It has come to my attention that many other NBG riders have decided to call it quits and go home. I wondered why my brother and I have been casually continuing. We are riding to D.C. for fun, to see sites, to meet people, and lastly to make it to the rally. We have hitchhiked some of the way and will probably take a train from Chicago to Pittsburgh because of a comic book convention and a medieval battle called Pennsic. The ride is not a daily rigorous ritual to test our endurance or commitment, it’s to have a good time. I think some others were taking the final goal too seriously and not really enjoying where they were at the time. Granted, we did not suffer 100 plus degree heat and we often stay at motels with swimming pools. We started by getting up around 10am and only rode until 5 or 6. Basically, we’re taking it easy and are willing to adapt to our terrain, weather, and sites. When body parts hurt we rest and try to adjust the bikes to alleviate them. We take Advil. I just wonder if the others were entering their ride with the wrong attitude, that’s all.

black clouds

I’d kill for a bowl of pho.

We’ve seen roaming buffalo and playing deer and antelope, but a lot of the wildlife we’ve witnessed has been dead. In a car, roadkill is seen for an instance and maybe smelled for a moment. On a bike we get an up close and personal look at massacred deer, cats, dogs, skunks, prairie dogs, snakes, birds, turtles, mice, rabbits, crickets, and mysterious flat things. The last couple states have been quite arid and the only smells have been cow manure and decomposition. Depending on the wind we could smell the bodies for a good couple minutes before coming across the intestine bursting corpse.

Mark’s note: the craziest thing is that with about 75% accuracy (50% being the norm), we could identify if the corpse was antelope or deer by the smell alone.

Some cars don’t give us this much berth.

all that wasted meat.

part one.

In the past week, temperatures have been soaring in the nineties. I’ve sweat at least my body weight and have started seeing hallucinations of ten foot prairie dogs. I’ve lost all lust for women but am left with a puzzling craving to hug a snowman. Oh Frosty, you and your luscious lobed body is welcome in my arms anytime. Me, Frosty, a tutu, a bagpipe, and a meat locker. I could wear the tutu while you could play Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies on the pipes. We could be happy forever. Or until I become a frozen ballerina. Holy flying buffalo Batman, I’ve completely lost it.

part two.

New game plan. The next gas station quickie mart I’m going to get me a bag’o’ice. I’m going to go into the bathroom and make sweet love to that bag’o’ice.

part three.

in the shade of a tree I’m going to roll out a tarp and dump out that bag’o’ice. I’m going to roll myself into a tarp ice person HoHo. oh yeah.

part four.

found a lake. cooled off. but I’ll never forget you Frosty, or you my sweet bag’o’ice.

-max

We keep finding interesting things along the highway, other than the usual roadkill and beer bottles.

The next most common thing would have to be toys. So far, I’ve picked up 3 toys along the road, brand new practically… At the next rest area or town, I donate the toy to the first kid I see. I think Santa should check in on this. One day we found a whole string of toys, mostly half-naked dolls, My Little Ponies, and broken McDonald’s Disney toys. Among them, though, we found a beanie baby with the tag still on. Maybe it will fund the rest of our trip. I imagine a mother or, more likely, a father got frustrated at their kid and threw all the toys out of the car…

We’ve also found magazines. I would love to find Bike or Computer Games, but instead, we’ve only come up with porn. I guess that’s cool too. Brand new too, it seems, except without covers… Kinda kinky fetish stuff, though… I’m not sure I’m into some of that, but I guess by the end of the trip I might be.

Things we refuse to pick up, besides the trash and empty soda containers, are clothes. I can only think of the worst when I imagine why the clothes were tossed. Most of them are baby type of clothes… nasty ewey stuff maybe… (Hey Nate, congrats on the poo-factory you fathered!)

So I couldnt help it anymore. There is a type of American that isn’t found often in metropolitan areas. We’ll call them RV guppies. Sometimes it is a retired couple, sometimes a family of seven in an enormous monstrosity called the Resident or the Land Whale. They drive like they have Parkinson’s and the last thing you want them to do is take a hand off the steering wheel to wave at you. It’s just a strange way to travel-to bring your entire house with you. If you need a satellite dish to travel and you never leave the vehicle at the vistapoints, what is the point? Just rent the video!

oh yeah…

When they see us they think we are crazy and say, “I could never do anything like that.” Well if you say that, you are probably right. [ed note: Lisa, a cyclist we met, always replied with, “Well, have you tried anything difficult in your life?”] Plus they often could lose a few pounds, like 200 or so. If they lost weight they could probably save money on mileage. Their skeletons must be saying “help me!”

