events they are hopeful that the uranium mines will open back up. Anyway Bob's grandfather built a bomb shelter under the guise of a wine cellar as not to scare his grandmother. Left Jeffrey City early Sunday morning for yet another wind nightmare, at this point it's a ridiculous situation that I was getting used to and if it were happening to anyone else I'd find it amusing so for whatever reason I was no longer annoyed and just cranked through it. By 11AM I had crossed the Continental Divide twice (7 times total so far). Heading into Rawlings I met up with a group that was riding across the country with a film crew documenting their trek for a movie (I'm going to be a movie star more on that later / check them out at http://www.bikingthestates.com/). In Rawlings I had to get on a section of route 80 for about 20 miles to Walcot. This is the only section of the trip where I will be on a major road. Getting onto to 80 there were all sorts of high wind advisory signs.....but, this time for whatever reason I had the wind to my back. I hit 43 miles per hour got two flats (rear tire and the trailer...I never get flats on the trailer). The hot springs spa last night was great it was a real spa not just the routine tubs next to the river in the middle of nowhere, different but great. Over the next several days I'll be riding at between 9,500 - 11,500ft so I expect I'll be going pretty slow, except on the downhills :) Notes on the pictures 1) the windmill fills two huge tanks of water (where I got a bath) given the wind that day the tanks filled in 3 hours normally takes over 24 hours 2) look at the windsock I was finally going the right direction 3) two story out house raises the obvious question "where does the stuff from the second story fall ......took me a bit to figure this one out but during the winter with a heavy snow pack the bottom is not accessible so they just flip up the seats and everyone goes to the second level which during the summer I would hope is off limits.