Wicked Winds a Wailing

Robot Trains and Thai Cuisine

So we woke up the next morning after listening to the automated trains playing musical tracks all night and headed over to the most disappointing Thai buffet in my life, mainly because every single item had meat! That doesn't help a vegan. So I ordered a red curry and it was amazing as usual at Anongs. If you haven't already guessed I love Thai food with a passion. It's like my old favorite chinese food with better spices and creamy coconut milk, which a vegan craves. Turns out Anongs has two locations in Wyoming, one in Rawlins and another in Laramie, and I've tried both. I'd give em a 4.5 stars, mainly because there is always room for creative improvement! I would add some broccoli and mushrooms to the curry, which I usually request, and then put the potato back in the Mussaman curry.

About that creative improvement...whenever you find yourself at the top of the hill in your calling, you should begin to worry. There's nothing like success to breed failure. This seems strange but it's true because once you reach the top of your industry after conquering your competitors, you not only begin to slack off since there's no competition, but you also lose the excitement and fire of injecting pure creative imagination into new products or innovating existing ones. When most companies get to that gigantic level they become bureaucratic nightmares. The key is to cultivate the Zen concept of the beginner's mind, always maintaining your innocence despite your experience and striving to look at everything from the perspective of seeing it for the first time. In this journey I strive to remember that whenever I crest a hill, even if the Wind is out to murder you.

After spending the day in Rawlins resting and deepening my connection with new friends and fellow cyclists, I woke up the next morning in a city park when the sprinklers came out at 6 AM! I didn't have to try to approach the situation with the beginner's mind, because this was a fresh experience to say the least. My friends in their nearby tent were experiencing the same dilemma. It was time to go but maybe we should wait the sprinkler cycle out so it would be easier to pack up without being under attack by water. By the end of the day, the Water element would be the least of my worries. Our Unicyclist from Brevard NC named Sky decided he couldn't wait as he did not have a tent and wanted to get the jump on re-patching his patch as well as open a bank account so he could continue to eat.

After a time, Alex, Iris, and I packed up and headed to the discount grocery store and bought some ingredients to have a pasta feast later, which turned out to be the best decision of our day, as our destination was Jefferey City, halfway between Lander and Rawlins about 66 miles away, and we were hearing rumors that it was a ghost town.

With our dinner plans firm and our bikes loaded, we waded through the streets of Rawlins one last time and made our way to Highway 287, the north route out of town. I looked back and thought of taking a picture from the nice hillside view but didn't want to stop because I had a head of steam and was excited to cruise. Rawlins turned out to be a gem of a city. I was dreading the thought of going there, but I made some interesting traveling companions and met many fellow cyclists.

There was the 77 year old Australian couple, Jack and Barb, who were biking the TransAM, which is the Adventure Cycle famous route between Yorktown, Virginia and Astoria, Oregon. It seemed like everybody but me was attempting it. They were riding tandem on a double bike and they cruised! I also met two athletic guys traveling from Steamboat CO to Glacier in Montana, Tony from Texas and Brad from Illinois, the Glacier-Bound brothers. They weren't really brothers but apparently they did cycling trips every summer and that made them true brothers in my eyes. Then there was Phyliss (59) and her trail mate Jerry (71). Phyllis has legs of steel and Jerry tows a cart with passion. Turns out that they are both married to other people. She's from Seattle and he's from Baltimore and their spouses are following their trip and meeting them along the way at various locations. She used to be a microbiotic eater and is very particular and says her husband has meltdowns on these kinds of journeys, so she prefers traveling with her good friend Jerry. They met on a past cycling tour. Then there are the Rolling Dutchmen, Gosse (pronounced Ho-say, it's Frisian and you almost need to cough the H sound out) and Klaause. Klaause had an accident when he was a teenager and lost the hearing in his right ear, so Gosse rides on his left so his good friend Klaause can hear him. Then of course there are Alex and Iris, the college kids from NYC who are relocating to Olympia Washington to attend a progressive college. And then there's the two loners, Sky and myself, both from Brevard NC. Maybe we are a pair by default since we hail from the same small town. I called our fun group the Fellowship of the Zodiac, mainly because there are 12 members! It's a very loose fellowship as everyone wakes up and leaves at different times, but we all eventually catch up to each other and either eat together at gas stations, diners, or rest areas or camp together wherever the day winds down. It's the furthest thing out from lonely that you could imagine. And Phyllis likes to tell people to quit snoring. She reminds me of Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh.

