Robert woke us up nice and early with a couple of hot chocolate's in hand. He made Spanish breakfast burritos for breakfast-they were really tasty!! Last night Robert gave me a really nice REI wind/water breaker that will definitely come in handy when the weather gets bad. As we were getting ready to leave Robert also gave me a brand new pair of finger less cycling gloves that were too small for him. I had never ridden with gloves before, but they seemed really comfortable. After we were all packed up, Robert rode with us to show us the bike camp that was in town. We had never seen something like this before. There was a shower, bathroom, picnic tables, and even a stand to put your bike on if you needed to fix any thing. It was so neat looking through the log of people that had either stayed there or were just passing through. We saw that the British guy we met, Ian, had been there along with Matt and Nick on the same day. Too bad there weren't more places like this. Once we left town the wind was kind of with us for a little bit, however that didn't last long. There was a storm approaching from the west and as it got closer the wind shifted. As we were riding we could see the storm getting closer and closer until we were getting poured on. Luckily we only got rained on for about 5 miles or so. The ride to get to Dillon was pretty quick except for the last 4 miles, where we were at a crawl again from the wind. When we made it to town, we saw a Pizza Hut, and were definitely in the mood for a buffet! So, we used some of the money that Amy donated and filled our bellies. It was wonderful! Thanks Amy!! After our wonderful lunch, we sought out to find the bike shop in town because Joe's crank was wiggly. Unfortunately the bike shop was only open a few hours a day, 4 days a week. Since we still had a lot of daylight left, we decided to try to make it to the next town. However, once we started riding out of town the wind was unbearable again. When we saw the sign that said Jackson, 42 miles, we knew we weren't going to make it there tonight. We knew we had a couple big climbs ahead of us, so we figured we would at least try to get one out of the way. As the wind was whipping at 25 mph with gusts stronger I'm sure, we weren't making very much headway. There were a couple of occasions where we thought maybe we should just turn around and go back to Dillon and call it a day. But, we decided to keep pushing on because the wind was probably going to be just as bad tomorrow. After riding uphill for about 9 miles at a very slow speed of 3-4mph, we almost said it quits and turned around. We had only made it about 13 miles out of town. To our surprise, as we were standing on the side of the road deciding what to do, an old vw van pulled up and the guy asked if we could use a couple of cold Pepsi's. He had his road bike on the back, so he understood what it was like to be riding up that hill with the awful wind. So, he hopped out of his van and opened the mini-fridge inside and gave us each a can of Pepsi, and to make it even better it was the "flashback Pepsi" made with real sugar! It was amazing that he came along and cheered us up right at a time we were feeling defeated and ready to not ride any further. After we enjoyed our Pepsi, we decided that since we were only about 5 miles from the summit of the pass, we would just keep going. We knew there was a state park about 10 miles past the summit, so that was our new goal. After another hour and a half or so, we finally made it to the top. It sure was a struggle. I had to use my very last gears to make it up the steep climb with that nasty wind. The ride down was not as rewarding as it should have been. My top speed got up to 23 mph on the way down, when it should have been closer to 40. After fighting the wind for the next 6 miles to get to the entrance to the state park, we lucked out and got to ride with the wind at our back for the last 4 miles. Luckily we made it there before dark. There was another storm rolling closer, so once we got to the park, we found a campsite in the campground and set up our tent as quickly as possible. We decided to not bother cooking anything for dinner since we had such a great lunch. We just snacked on the cookies we had and the left over brownies from Robert's house. The amazing thing was that there was no cell reception at this campground, but for some reason, the state park had wireless internet. This worked out pretty good because then I could work on trying to figure out what was wrong with the website since Grammy hasn't been able to upload any blogs for a few days. We ended up putting our bear canister and the rest of our food right inside the bathroom so we didn't have to worry about raccoons getting into it. Another challenging day today, and I'm sure tomorrow will be just the same. We rode 58.74 miles today.
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