Jackson Hole, WY

Don't worry, Wyoming taxpayers - your state's government is not wasting your money on excess public libraries.  Cody and here in Jackson are the only two I've seen, and Cody was closed for the 5th of July (and the 4th... and the 3rd).  I've been seeing a lot of interesting geography in Wyoming, and the scenery really is wild and varied.  So, I'm making all of the pictures big this time.

From Sturgis, I headed over a few more of the Black Hills to Devil's Tower (above) in Wyoming.  It's the core of an ancient volcano, where the magma pressed up from within, hardened into the cone you see, and the exterior of the volcano was eroded away.  At the time, headwinds were in the 25 mph range, and I was making 5mph over land.  I was less than impressed at the rock I'd detoured quite a way to see.

The next town on the list was Buffalo, where I happened to run into a large group of cross-country cyclists, the Illini 4000!  The 28 or so of them have raised well over $100,000 for cancer research so far.  Be sure to check out their blogs on the far bottom right of their web page.

The locals in Buffalo highly recommended the very scenic "Crazy Woman Canyon Road" up to the top of the Big Horn mountains.  Despite the obvious warnings of the name, I decided to accept the challenge.   Woops...  It was a dirt road, where I had a hard time getting enough traction to get up the mountain.  The crosswinds on the way into the canyon were at times high enough to literally slide the bicycle tires sideways through the gravel.  The views, though, were amazing.

The route took me so long to reach the mountain peaks that I had to spend the night at the top, elevation in the 9500' range.  It got quite chilly, and there's not a lot of air to chew on up there.  I just tried to convince myself that less air means less air resistance (unless it's windy (it's always windy)).

Can't complain about the scenery, though.

The next morning, about a mile after setting off, I pulled over to play in the snow, on the 3rd of July!

Heading down the mountains on the other side, I nearly froze - I had to put on long sleeves, and the wind in the face was almost unbearable. 







Of course, this being Wyoming, within a couple of hours I found myself in a desert.

Pronghorn antelope 'loping on the side of the road.

The 4th of July was spent in Cody, the rodeo capital of the world, where I ran into the Illini 4000 once again, and found that they were headed to Yellowstone about the same time as me.  Somehow I managed not to take pictures of the rodeo, but rest assured - it was ridiculous.  I thought it would be a tourist trap type of occasion, but there were locals absolutely into it, and the whole thing was on ESPN, since it was part of the rodeo world tour or some such thing.

Not long after Cody, the road starts winding into the mountains, following the Yellowstone River.

The going gets tough, and the air gets thin once again.  This is me trying to act casual about being halfway over the Rockies.

A day later, I was in Yellowstone. And what, to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature van and twenty-eight tiny bicycles... Once again, the Illini had caught up with me.  We camped out together (I bummer a camping spot from them) for a cold evening - that night, my water bottles froze outside the tent.  The next day, they headed out but I stuck around to take a tour of Yellowstone.

Steaming pools are a regular thing, and there's lots of these colorful pools - in most of the pools, the color is caused by bacteria rather than minerals.

Wouldn't be a trip to Yellowstone without watching Old Faithful do her thing:

Colorful mud?

And.... that's about the time my camera decided to stop working.  So, there might not be any photographic updates for a while.  I did visit the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which I found particularly beautiful, and yesterday went through the Grand Tetons.  These are pictures of those borrowed from the internet:

Also, while you're out there blogging, be sure to check out Jacob Joubert's current work.  He's making a 12 part series dedicated to servicemen/women who've lost their lives in American wars.