The weird thing is that I'm the newbie who has never cycled on tour before this journey, so I'm learning so much from my cycling elders. Everyone agrees that I have way too much weight, but I argue that I'm actually not touring, but relocating indefinitely and that my bike is merely the moving truck. There's a tradition of giving people Trail names when they hike the AT (Appalachian Trail) or any of these long biking treks. Usually the name has to do with the woes that have befallen you, that others tell stories about. Sky gave the example of a lady who tried to cook in her tent on the AT and burnt her tent down. She became known as "Meltdown" They decided to call me "backpack" Iris was dubbed "Salty" because she always forgets to do laundry and the salt from the sweat you generate builds up so intensely. Her purple shirt looks white in places! We call Sky "Launchpad" because he stands about 7 feet tall on his huge unicycle. He looks so peculiar from behind because it seems like he's sitting on an egg and his little muscular legs are going so fast to keep his balance that it looks like he's rubbing the egg wih his thighs trying to make it hatch quicker. I suggested we call him "Eggwarmer", but it didn't match the criterion. Him falling off matched, so Launchpad was great! Check out some of the things he can do here, and that was three years ago.

So the day started off in great exaltation. My spirit was high and I took off, leaving Alex and Iris in the dust despite my lofty encumbrance. The road through the salt flat desert was downhill and I can beat anyone going down even without peddling, due to the weight I'm carrying. When I came upon this amazing slope, Stairway to Heaven began playing on my I-pad and by the time I got mid-slope, the song reached it's crescendo. I was at first worried about how fast gravity was taking me, but I was aiming to beat my former speed record of 34 MPH set in my near-death sojourn up from Fort Collins. In a moment of sheer ecstasy, with my arms straining to hold the bike on the road, I glanced down to see the speedometer reach a high of 46 MPH. I knew if I made one false move or hit a stray rock, that I was a goner. It's moments like that when you're traversing the edge of death that you really feel alive and appreciate all that you live for. After a terrible plate of fries at Grandma's Diner in the desert, Alex and Iris caught me and we continued on. But my excitement and need for speed overcame me, and I blasted ahead passing Phyliss and Jerry having a roadside snack when I turned left to go toward Lander.

Many grueling hours later, I came upon a marvelous site: the national monument Split Rock. From a distance, I knew there was something amazing about this rocky range because I got the same spiritual vibration I feel in Boulder next to the Flatirons. So when I reached the rest stop I had to lay my bike down and go take some pictures, which you can see on my facebook page. Phyliss and Jerry stopped there too. Climbing on the rocks was awesome and reminded me of being a kid in Colorado going camping and rock climbing with my dad and brothers. I looked back over the horizon I had just traversed and tried to wave my arms at Alex and Iris, but I realized that if they were little far away dots to me, that they probably couldn't see the tentacles waving out of my little dot on top of a great rock.

So I jumped on my bike and I cruised, trying to stay ahead of Phyliss and Jerry, the experienced cyclists. It didn't happen because we reached a long stretch of straight away and they both blew past me. My legs were shot and my butt was screaming inside the lower right cheek, and another hill loomed on the horizon going up! I was beginning to pray to see the next town as we were only four miles away according to my odometer, but there were only a few desolate farm houses in sight. Then Alex and Iris blew past me too, and I wished I were carrying less weight.

But then the Wailing Wicked Wind began!


The Ghost Town of Jefferey City

After such a day of exhilarating experiences and spectacular views I can't begin to imagine why this had to happen, but it did, the beginning of my soul feeling utterly defeated. The Chinese philosophers say that for every three good things that happen, one bad thing has to happen just to keep you honest and humble. And sometimes the bad things that happen become good things once you grow from them. It turns out that every cyclist dreads the mighty headwind blowing right smack in your face. Well the wicked wind that came wailing out of the woeful west forced all of us to a screeching halt, just three miles from the ghost town of Jefferey City. It's almost as if the ghosts themselves were cracking the Wind with a whip.

