Day 7 -- Lander, WY to Dubois, WY -- 76 Miles

The heat of the previous day motivated an early start at 5:30am, and one without breakfast (unless you are counting a king size Payday and a liter of orange Gatorade as constituting a proper breakfast). I felt strong the moment I got on the bike and I immediately knew the "zero day" had its intended effect.

Leaving the Lander city limits I entered the Wind River Indian Reservation, home of the Shoshone tribe among others. I have learned over the years that the forced exodus of the Indians (as they like to be called because Columbus mistakenly thought he was in India when they were so named) to reservations was uneven in its fortunes. If you were the Miami Tribe, you got stuck in a dust bowl in Oklahoma with zero prospects for living off the land. The Shoshone Tribe however, scored pretty good, as the Wind River valley is both fertile and stunning to behold.

This is the second time I have seen this stretch of country by bike and I can't for the life of me figure out how I forgot how beautiful it is. When I am an old fart with patience to sit down and read a book it will be a geological account of this land. Plateaus, upheavals, red rocks, lavender rocks, green grasslands, golden grasslands, granite peaks, raging rivers, pristine lakes, buttes, domes, and it just goes on and on as far as the eye can see.

All in all it was a tough day. My bike computer registered 106 degrees on the road. I was bonked from not eating enough. There were headwinds for part of the way combined with some significant climbs. My butt hurt. Despite all of this, the landscape was so beautiful I did not want the day to end!!

Rolling into Dubois, which is hopelessly touristy, I rode up to an old friend, the Cowboy Cafe, home of the Greg's Great Pancake Massacre of 2004 (when I ate a bunch of them one morning in an impressive show of unrestrained consumption). This time I would settle for the Cowboy Cobb Salad because the heat was playing games with my fuel tank. But just to make sure the locals didn't think I was going soft, I downed a huge slice of chocolate bourbon pecan pie with a heaping scoop of vanilla. Oh and I washed it all down with seven 7ups.

Accommodations for the night were found at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church as recommended by other cyclists up the road. The church graciously allows cyclists use of their community center and it is very cozy. Kurt and I met another cyclist today names Matt hailing from Ft. Collins, Colorado. Matt is riding the entire TransAmerica Trail. As with me in 2004, Matt started in Yorktown, Virginia and is riding to the west coast. It was fun trading stories with him about the menacing dogs of Kentucky.

Dinner was again at the Cowboy Cafe: burger, fries, five 7ups, and a huge slice of forest fruit pie (fresh blackberries, huckleberries, blueberries, and raspberries) with the a heaping scoop of vanilla! That night I would dream of eating three of those pies and declaring it Greg's Great Pie Massacre of 2011!