Friday – Rawlins, Wyoming
Unhappy news this morning, I have just learnt that the guy from the gathering called Jim, or Mountain Air passed away Wednesday evening from a heart attack. He was the spruiker for the two evenings and although I only met him a few times I enjoyed his company, my condolances go to his family and friends. My passenger pegs will down until Monday, fare well JIM 😦
Mongral weather, I still had wet gear from yesterday, it had been hanging on the bike to dry yesterday afternoon while I caught up with some stuff, but it rained and got wet again. Same this morning, it was sunny so I had it all outside, then it started to rain again!!! No choice for it but to wear wet gear, I guess. When the screams started I went and checked out the river, lots of these were cruising down again 🙂
I needed to order some tyres from somewhere and spent a few hours trying to track down a place to do them. A rider in Billings, Montana gave me some real good info, so thanks for that Chader. I called the dealers there, but they did not have tyres to suit, so in the end I ordered online and used the Suzuki shop to receive them, they can do the fitting when I get up there. I was called back from the tyre shop and they said the rear tyre I ordered was unavailable for 2 weeks 😦 I had to get the BMW rated tyre, an extra $60, but at least they are on the way. After all this I finally got away about 11am, but today is just a ride north, along the back roads of course 🙂
On the way out I made a bank visit and saw where all the rafts where being launched from and also saw a cool mural of the road I had been over the other day 🙂
I went west again to start with, just a repeat of the past few days before getting off the highway and going north. The freeway was packed and it was a crawl, so I was glad to get off. Once off though, the road was a bit less crowded, it of course started to rain a bit, so I had to stop and get the full gear on again, it was also quite cool.
I headed up in the mountains, amongst the rainy clouds again, and the hairpins 🙂
The sun did come out occasionally but it did not warm up all that much, the views made up for that though.
There were even boat people out this way in the canyon, you can make them out just up river a bit.
Once outside here I was into rolling hills, I seemed to have left the mountains behind for the moment. I stopped for a Subway in Kremming, a touristy town, but I was hungry and it seemed like a nice place.
I had previously removed the wet gear when the sun came out but as it looked like rain ahead after lunch I added it all again, which was lucky really 🙂
It was one of them days, off again on again with the gear over the next few hours. My goal was today to get to somewhere in Wyoming so I could do a run for Yellowstone the next day.
At one of the historic info stops I met up with Mike, he is from north of Denver, G’day m8, rubber side down 🙂
After going through Hayden I turned north at Craig and headed for the border. It was a sideways ride as the easterly was quite brisk, but after a few hours I got to the I80.
I headed east to Rawlins and because it looked like bad weather closing in, I decided to stop, this would give me a chance to catch up on here before going into Yellowstone where I expect no internet for a few days. There were a number of other bikers arriving during the afternoon and so I chatted for a while but soon went back in to update another page. I finished posting July 1st which was a long event and thought about a beer up the road at the bar and grill, but in the end I decided against it and sat down and posted July 2nd as well, I was now nearly caught up 🙂 Mind you it was now nearly midnight, so another long day.
Day 303 miles and 488 km
Trip – 23,165 miles and 37,280 km
Cheers
TravellingStrom
TravellingStrom 