Imagine you are three miles away from where you are going, and you can almost see it, you can feel it, and yet the wind was too fierce to move, and that's an understatement. The headwind came howling down upon us so intense that Phyliss and Jerry had to get off the road. I watched them ahead roll their bikes down the hill to take shelter in a ditch. Alex and Iris stopped too to break out their rain gear when the first drops wet their skin. I was excited to try out my rain gear, but I hoped it wouldn't become a downpour because I was too focused on fighting the headwind to get off my bike. As I approached the rest of them, the wind accelerated to the point where no matter how hard I pedaled, I was being pushed to the right and backwards, so I got off the bike and started trying to walk. Even that proved challenging. The only way I could take a step was to lean on the weight of the bike and slowly trudge forward, half a step at a time. I was determined to make it to that supposed ghost town, rather than crawl into a ditch and give in to the stubborn wind. At least the rain did not intensify! Just sprinkles...

A mile went by, and still no sight of the town. The wind was scraping against my sanity, as I slowly put one foot in front of another. You don't really know yourself until you've faced that kind of adversity. In the heat of those brazen inner fires, a person comes face to face with the edge of his or her soul. It's in that interface between body and spirt, when all the layers of mind and heart have been peeled, no torn, back by the experience, like life is performing open-heart surgery on you, that you come face to face with your limits, your darkness, and your light.

You want to cry but you can't because the emotions have been shattered. You try to outthink the situation but you can't because your mind is a numb frozen wasteland of automatic pilot with one last desperate order: take another step or die. Something happens in that pain. Something gets rearranged inside, and you're either broken or triumphant. Either way you learn something new about yourself and your capacity to enjoy life, and that knowing alone is more than most people realize in a lifetime. Your soul is ripped open and it takes time to heal the wound, to integrate the new level of consciousness. You either have to take some time off and rest, quit the mad quest altogether, or continue on in a stupor of numbness wrapped in pain and try not to completely break down.

It took us several hours to reach Jeffery City, more of hamlet than a city full of abandoned rotting buildings and about 50 locals who stare at you with disgust. I left my bike leaning against the wall and stumbled into the smoky bar, more like one of those 3G dead zones with a couple of zombies hunched at the bar. After some bitter complaints about the fierce winds, a local who looked like a trapper a couple of centuries late for the grave, cocked his head slowly away from the TV almost mechanically and creepily said, "That wudn't nuthin' - that was just a breeze." Then his neck swiveled back to the glowing box up in the corner and his emaciated hand lifted a pale cigarette to his lips. I couldn't believe I was even standing there in the same room with a smoker, but I didn't want to be outside facing that dread Wind.

The mean lady running the bar at night told us that we could camp across the street at the abandoned Masonic Lodge. She said the campground was overgrown, so to just camp inside the building. She said the skeeters would eat you alive outside. The creepy factor was deepening, there was no Verizon service, and indeed we were in a 3G dead zone, and the locals wanted us bikers to crowd into an abandoned building where Masons used to break out their Fred Flintstone horned hats and fry the flesh of dead animals on these huge grills outside. It wasn't a stretch for the imagination to visualize human sacrifices and screaming. The lady was correct about the mosquitos. You couldn't even reach for your pack without a hundred bloodsuckers covering each leg when the wind died for an instant. It was like the Wind was coordinating with the mosquitos to let them attack us. Even in 35 MPH winds, the "skeeters" would swarm in a cloud around you and some would make their gruesome landing. Normally I respect the Masons and all, with their sacred geometry and secret society delving into the wisdom traditions like astrology and alchemy and ancient forgotten architecture techniques, but from the archaeological remains left behind by these guys, I could tell they were whacked. This was some strange twilight zone mix between the Lion's Club, Masons, and rustic ranchers who had lost their minds, probably claimed by the evil Wind howling outside. Apparently the city once boomed with over 5000 people, but now a mere 50 lost souls walked its desecrated earth.

I began trying to imagine what happened to bring the settlement to its knees. I conjured up images of a crazed but charismatic cult leader named Jefferey with an ego as high as the Grand Tetons in the distance who brought his flock to settle here, and one by one they started to realize his true darker intentions. In the end, they had to kill him to survive and the cult disbanded. But then one of my cyclist buddies told me the truth. It was once a thriving Uranium mining town and the vein or whatever suddenly ran dry overnight, collapsing the town. And these last few surviving possibly inbred locals were the hard core troupe who refused to leave, stubborn disciples of the twisted wind.

