Diary

Mileage: 107 miles (173 kms)

Elevation Change:  2732 feet (833 meters)

Weather: cool and cloudy

Morale:  excellent

Incidents:  went to Mass in cowboy country

Daily Summary:

Another day, another century.  The scenery was more interesting than it has been for the past few days, but keep in mind that that is not saying much.  Today we followed the Platte River for awhile, which meant trees and an occasional ranch, along with some relief in the terrain.  The big excitement was getting freight trains to whistle at us as they came the other way.  The first 75 miles were fairly easy, with little elevation change and a nice little tailwind.  Then we had a long and annoying false flat with a headwind to make the ride seem about ten miles too long.  Christopher ran the second SAG stop to rave reviews.   Lusk, Wyoming was the setting for the TV series “Rawhide”, and nothing much has changed here since.  (Song of the day?  Rawhide, of course!)  In fact, there is a big Rawhide Revival here this weekend so the town (population 2200) is full of cowboys.  The first order of business was to watch the Germany/Portugal game, and it was fun to see the Germans get a well deserved win.  Then, Chris and I had some fun pool time.  Next, we wanted to watch the parade at 4, go to Mass at 5, and then to Route Rap at 6.  Unfortunately the parade happened during Mass, so we missed it.  We enjoyed Mass, though, with about 30 others and a fairly conservative sermon from the cowboy priest.  The restaurant where we were supposed to have dinner was swamped and we were too hungry to wait an hour, so we went off on our own with our fellow cyclist Mike.  Raymond had a 16 ounce steak and then a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup burrito for dessert (you don’t even want to think about how rich it was!).   That’s what 100 miles will do to you!

 

In our pictures below you see the scenery of the day.  Then Lil changes modes of transportation for while.  And finally, Raymond doubles the population of Lost Springs with his visit.