There is a subspecies of RV guppies who we’ve met at the infamous Wall Drug. I wanted to go up them, point, pause, and yell, “You ugly!” Darwin obviously never studied middle America. Okay I’m done being mean.

Rizz, we found out, is short for Richard. He gets something like 4 months vacation a year, since he lives in Australia and has had the same government job for 15 years. I’m thinking of immigrating. We had great fun chatting with him, making fun of his accent while he made fun of our tan lines.

South Dakota

Klaus and Nathalie

On the 5th, Stewart, Rizz, Dee, and I visited Wind Cave and Sylvan Lake in South Dakota by car, saving Dee and me a couple of days worth of biking. The next day we biked out of Newcastle into South Dakota to Jewel Cave then to Custer and stayed in Bedrock City, a little themepark devoted to The Flintstones. We arrived too late for the actual park area, so we check it out in the morning, fulfillng our kitch quota for the day. But, of course, we’re not content with just meeting a quota. We go above and beyond. So we visited the Woodcarving Museum also in Custer.

hanging with Fred and Barney

Bedrock City

That afternoon, we checked out the Crazy Horse Memorial. When completed, Crazy Horse will be the biggest monument in the world, bigger than the largest pyramid in Egypt. It’s a huge endeavor and is all privately funded; they’re refusing any government money. The memorial is for all Native Americans, to show the world that they have something to be proud of, that they have heroes to look up to, and to right some of the injustice done to their people. This memorial is so deeply emotional that I can’t help but not be impressed with Mt. Rushmore.

We arrived at Mt. Rushmore about an hour before the lighting ceremony. It was grossly patriotic. Going from Crazy Horse to Rushmore, never have I felt so much shame and pride at the same time. Since we had time to kill and we were starving, we ate at their cafe. After we had sat down, I noticed that a lot of people were leaving tons of unfinished/overpriced food behind. How American. I decided to scrounge. A day ago I had told my bro about scrounging.

Crazy Horse

Mt. Rushmore

At Reed College, where I went for undergrad, we had people, known as scroungers, who would wait at the place in the cafeteria where people bring their trays after they were done eating and eat any leftovers before they were thrown away. Back in its heyday, Reed was on a meal system instead of a point system, where you could grab as much food as you wanted per meal. Students inevitably grabbed more than they could eat. Meanwhile, some students were either too cheap or too poor to buy their own meals. Thus scrounging. It got so common place that ettiquette guidelines were written for the student handbook; things like, ‘thou shall ask for permission before grabbing food from someone’s tray,’ and, ‘thou shall inform any scrounger that thou art sick if thou hast any communicable disease.’ It is said that the ultimate trial of a scrounger is if he or she can successfully scrounge at McDonald’s for an entire meal without getting ill. Scrounging has since been introduced to many graduate schools by former Reedies.

And so we scrounged. It was easy at this particular cafe because people would get up from their tables and not bus them. So Dee and I would raid empty tables before the professional bussers got to them. In addition to the spaghetti dinner and chili dog we bought, we made out with a side of mashed pos, a couple of dinner rolls, half a chicken, and a side salad. All of it, with the exception of the chicken, was completely untouched. Why do people buy food and then not even try it? What I really wanted was a side of corn, but I was too full by the time we spotted one.

Mt. Rushmore all lit up was pretty cool. But now we had a problem; it was dark and downhill to Keystone with no streetlamps along the highway. We didn’t feel like dying. Then Dee remembered, ‘you can camp anywhere in the Black Hills if something something something.’ He looked at me and said, ‘we’re something something something!’ So we were thinking of just camping in the parking lot but instead took the advice of a park ranger that we go back the way we came for one mile then campout at a trail head.

That night it became extremely muggy and we were having a hard time getting comfortable being all sticky. We made a couple of fans out of the Mt. Rushmore flier I had in my pocket and fanned ourselves to sleep.

In the morning we were going to buy breakfast at the same cafe, but the line was so long that we scrounged our complete meal. The horrified look on that mother was priceless. God Bless America.

Journey Museum

On our way to Rapid City, we checked out Sittng Bull Cave (they let us in for free since we were biking) and then the Maze. There is a huge wooden maze along highway 16 which took about an hour or so to solve. And finally, we checked out the Journey Museum in Rapid City which we got in for free since I work for OMSI.

On the 9th, we stayed in Rapid City for a day (as of this writing) since Dee was sick with a fever and since it was raining. But mommy, don’t worry cuz Dee’s better now.

