I trained for this ride during the epic eastern snowfalls of 2010. A month before I left I said to myself that I would not be able to bare the sight of snow again. I saw it while in Colorado Springs, the Hoto Pass, Breckenridge, etc., but its presence was not offensive and did not bother me. The snow in Wyoming, however, was offensive. It was Offensive Snow. This morning I packed up the tent, ate a pack of peanuts, and was on the road with the sun on the horizon and temperatures in the 30's before 6:45. I raced to a rest area 20 miles away, indicated on my map as having bathrooms. As I warmed up inside I looked out the window. Utter dismay washed over me as I saw the white-out. Buckets of large flakes were invading the land around me and gutting my ride. My Dutch friend (the guy I met also doing the Transamerica a few days ago) pulled into the rest stop shortly after I did. We waited out the onslaught inside for two hours.
The landscape remained rocky and barren until 30 miles into today's ride when I dropped about 1,000 feet to Lander. As I descended the snow disappeared, the temperature rose from 31 to 45 degrees, and the land looked increasingly fertile. As Charlie Norton said to me back in Kansas, the country before Lander should never have been broken by man. The sight of green fields, cows, and productive land created a warm familiar feeling inside me. (The feeling was not actually the sight of the land, but sensation returning to my fingers and toes.)
Tonight I am staying with a family from the warmshowers cycling website. After a quick shower, we are going out for a few drinks.
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