Odometer: 1222 – 1277 ( 55 miles, 89 kilometers )
I took my time getting going and paid the price. I slept in, took my time having breakfast and visited the pharmacy at Walmart. It was around 10am before I got on the road.
I figured I’d take my time because I had done a big day yesterday (Day 19) and today was only 52 miles. How hard could it be?
When I got started I took what I thought was the most obvious road to the intersection on the GPS where I needed to join the GDMBR. This led very quickly to the four lane interstate which started to make me nervous. I continued however; there was a generous shoulder and another way would have meant retracing my route.
Eventually I came to where the road I needed to take crossed the interstate. Wouldn’t you know it?…there were no ramps. Not only were there no ramps, but barbed wire fences prevented access. I thought for few moments and then did the most expeditious thing. I lifted my bike and panniers over the barbwire, squeezed between the fence and the guardrail and worked my way down the steep embankment to the road below.
And that was the start of the day….
The road out of Rawlins was a steep climb to the south. It took several hours to complete a fraction of the distance I had covered in an hour the day before. The day continued with steep ascents and some descents all with a strong cross wind.
Eventually as McCoy had described the dry arid landscape gave way to the aspen forests of the Sierra Madre. It was like pulling away a veil. Within a few miles it was if you had arrived in another place entirely. Although the terrain was similarly hilly the valleys were adorned with streams filled with water. Some how it made the struggle easier and allowed me to forget how slow the progress was.
Any thought I had of doubling McCoy’s distance for the day had long vanished and I had resigned myself to primitive camping just past Little Sandstone Creek.
I arrived at the destination and had set up my tent when a fellow long distance biker from Scandinavia (someplace) came along to share the camp area. I had passed him several miles back struggling to get water from one of the streams. I told him what I knew, that there was no outhouse as McCoy had described, and the area by the bridge looked promising.
We settled in our separate spots, made supper and retreated to our tents quickly before the sun set.