Fourth of July in Newcastle, Wyoming eating Thanksgiving dinner and eating s’mores as the equivalent of the bombing of Dresden happens around us. That pretty much sums it all up.

Stewart and Sarah who we met in Yellowstone Park have fed us and been the best hosts ever here in eastern Wyoming. They did a six year around the world cycle trip which hit every single continent including Antarctica. Their two kids Klaus and Nathelie are so cute and crazy intelligent. The two year old has better grammar than me. Rizz from Canberra, Australia is here too. They sure don’t work much in the land down under. Aunt Nat is here too. As well as the Soviet missile disarmament. There was so much gunpowder in the air last night you’d think it was invented by bison in the plains of Wyoming.

Panda and Hello Kitty like siteseeing, too.

Since meeting the family on the 28th, we’ve had five days to make it here. 93, 66, 104, and 79 have been our mileages. Then a huge thunderstorm clogged my rear derailler housing and we got a ride for the last 70 miles.

We met train workers including a couple of engineers who drop by the town’s bar at night for a snack via LOCOMOTIVE.

Grand Tetons

While biking thru the Tetons (which was really cool), we met a woman cyclist named Lisa who was biking from Arizona on her way to the Rainbow Gathering. We met her again on our way to Grants Village, so we biked and camped out with her there. At Grants Village we met 4 more cyclists doing the TransAmerica Trail. The next morning we all shared Lisa’s special oatmeal and then parted ways.

The Great Divide

Lisa

West Thumb, me, and some waterfall

After touring through Yellowstone in a day by bus on the 28th (because we knew we didn’t have enough time by bike), we met up with Sarah and Stewart (friends of Vicki’s who’ve offered us a place to stay in Newcastle on the east side of Wyoming), who were visiting Yellowstone with their two kids, Klaus and Nathalie, and their friend from down under, Rizz. We quickly confirmed by sight that there was no way for us to fit in their car, so we left the next morning out of the East Entrance. Going up Sylvan Pass wasn’t too fun, but riding down was great. We did 93 miles by the time we reached Cody, beating our previous record of 86 miles. By sheer coincidence, we were passing by the motel my bro stayed in last time he was here when we decided to look for a motel. That night I uploaded all that stuff that was posted on the 29th.

our stay in Cody

We biked to Greybull the next day, and then decided that we had to make it to Sheridan if we wanted to see Devil’s Tower before going on to Newcastle. Seeing that there was quite a steep pass between Greybull and Sheridan, we finally accepted our destiny and hitchhiked for the first time. A nice family got us to almost the top. We biked for about 5 more miles and camped by the side of the road right at Granite Pass. Dee woke me up at 2:30 so we could check out the stars. Dee showed me where Delphinus the Dolphin is!

Granite Pass

view coming down the Granite Pass

On the 1st we made it to Sheridan by noon, doing a record 60 miles before lunch, 40 of it the longest downhill we will ever do. We stopped at a KFC and hung out there for about 2 hours assessing the situation. Since we were supposed to be in Sheridan the day before we were still behind schedule. We saw that there was a train going from Sheridan all the way to Newcastle, passing Gillette and Moorcroft. Unfortunately, we found out it was not a passenger train. We decided to hitchhike again. While we were at KFC we met quite a few people. Forget youth hostels; forget hiker/biker campsites; if you want to meet travelers, nothing beats the 11 herbs and spices. Another nice family (on their way to Montana) chatted with us, took our photo, and then gave us a little book of excerpts from the Bible and $20. While neither of us believe in God, we do believe in kind acts and good deeds, so I convinced my brother that we should accept the gift as a kind gesture and not worry about the motivation.

Before we hitchhiked, Dee convinced me that we should bike another 40 miles so that we could say that we had done 100 in a day. The biking map showed that the best route to take would be thru Ucross along a country highway instead of along the Interstate thru Buffallo. We couldn’t have chose a poorer time to leave. There was a little 5 minute hill right at the start. I sweated more in those 5 minutes than I had the previous 5 years. Our entire bodies were drenched with sweat. You know how Shaq looks by the 4th quarter, with beads of sweat dripping down his face? We had sheets of it. It was the weirdest thing. After the hill we stopped and looked at each other wondering, ‘what the hell?’

