Took a birthday bath in the river, packed camp, then did a map session and decided not to ride through the entire Great Divide Basin, but instead to take the California Trail/Seminoe Cut-off (two-track jeep trail) for approximately 35 miles, then cut north on Bison Basin Road which empties out on the highway at Sweetwater Junction.
Sweetwater Station is the home of the Willie’s Handcart Memorial, a Mormon installation about which I do not have much to say. But they had good water so I loaded up after sprawling out for a nap on the succulent green lawn. Then five school buses of Mormon teenagers pulled in so I hit the road – this time the highway to Jeffrey City, population 106.
The recommend camping was the Lions Park in town, but at the café (there are not many inhabited buildings in this town, a formerly thriving uranium mining town) I ran into a bunch of TransAmerica cyclists who were staying at the hippie pottery place across the road, which used to be an Exxon gas station. I met the owners and potters, Byron and Kelly, and Snuggles, their French bulldog who could not get enough attention.
Now get this – one of the TransAmerica cyclists was Corey Fittz who was traveling with a few of his college buddies from the University of Maryland. I asked Corey if he knew my nephew, Roberto, who graduated last year…and he says “yes, we worked together at the Outdoor Recreation Center!” Yet another seemingly impossible small world story – here I am in the middle of Wyoming and I meet a friend of my nephew, yay!
After a tasty burger and fries I had a few beers with Otto from San Diego, a motorcyclist touring the national parks; he makes snowboarding gloves and somehow works and tours at the same time. Oh and during the night a storm blew in and tore up one tent of the college kid group, I don’t think they had it staked down correctly because about 3am I woke up to a lot of swearing and fabric flapping in the wind.