I hurried into the abandoned lodge to escape the mosquitos and Alex and Iris patted me down hastily. Apparently, Alex was on a mission to vanquish every mosquito in the building and had declared a new rule about how fast you had to open the door and slam it behind you, as well as help him to kill the intruders that made it through the momentary breach. He looked like a ninja who had forgotten his mask, gracefully pouncing across the cement floor slaying the vampire bugs. Then I saw that some of the seventy year old cyclists had set their tents up inside the building "just in case". So I wandered through the building searching for a nice comfy slice of white-painted concrete, wondering if I'd set my tent up or just lay out my mat. After such a horrendous end to the day I dreaded another uncomfortable sleepless night like the one we had with the robot trains under the pavilion. There were three main sections of the building, but my spider sense said not to enter the smaller bathroom/kitchen section, and I agreed. The intuition that came up was that something very bad had happened in there. So I rolled my thermarest mat out near Alex and Iris and proceeded to take out my cooking ware. The Rolling Dutchmen had afternoon tea with the Australians and I over heard an enlightening conversation about the state of European politics versus Australian politics before they all packed it back across the highway to the creepy bar to seek out a shred of nourishment beyond our trail rations.

Alex, Iris, and I broke out our planned gourmet pasta and proceeded to set up our cook stoves. Iris cut the onion, garlic, peppers, etc while Alex stir fried them with the sauce and I cooked the spiral noodles, adding basil and other spices that they had packed across America over the past two and a half months. By the time our friends returned to our abandoned sanctuary they were surprised to see us laying their with full stomachs and the work of our feast laid out in all it's glorious splendor. The whole place smelled like basil and garlic. That would keep those vampire bugs away! Just as the sun was setting, our good friend Sky "Launchpad" Horne came flying in the door. We were so excited to see that he had caught up to us in that Wind on a unicycle! I jumped up and man-hugged him.

As I suspected, it was the worst night of sleep ever! After a game of I-pad Scrabble and a scolding from Phyllis for giggling too much and joking around about a cartoon we made up about animated jive-talking mosquitos searching for blood sacks (humans), we finally got to sleep on the rocky concrete. At one point Phyllis woke me up to tell me to turn on my side to stop snoring. I almost told her to move her tent outside where the Rolling Dutchmen and the Glacier-bound brothers decided to camp, hiding from the mosquitos in their tents.

The next morning everyone woke up in a frantic state of packing gear in a desperate attempt to not only get a jumpstart on the Wailing Wind, but also to get the hell out of there. Sky left on his unicycle first, with his Aries moon making up for leaving last the day before. The Australians left next followed by the Glacier brothers, myself, the Dutchmen, and Phyllis and Jerry. I had hash browns for breakfast over at the lost bar, only to find the one redeeming quality in the town, a nice large motherly lady in a blue shirt who has a son in Seattle with a coffee shop. She fixed us tea and breakfast and was the one slice of culture and friendliness in the town.

I set off in a flurry of pedaling into a brazen crosswind, but was over come by the Dutchmen half way to the rest area called Sweetwater Station. The Wind was coming in hard from the left side trying to push all of our bikes off the road. We quickly found that the wicked wind had a wily brother! Imagine riding all day with your head down and tilted into the wind coming from the port side of the bike while straining your arm muscles to barely keep the bike on the side of the road with giant deisels blasting by every so often to throw your balance into chaos and missing out on the beautiful scenery the whole time. It was extremely difficult to manage, let alone keep yourself from going crazy. At the start of the day I kept voicing the mantra, "The Wind is my Friend" over and over. By mid-ride I was screaming at the frickin' wind having it out with my former favorite element. It's easy to glamorize your favorite element when you're not being assaulted by it. Today I gained a deep respect for the power of the wind with a corresponding realization that the elements will rip us apart without flinching if they must. This Wind had an evil flinch, driven by the ghosts of Jefferey City.

After we all caught up and had lunch at Sweetwater station, where some Mormon's once crossed a river to survive, and there are annual re-enactments, we all set out in the order we arrived. Phyllis came limping into the rest area and looked drastically defeated by the wind. I wondered if she'd make it or just set camp and wait with her riding partner Jerry for the Wind to die. I took off, inspired by the hope that the road was turning north so the wind would be at our backs!