We made it to Ucross (97 miles) and decided that hitchhiking was out of the question since there were no cars on the road! We couldn’t stay in Ucross (no places and we hadn’t made 100, yet), so we continued on to Clearmont, but this posed a slight problem because we had run out of water and it looked like some rainclouds were behind us catching up fast. Dee stopped by a house and asked for water. ‘Cold right out of the well,’ the nice lady said. He filled up one of his bottles and came to pour half of it in one of my bottles. We took sips then left. It was the most godawful, foul smelling, sulfur laden water we’d ever tasted. No time to mix in Kool-Aid; the clouds were right behind us and Dee was being a bastard. Four miles from Clearmont I got a flat tire. I was hurriedly fixing it when my brother was able to get a pickup to pull over and offer a lift right as the thunder and rain started. We threw everything in the back and got in ourselves since the cab was full of people. My front wheel was still being worked on and unattached. We still got wet since we’re in back. We arrived at Clearmont and Dee’s hurriedly setting up the tent in 50 mph winds while I fixed my tire. We were able to camp out right next to an RV park for free. To my horror, I realized that, in my haste, I must have loosened the nut for my skewer too far and it fell off. In other words, I lost the axle part of my front wheel, and we were 50 miles from the closest bike store.

Stop signs aren’t safe from us if we’re between cities.

typical day in Wyoming

The storm lasted all of 10 minutes and everything dried up after an hour or so, but by then it was dark so we waited until morning before deciding what to do. I woke up a 6:30, put the skewer from my trailer on my front wheel, and biked back the way we came while Dee cooked and ate oatmeal. Four miles down, to my astonishment, I found the nut; I guess it was heavy enough that the wind didn’t blow it away. We put every thing in order then continued on our way. We ate breakfast around 9 at RBL Buffallo Ranch. They told us that 30 miles down was a cafe where we could get lunch and 30 miles after that was Gillette. We fought headwinds the whole way and it was around 2 when we reached the cafe, Spotted Horse. Apparently, a single cafe is enough to put you on the map in Wyoming. There was nothing else there and it was closed. By now, we’d eaten all of our food for the last few days and again we were out of water, but luckily we found a garden hose and filled up that way. Around 6 we started nearing Gillette while watching a thunderstorm rage on ahead of us. Our second thunderstorm! I guess they’re all the rage in Wyoming. We watched lightning and heard thunder for a good 40 minutes before we started getting really close. When we started to feel rain we paused to discuss the situation.

‘We could pull over and cover ourselves with a tarp until it blows over,’ Dee spoke but then said, ‘Ah, let’s just go for it.’ And with that he started pedaling again. I follow.

Then we were hit with harder rain and a sudden burst of wind which nearly knocked our bikes over. I’m guessing it was around 50 mph, but I’m not a very experienced judge of wind speed. I do know that it was fast enough to make cycling impossible. We were putting our jackets on and getting ready to dive to the side of the road when a white sedan pulled over. The teenager asked if we wanted to stay in his car until the storm blew over and that he wasn’t in a hurry to be anywhere. Dee said no, but I yelled heck yes, so we piled in after laying our bikes down. Nathan turned out to be a really nice guy whose father used to cycle quite frequently. We asked him questions about Gillette and laughed at the storm once in a while, like when the rain turned into really heavy rain and when the really heavy rain turned into hail. ‘Even under a tarp,’ Nathan said, ‘you’d definitely feel that hail.’

Huge tire

Half an hour later, we’re back on the road to Gillette. Gillette isn’t where they make razors, but it is one of the richest cities in Wyoming due to relatively new coal mines. Environmentally speaking, it’s quite unfortunate how much coal there is, but from a visitor standpoint, it’s pretty neat watching all that heavy machinery. Those dump trucks must be kind of fun to drive. Each tire weighs more than 3 times my car, and I have a Volvo 240 which weighs more than many SUVs, 2 tons. Each tire of one of these dump trucks weighs 6.5 tons and costs $36,000!

We ate at a Chinese restaurant, where they made us dishes that aren’t on the menu. Most white Americans have no idea what they’re missing. Unfortunately, we were so hungry when we entered Gillette that we also ate at a Burger King before we saw the Chinese place, so we ended up with tons of leftovers.

The next morning (the 3rd of July) we were ready to ride to Devil’s Tower and then to Moorcroft and maybe all the way to Newcastle. We went about two blocks when we stopped for groceries. I went shopping while my bro tried to lube up his rear derailleur since he was having problems shifting. When I exited the store, it looked like my bro’s bike exploded; he had decided to overhaul the derailleur since lubing it wasn’t working. Two hours later, we decided to go to a bike store to get them to fix it since we weren’t having any luck. We biked to the first one. Closed. We called the second, and last, one. No answer. I guess the 3rd is also a holiday, giving people a nice 4 day weekend. To make a long story just a little bit shorter, Stewart came to Gillette and picked us up, and we had a lovely view of Devil’s Tower from the road.

