Day 18 Riverton to Casper

4:30 AM. The alarm clock yanks us from our dreams of Dairy Queen Blizzards back to the reality of our longest day on the tour: 120 miles of wasteland in the hot sun. We want to start as early as possible to make sure everyone can complete the grueling grind before dark. We were supposed to ride a mile down the road (in the opposite direction to our route) to a restaurant ready to serve us breakfast at 5:15. The continental breakfast at our motel was not supposed to be ready until 6. When I took my bags down to "Box" to load up, I saw that most of our riders were eating breakfast, which the staff had decided to open early. I went ahead and rode to the restaurant, and helped myself to the buffet they had set up. I felt really bad for the crew there since they had set up early especially for us, and only a few showed up. Having been in the business, I know they must have been pissed, but they were very nice about it. Pancakes and eggs, the standard breakfast for me these days.

I hit the road at about 6, and rode briskly as I warmed up. The sunrise did not disappoint me today, with a varied display of clouds, subtle hues of rose and orange playing off the sandstone buttes, and a chilly breeze to hurry me along.



I caught a few riders just as we passed by the huge Boysen Reservoir, with its shallow water lapping against exposed sandstone bluffs.

The route took us through desert wasteland of the sort where one picture could suffice for pretty much the whole day.

Fortunately there were some breaks in the monotony, like this big tank, that I imagine was bound for an oil or gas facility nearby. We passed many oil wells along the route.


The highlight for me was a deep canyon feature known as Hell's Half Acre. I am not sure how they got the half acre part, but it was definately a tortured landscape, apparently put to use by Indians as a buffalo trap. They would drive buffalo over the edge, and they could basically just finish them off at the bottom, unless they were directly killed by the fall. It is a great example of badlands formation. Most of the strata are so loosely consolidated that the term "rock" really doesn't apply to them.



I arrived in Casper after my fastest century ride (100 miles) ever. I had set a goal of breaking a 6 hour time for 100 miles, and easily surpassed this at 5 hours and 36 minutes. Overall I averaged almost 18 mph for the 122 mile ride. I am feeling very strong, and am most pleased by my ability to recover quickly after extended periods of high exertion levels. This gives me the freedom to ride my ride, and not have to make concessions to pamper my body so I can make the destination. I especially like to be able to stop often for good pictures, and still be able to catch up to whoever I have been riding with.

Speaking of pictures, I have now lost all the pictures from my "road record" camera for the past three days. I am therefore bringing an end to that portion of my project, unless I can find someone willing to buy a replacement for that specific camera. Any benefactors out there?