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{"id":126,"date":"2010-09-29T04:39:02","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T04:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jfmac.local\/~jf\/wordpress\/?p=126"},"modified":"2021-04-09T21:23:07","modified_gmt":"2021-04-10T04:23:07","slug":"100929-wyoming-is-very-wide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"100929 \u2013 Wyoming is very wide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><h3><a href='..\/index.php?page=day&type=date&key=2010-09-29' id='2010-09-29' title='WHUFU day page'>Wednesday (Sep 29)<\/a><\/h3>My noisy party-animal neighbors from Michigan were gone by the time I got up. Or rather I waited until they were gone to get up.\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t that they were bad people.\u00a0 On the contrary, they were very good people, and role models for anyone who wants to be <em>partying hardy<\/em> in couples mode into their 70&#8217;s.\u00a0 It was just that I didn&#8217;t want to deal with them, I was annoyed that their stupid lanterns had trashed my ability to hang out and stargaze from my picnic table.\u00a0 I busted out the headphones to mask their conversation, but I had no answer for the light pollution.<\/p>\n<p>I got up, ate my leftover breakfast from Big Ed&#8217;s all the back in Reno, folded up my bike(*), tried to pack it back in as neatly as it had come out, and off I went!<\/p>\n<h4>bike digression<\/h4>\n<p>(*) <em>There are two major folds to collapsing the bike, and four other smaller twists. To collapse it:<div class=\"wp-caption alignright piclan whupic\"><a href='..\/index.php?page=pic&type=id&key=542' title='go to Picture page'><img src='https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/whuFiles\/jpg\/1009Reunion\/IMG_2902.jpg' \/><\/a><div class=\"wp-caption-text\">quite easy to collapse\/expand!<\/div><\/div><\/em><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><em>flip the handlebars up so they are in a sort of vertical plane to the front wheel<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em><strong>collapse the front column<\/strong><\/em>, so the now-rotated handlebars are in a flat plane up against the front wheel<\/li>\n<li><em>flip the pedals up<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>push the seat down<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>rotate the seat 45 degrees (don&#8217;t quite get this one, but that&#8217;s how it&#8217;s done)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em><strong>collapse the main body<\/strong><\/em>, front wheel is not next to back wheel, handlebars in the middle.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>But I digress .. back to the narrative &#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>For me, National Parks are exciting places to be.\u00a0 I get kind of a celebrity buzz whenever I go into one. This time I&#8217;m just hitting the outside edge of <strong>Grand Tetons Park<\/strong>, but I still got the buzz.\u00a0 I drove past a herd of cows for a few minutes before I realized that they were not cows, but bison! The traffic had that Natonal Park rhythm &#8211; if you see two cars stopped in the same place, then you should stop probably too, because surely they have spotted a moose or a bear or some natural wonder that you can&#8217;t quite see yet!<\/p>\n<p>At\u00a0<strong>Moran Junction<\/strong>, I left Tetons Park and started heading east again.\u00a0 As part of my master plan for <em>trans-navigating the midwest<\/em>, I drove almost due north yesterday, essentially unproductive miles in terms of getting to Harvard, but they were very pretty miles! Now I&#8217;m back on the track of chunking off eastward miles.<div class=\"wp-caption alignright picpor whupic\"><a href='..\/index.php?page=pic&type=id&key=514' title='go to Picture page'><img src='https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/whuFiles\/jpg\/1009Reunion\/IMG_2839.jpg' \/><\/a><div class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wyoming, US 29<\/div><\/div><\/p>\n<p>Finally fall colors!\u00a0 Bright sun-lit yellows against the dark green pines.\u00a0 Really annoying road construction &#8211; about 8 miles of dust and noise and bumpy gravel and big trucks and slowness.\u00a0 I&#8217;m in the <strong>Wind River Valley<\/strong>. The Wind River is smaller than the Truckee (i.e. not very big), but it sure has carved out a big beautiful valley.<\/p>\n<p>Big dramatic red bluffs appear on the left.\u00a0 Then a little after entering the <strong>Wind River Indian Reservation<\/strong>, there is a series of delicately colored lavender bluffs that I am now sorry I didn&#8217;t stop and photograph.\u00a0 The prettiest rocks I&#8217;ve seen this side of southern Utah.<\/p>\n<p>Onward, to coffee and a donut in <strong>Dubois WY<\/strong>.\u00a0 Also, I got propane &#8211; very cheap!\u00a0 Dubois seemed an odd, lifeless kind of town.\u00a0 In my imagination it&#8217;s got that Cheney vibe &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Next big decision, whether to take the scenic route up through <strong>Thermopolis<\/strong> (hot springs!) and the Bighorn Range, Devils Butte, Black Hills, Badlands, all that stuff.\u00a0 Decided not go that way.\u00a0 I wouldn&#8217;t have much time to enjoy the hot springs or anything else really.\u00a0 Instead I turned south to take the route through <strong>Casper<\/strong> (where I am writing this) at my first and so far only motel of the trip.\u00a0 This is <strong>day four<\/strong> of no shower and many hours of driving, and as you know, driving all day is a sweaty business.\u00a0 So somewhere in the late afteroon of today I started feeling very funky and like I really couldn&#8217;t face my sleeping bag and getting up tomorrow in the same sweaty skin and doing it all again.<\/p>\n<p>My van <strong>does<\/strong> have hot shower capability, but it is in the form of a fixture at the back of the van where you stand outside shower yourself with a hose attachment. Perfectly adequate for the wilds, but probably not cool in a Walmart parking lot.<div class='whusp-dropdown' id='whusp-1'> &nbsp; <b>National 9 Motel<\/b><span class='downicon'><span class='dashicons dashicons-arrow-down-alt2'><\/span><\/span><\/div><div class='whusp-dropdown-content' id='whusp-1-drop'>\n<p>WHUFU page for: <b><a href='..\/index.php?page=spot&type=id&key=13'  >National 9 Motel<\/a><\/b><\/p><p>\n<p>Run down but quite nice basically. \r<\/p>\n<p>It seems to be run by a local rehab place so the workers look scary but are quite nice!<\/p>\n<\/p><p><\/p><b>tonight<\/b>:<p>\n<p>run down but quite nice, evidently run by a rehab place so the workiers look scary but are quite nice!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><div class=\"wp-caption alignright piclan whupic\"><a href='..\/index.php?page=pic&type=id&key=517' title='go to Picture page'><img src='https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/whuFiles\/jpg\/1009Reunion\/IMG_2846.jpg' \/><\/a><div class=\"wp-caption-text\">cheapest motel in Casper<\/div><\/div><\/p>\n<p>I am finding a complete absence of camping opportunities in central Wyoming.\u00a0 There are no campgrounds that I can see, and there is no concept of just pulling off into the trees, because <strong>there are no trees<\/strong>. So it&#8217;s looking like Casper, and the choice between a $30 commercial RV campground or a motel &#8211; all my other usual choices are shower-less. I end up going for the cheapest motel I can find ($48).\u00a0 Even the Days Inn was $83, yikes!<\/p>\n<p>The place felt a little bit sketchy, but it had a nice tv and wifi, so I had a pretty good time.\u00a0 $48 is a serious overrun of my budget considerations though&#8230;\u00a0 But boy howdy that shower felt good! And the people were actually very nice, their sketchy appearance notwithstanding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My noisy party-animal neighbors from Michigan were gone by the time I got up. Or rather I waited until they were gone to get up.\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t that they were bad people.\u00a0 On the contrary, they were very good people, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/?p=126\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[34,36],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2010-east-coast","tag-bike","tag-camping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1237,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}