While in Gillette, I had time to think a little about Wyoming. Two things that I think give it character: fireworks stores – actual stores, not just little seasonal shacks – and drive-up liquor stores – which probably account for 60% of the litter on the highways. I guess the bison are neat, too.

July 4th Thanksgiving dinner – Rizz, Max, Mark, Klaus, Stewart, Sarah, and Aunt Nat

We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with Sarah and Stewart, the kids, Rizz, and Aunt Nat who brought the turkey. They wanted to give Rizz from Australia an extra dose of American culture. Stewart and Sarah got married in Japan while on their 6 year bicycling tour of the world. They met Vicki while on that tour (in Thailand, I believe it was) and they met Rizz and a bunch of Rizz’ friends in Australia who were also touring. I cannot imagine ever having better hosts. They make cool friends, too, and Klaus and Nathalie are so easy to get along with. We then checked out fireworks at one of their friend’s places. It seemed like each block had at least one very patriotic homeowner. All through the night, we were surrounded by fireworks displays. Fun.

June 26:

‘So, do you think we should get a ride with them?’ I ask furtively.

‘Naw man, we can’t get a ride,’ Dee replies, then pauses, ‘Well, let’s think about this.’

In the background, we can hear the TV movie playing for some of the other people staying at the hostel in Jackson. The basement bunkhouse is nice and cool, and the social room has plenty of room for us to spread our maps.

‘Okay… if we leave today, we can spend a couple of days in Yellowstone then bike thru Wyoming in about 5 days and meet them on the 3rd, right?’

‘Okay…’

‘And if we get a ride, we can hang out with them in Yellowstone from the 28th to the 2nd and then just ride with them across Wyoming. The question is: Is the rest of Wyoming as interesting as Yellowstone?’

‘Hmmm… I don’t think so. I mean, last time I went thru Wyoming it was pretty boring, but I think a lot of it was at night.’

‘Well, okay. I think we should just spend our time in Yellowstone then.’

‘Okay fine, but we still need to call them to make sure they can meet us and offer us a ride.’

‘Hello?’ A mans’ voice, third ring.

‘Hi, is this Stewart… Shipman?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’

‘Hi, this is Mark Chen, Vicki’s friend who’s riding across the US.’

‘Yeah! Hi Mark. Where are you guys?’

‘We’re in Jackson right now. I remember you saying that you’re going to be in Yellowstone, and that maybe we could hang out with you.’ I explain our thinking and how we’d love a ride across Wyoming.

‘Hold on a sec and I’ll get Sarah on the line, too.’

‘Hi Mark!’

‘Hi Sarah!’

‘So,’ Stewart explained, ‘Mark was wondering if he and his brother could get a ride to Newcastle after checking out Yellowstone with us. He thinks they’d like to spend more than just a day in Yellowstone and if we give them a ride, they can do that.’

‘Well, let’s see…’ Sarah reasoned, ‘there would be 7 of us in the car plus all our stuff plus the two bikes. I don’t think we’d have enough room. We could try getting bike racks and maybe we could borrow our friend’s Suburban.’

‘Whatever is least inconvenient for you, and we’d be more than happy to pay for gas…’ I say, ‘um… and we have trailers, not panniers…’

June 30:

‘Too bad we couldn’t fit,’ Dee remarks.

‘That’s okay. We’ll meet them on the 3rd in Newcastle,’ I reply.

‘It’s before 10, mostly downhill, and we’ve got our shades on. Maybe we’ll beat our record.’

‘Let’s roll.’

There is a certain peaceful simplicity to camping, chopping wood, gouging a two inch deep chasm in your shin, and screaming like a banshee. Alas though, we have been sleeping in a hostel, watching HBO, and catching shows at the local movieplex. Chicken Run and Titan AE to be exact. Both were a bit short but entertaining nevertheless. There were so many things wrong with Titan AE but it was fun anyway.

Three things that make you go hmmmm:

1. road signs of semi trucks tipping over. no explanation or speed caution, just a warning that it happens.
2. a dozen little grave markers along the road signifying road accidents. probably from drunk driving.
3. huge fallen branches in the bike lane during a very windy day. um, excuse me Bell Helmets, but do you have a falling tree test?

Yellowstone

It is rainy and cold in Yellowstone right now as I write this message. The body acquires a certain stickiness and odor after this many days without a shower and repeated applications of sunscreen, bug repellant, and aloe. I can do shampoo hairstyles without the shampoo. It is an interesting feeling when the residue prevents me from feeling if I’m wearing any clothes. I swear I wore something yesterday when biking but it has all become a blur.

There are a lot of mosquitos here.