The wind had a different plan of mischievous attack. Right when the road shifted the wind shifted too and came even harder from the front-left. You could almost hear the spirit of the wind taunting you! My favorite element had turned against me, and that helped to defeat my spirit. When I stopped to rest on a rise I didn't realize that the side of the road was farther down than usual and I started to tumble off the bike. At that crucial moment, before I could catch myself, a strong gust blasted me from behind and threw me off the bike. I went somersaulting three times before I stopped and shook my fists at the wind, taking a few punches. Before long I was screaming at the howling wind, uttering words I won't repeat here, but you can imagine my disgust. When I reached the ledge of an incredible escarpment I was excited but wary to fly down the steep 6% grade. Supposedly it was mostly downhill to Lander from that point on but you couldn't enjoy it because of the wicked Wind.

I realized I had emerged from the zombified 3G dead zone and quickly uploaded photos from the day before plus snapped some amazing shots of the Grand Tetons shimmering with snow caps in the distance. They were the only shining jewel of the day, looming in the distance with breathtaking enticement. But you have to go from here to there to enjoy them. So I lurched forward and popped it into high gear, praying for guidance. Before you know it, I was flying down that dangerous road out in the street with no cars behind me like I was going to win the tour de france. I reached 46 MPH again and then the wind tried to kill me by blowing my bike off course. I knew that if I did not fight with every ounce of strength and mental fortitude that I had the Wind could kill me, sending me flying right off the side of the road crashing into the rocks. My inner sense told me to slow down, but I wanted to make a statement to the Wind. It was probably stupid looking back in hindsight, but I was pissed and ready to fight. I managed to steer myself through the surging gusts going on and off the road as cars and trucks went soaring by, and I thought I had defeated the Wind. Mainly because after that, they calmed, and there was a moment of peace cycling through this beautiful canyon toward Lander, WY. I was so wrong!

I saw a cyclist approaching fast from behind so I forced myself to pump my legs with all my strength until finally I was exhausted and the cyclist caught me just before the Wind returned to it's deadly mischief. I thought it was Phyllis and/or Jerry but it was somebody new! A 75-year old cyclist from Asheville NC. I couldn't believe it. Another 70-something year old riding like he was 21. I mentioned to Barb back at Sweetwater Station that she and her husband acted like they were 21. She said, "We feel like we are 21, but our bodies look wrinkled and old. I wish we could get rid of that!" And we all laughed over lunch at the rest area. This guy was 75 and he had tried to attempt the TransAM famous biking path a year before but was clipped by a truck on a curve in Fairplay, Colorado where he was injured badly, busting his knee. You could still see a vicious scar running down his leg. He said that after he healed, he was determined to complete the journey, this time with his wife riding ahead to each town to wait for him and worry. After our brief handshake in the wind, and laughing about how we were both from Asheville and met on the side of a hill in the wilds of Wyoming, he blasted off and left me in the dust.

For a serene moment I sat there in stunned silence watching that brave soul pedal away filled with determination. I was humbled as the wind kept buffeting against me from the side. No matter which way the road turned, the wind would shift and keep hitting you hard from the side. A few days before, a professional cycler asked me about my experience with the crosswinds while wearing my huge backpack, and I innocently said, "It's not that bad." I wish I could have taken that back. I didn't even know what a crosswind was until today! But the courage of this Ashevillian inspired me. I had tears well up in my eyes. Who gets hit by a truck at age 75 and waits a year to heal to get right back to where he started. Wow! I just shook my head in disbelief. I thought about most Americans who spend their lonely nights watching television dreaming of one day doing interesting things, but just talking about television around the water cooler at work instead. I kinda got angry for a second, thinking of what I would say to television viewers right now if I could be beamed into their broadcast.

