Jim Lehman's Ride Across America: Casper: Rest Day!

Today was a well-deserved rest day here in Casper. We all needed to recover from our epic push of 122 miles yesterday. I slept in late- until about 7 a.m. My first order of business was breakfast with the boys, Stu, Ilkka, Kent, and Abe. We made plans to meet for lunch at a Mexican restaurant, then went our own separate ways. One thing I had been waiting for was to take a box of items no longer needed to the post office to send home. This was mainly papers, books, cold-weather gear, and some souvenirs.

I also went to the local bike shops to get some chain degreaser and lube, and then spent an hour making my bike presentable again. I also went over the working condition of the bike, finding a small thorn in my rear tire. It looked like it had been bent trying in a vain attempt to make it through the kevlar belt, but I will keep an eye on it.

Lunch was pretty good, but not up to the standard of some other places we have eaten. My sister Judy has commented that we should call the trip "Jim's Pie (or Ice Cream) Trip Across the Country. Maybe it should be "Jim's Cross-Country Trip to Find the Best Mexican Food" Note: Mexican Restaurants only have pasta on their Kid's Menus. The rest is safe.

I tried to nap during the afternoon, but kept waking up thinking about things I hadn't yet dealt with, like this blog. I finally gave up and watched TV, then went out to dinner at a nearby steakhouse with mostly the Rails-to Trails group, great dinner company. I had to avoid the usual group because I was laughing too much to eat. I almost broke a rib at dinner last night from our discussion and critique of the day's events.

After dinner tonight I saw that there would be a great sunset, so I hurried back to he Holiday Inn, got my camera, and went back to the bridge over the North Platte River. I took these shots of the river and the motel during a few fleeting moments when a more distant cloud finaly relented and let the light from the sun shine under the clouds you see here, giving that great Western Sunset look. The camera made it look kind of dark for some, and light for others. I need to find the manual and learn how to better control the exposure.