Quote of the Day: "I could use a sauna about now".
This was my cabin/motel at Walden:
As you can see from the two previous photos the day started out with clear sky but it did not stay that way for long. There are miles of snow fences in these western states:
While the design of the fences is all the same the knowledge of where to put them with respect to the contours of the land must take some time to accumulate. Certainly mistakes in placement must be costly:
It wasn't all that colorful really and the storm clouds continued to gather throughout the morning:
As I looked back into Wyoming I saw this sign and realized I hadn't been following this law:):)
Westbounders Justin and Lianne. They stopped at the driveway to the white house in the above photo. Justin is from Charleston:
I encountered two thunderstorms with hail which rang the bell on the handlebars. The second one came up so fast I didn't get suited up quickly enough to prevent getting my riding clothes soaked so by the time I rolled into Walden I was very cold. Yes I could have enjoyed the heat of a sauna but was happy to come in out of the weather at the River Rock Cafe where I was treated very well. I changed into my street clothes and had a great lunch while the waitresses called around to some Couch Surfer hosts to find me a place to stay for the night - now that's service. Check out these beams:
Photo of the River Rock Cafe taken the next morning. It is attached to the Antler Inn:
I needed to get my clothes dry if I where to continue, but there was a backup at the laundry mat as it seemed it was laundry day in Walden. 25% of the dryer capacity was offline which compounded the issue but I had the opportunity to make some friends as I waited. One kind woman insisted I go ahead of her to help out.
As soon as I suited up with my dry clothes at around 4pm, it started to rain again and as I looked off in the direction I had to go it didn't look promising at all and I was warned about the particular dangers of Colorado lightening - not sure I understood these peculiarities but do know that Colorado doesn't provide outhouses to take cover in as frequently as Montana does (see postings from Outhouse MT and West Yellowstone MT for context). Realizing that with such a late start, a pass, and 65 miles to go to the next town it was not wise to press on it became apparent that I would have to be satisfied with the 50 miles I had gotten in already for the day.
Luckily the friendly folks in the town had connected me with James the owner of the Moose Creek Cafe (great food too) who then connected me with Rick who had a spare room for me. Rick also has a basement which provides a home away from home to two Chinese girls that are working at a local business for the summer. I had fun visiting with them while climbing over the communication barriers (my Chinese is rusty:):):) ) to talk about the USA and places I have visited in China.
Sorry for the delay in getting these posts updated and thank you for the concern some folks have expressed when they didn't see them after a few days. The key to this is a good internet connection and even with a good connection the process of loading the photos is time consuming. It is a 3 step process that even with the help from the IT wizards at Best Buy and a good internet connection takes at least an hour per blog just for the photos.
The process is; 1) upload photos from phone to iCloud 2) download photos from iCloud to Samsung tablet. Somewhere in these two steps the photos lose their chronological order. 3) Select photos in correct order to load to blog posting. If anyone knows a better way please let me know or even just a way to get them in the correct chronological order.
It's time folks please.......
And finally please remember the cause - soldiersbestfriend.org I will go into this in more detail and perhaps some level of haranguing later on, but for now here is the link .... and an additional link for donation SoldiersBestFriend - Donate Please :):) Oh and I would be a lot more comfortable if you use the "honorarium" option vs the "memoriam" option - you'll understand when you click on the link:):).
As you donate please enter my name in the "In Honor of Spot" so the folks at SBF can tally the results to encourage me and let me know WE are getting something done TOGETHER. I recognize we are really trying to honor the Vets but this is the only way SBF can tally the results of this drive (tour).
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