I would say, "Look you lazy sap, turn off this TV and put down the remote. Throw it hard against the wall and take a sledge hammer to the TV and reclaim an interesting life worthy of the annals of human history. What did you dream of as a child? And why aren't you spending every waking moment in pursuit of your passions, beyond the illusive boundaries of your excuses and your self-imposed boundaries. Look at that tough old man, riding that bike like his life depended on it, leaving me and my pack mule in the dust! Ride through your life with that kind of passion! Find out what you want to do and do it with the full force of your being, welcoming failure as your ally. Each failure is a teacher in disguise showing you what not to do. When Edison's chief inventor gave up and tried to convince Thomas to do the same, he said, "Nonsense, we know a 1000 ways in which it doesn't work." Now that's embracing failure. You must fail to succeed, so stop living in fear, stop trying to gain anyone's approval and go live your dream!

Full of inspiration I jumped on Magellan and took off after that wily old man, screaming triumphantly through the canyon. I was going to make it! I was going to get through this sixty miles despite the wicked Winds of the West trying to thwart me. As an Aqaurian Sun Sign we are supposed to be able to harness the power of the Air element, but today I only felt defeated and discouraged by my own element. I remember being young and standing on a giant rock on a mountain side with 109 MPH winds howling by. They could have easily sent me plummeting to my death, but they spared me in my innocence. I wasn't innocent anymore, and this Wind was out to defeat me and my dream.

As I was turning into a curve on a bridge my front tire hit some loose sand and gravel and the bike slipped. I tried to overcompensate by turning away from the slide like you do in a car in the snow, but at that moment the Wind returned with a vengenace slamming into my left side and sending me flying off the bike and into the guard rail. I almost went over but I caught myself as the bike crashed under and scraped across the ground. I caught onto the guard rail like Luke being pummeled by the Emperor's Jedi lightning and screamed! In the shock of the crash I tripped over Magellan and went flying into the road. Luckily there was no diesel baring down or I would have died in that moment. I quickly shot to my feet scraped and bruised and set the bike upright. I leapt back on and kept pedaling through my tears. Fuck you Wind, you Fucking Bitch! I cursed and cursed and cursed at the Wicked Wind for the next three miles. I remembered that little old man and knew I would make my destination, my body bruised, my soul hurt, but not totally defeated.

My Droid phone rang with the heaven ring tone and I remembered to check my emails. There were 42 of them! One of my loyal blog readers sent me a donation of $200 and all I could feel was gratitude despite my pain. I reached the turnoff to go to Lander and had 8 more miles to go and I thought I saw Phyllis and Jerry catching up to me so I turned on the speed through a hundred aches. I rode hard and burned my cramping feet, aching butt, and exhausted legs to the last embers, occasionally stopping to drink water and catch my breath. I was determined to defeat the Wind or at least give it a strong showing.

I rode and rode and rode up and down hills in a numb daze with Phyllis and Jerry, the experienced cyclists right on my tail. I know I wasn't supposed to be racing, but after they both blew past me the day before with my pack mule load slowing me down, I was determined to beat them both to the city limit sign at least. Maybe I would get to the city limit sign and get off the bike and take a bow as they passed. That would be nice and dramatic, and I love the dramatic! Instead I got a fifteenth wind within my soul and just powered past the sign and into town, my lungs burning inside, my lips dry and cracking, and my soul wounded. The Wind had won the day for sure and I accepted the defeat, retreating into the first coffee shop I could find to order a Chai, a lemonade, and a bottomless Iced-tea. My body burned with aches and pains from literally fighting the Wind. People said the Winds of Wyoming were fierce. I remember flying down I-80 and seeing a sign that said "Strong Winds Possible" That was the understatement of the century, and as if to emphasize, the same sign was posted a few miles later in case you missed it!

I must admit that there is a secret hatred in me for my favorite element now. I love cycling, but doing it against the Wind drives you nuts. At the local coffee shop in Lander later that night I overheard a few experienced cyclists say they were quitting their journey across America. They had given it their all and it was the worst experience ever. They were not enjoying any of it. I didn't blame them at all. Everyone had terrible stories to tell about Jefferey City.

