Prairies to Pacific: Copey Rides West

Not that there’s no beauty in desolate wastelands, but… it made me happy to see this! That weather thankfully moved away Climbing up Togwotee Pass — beautiful and not too difficult now that I’m pretty strong on the bike 😇 (Maybe helped by favorable winds) A lot of snow at the top Another great sign Coming down the pass I had my first view of the Tetons. The German guy I met at the rest station a couple days before told me that it would be great to see the Tetons for the first time and I didn’t understand exactly what they were — I thought being back in the Rockies was it, which wasn’t that interesting. But when I saw this, I said “WOW” out loud. That night I camped at the bottom of the pass and got my tent up a couple hours before a MASSIVE lightning storm started nearby, to the point where I could feel the thunder through the ground in my tent. I’d seen a lot of TransAm racers and there was a couple that I knew were on the pass when it hit — I hope they found shelter I survived the s...

I left the last post off with me ready to go to Rawlins. That involved 16 miles on the shoulder of I-80. Other bikers say it’s not too bad because the shoulder is so wide — I had 24 mph headwinds so I was crawling along at 5 mph while semi trucks raced by, sometimes two wide! I stopped for a relief from the heat and wind It was a stretch where I kept counting down the miles, and each one was excruciatingly long Eventually I made it to Sinclair, home of Sinclair fuel (hence the dinosaur) I got to see an American freight train for the first time — a childhood dream! (There Goes a Train, Nana). The trains blasted their horns next to the town comically loud at night Very odd to cycle past a refinery, but an amazing feat of engineering Even the playground was on-brand (Next couple pictures out of order, from earlier in day) In the end, Rawlins wasn’t too bad. It had the typical downtown with every fast food chain on a street way too wide for its intended purpose, but the residential areas w...