The Bright City of Lander

All of the elder cyclists took hotel rooms. You could see their bikes locked outside their doors, and they were probably propped up in bed after hot showers watching television by now. I rolled over to the local hotel where the had camping with benefits for 8 bucks and plopped down my debit card. Down at the bottom of a a hill they had a field right next to the river. Alex and Iris finally showed up, and Iris had almost died too while going down the steep hill. She got blown off her bike 8 times! We slowly set up our tents next to the river after befriending a fellow camping cyclist named Zack. He had been in town for a day already and was sporting a nice dress shirt and shorts, looking totally happy and recharged. We hoped the same transformation would befall us! He showed us to the showers and a hot tub and laundry. We peeled our salty clothes off our skins and were soothed by the hot water. My skin wrinkled like a grandma before I could tear myself away for the shower. Then I shaved and took to the hot tub with Alex and Iris. We all felt miserable but glad to be alive and arrived. Phyllis and Jerry came into the hot tub area and informed us that they were never on the road. They got a ride from the Department of Transportation cowboy at Sweetwater Station, and commended us for our courage in facing the worst Wind they had ever experienced while bike touring.

There were a lot of excited cyclists in town and the talk was all about the coming 4th of July celebration. We had dinner at an Asian Cuisine restaurant with a very happy Dutch family, a father, the mom, and a beautiful 25 -year old tall blonde Dutch girl who had just graduated from college with degrees in Archaeology and Heritage, whatever that was. Something to do with religion. All the cycling guys were gawking over her, but I was too exhausted to care about beauty at that moment. They were leaving the next morning as a family to assault the pass that leads to the next city of Dubois anyway. Reawakened by my dirty soy chai I struck up a conversation with the Dutch family that was very enlightening. I love hearing people's stories. The father contracted lime disease from a tick bite and was hospitalized for four days a few weeks back, but he and his family kept on fighting the trail. The mother's bike broke down and they had to backtrack to a bike store in Casper to get a new wheel. Her trail name was now "Broken Wheel" I looked into the girl's sparkling beautiful blue eyes and wondered what she had endured. If she could weather the storm of all these hungry males and get out of town unscathed she might have a chance to make it home. I shared with her the archaeological information about the Indians from David the Anthropologist in Laramie and the Virginian in Medicine Bow and she loved learning those bits of data. Her eyes lit up with her favorite subject.

After dinner I pedaled slowly back to the hotel and refused to go out with the others. Alex and Iris refused too. We were all weary and defeated and needed recharging. I laid my heavy head on a dry bag full of clothes and listened to the river. It reminded me of camping with my father and brothers as a kid in the Rockies. I let the river lull me into a deep slumber and had the best night of nourishing sleep ever. I was beginning to get the hang of this traveling magi lifestyle. I often talked about astrology and people were asking for quickie readings that inspired them. I couldn't wait to get to Nelson and spend my first three months in a city getting to know the locals and spreading the Cosmic Word. But for now, I am where I am, and I am enjoying resting and recuperating in Lander, Wyoming.

I woke up today next to a river and walked up the hill to shower again. I then rode deeper into town to situate myself at the Folklore coffee shop on Main Street to write this blog post. I want to thank anyone who had the heart to send a donation, even ten bucks. If these words inspire you, you can help support the journey by donating on the front page of TravelingMagi.com. Even five bucks will buy a nice frothy soul-warming chai! I make money through doing astrology, but I'm doing a lot of pro-bono work on the road with the budget-challenged cyclers. I just give them mini readings to get them perked and excited about astrology. But with your donations I can help feed and house a few fellow weary travelers including myself. I've kind of taken the unicyclist Sky under my wing as he is my fellow Brevard NC homey, and I want to see him complete his journey from coast to coast on a unicycle. What an amazing accomplishment it will be! I just hope I make it to Canada in one piece! Thank you for reading and thank you for all your comments on Facebook! I appreciate every shred of interest and friendship!

Turns out there's a wealthy orthodontist just three miles outside of town who throws a huge fireworks show in synch with a amazing music that easily rivals the city's grand show the next day. People come from all over Wyoming to Lander to experience this weekend. I think I'll go track down this farm and participate, as today my soul is feeling revived and nurtured. All I can say is Hallelujah! I made it Lander. What was once a dream is gradually becoming a reality. I've gone 400 miles of the 1200 I need to traverse to get to Canada, a third of the way! Tomorrow, I will wake up before the Wind and try to get a jumpstart on the pass up to Dubois. Secretly I'm already afraid, because it's 75 miles uphill, but not as steep as Fort Collins to Laramie. But after what I've been through already, I'm ready to take it on. I downloaded a few new songs to add to my Soulful playlist on the I-pad. Tomorrow the Traveling Magi will mount Magellan and ride for the Grand Tetons!