August 3, 2015
Who knew the grass on a baseball field could be so comfortable? That layered with Emily's mattress pad and my "pool float" (don't believe the Amazon reviews every time- I thought I was getting the equivalent of a self inflating therma-rest) provide a bed that I just don't want to get out of. I'm shocked by this comfort in the best way possible. We leave our tent to dry off the morning dew and ride into town for breakfast and coffee. We load up on a big meal and start planning the next 3 days of our route. Second cups of coffee are filled, 2 hours go by, and one thing leads to another- we have decided to cut out a portion of our route with a bus in order to have more time in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. This seems simple enough to execute, but with locations that we hope to get to having populations ranging from 47 to 0, we are hard pressed to find public transportation. I think I say the first syllable of the word Uber and immediately see in Emily's eyes that the ignorant comment (although I'm kind of half serious) would not be worth experimenting with.
The struggle "ends" as we find a bus to take us to Rawlins, CO. This cuts out about 170 miles of the route that we have been warned is desolate and repetitive, and drops us right back on the TransAmerica trail that we have been following, about 258 miles from the Grand Tetons, 280 miles from Yellowstone, and 680 miles from our destination- Missoula, MT. One catch here- the bus has a stopover in, wait for it... Denver.
We decide to take the bus, show up early to get on, are told "no you can't get on your bikes won't fit", we quickly pull out our tools, pop off some tires, and are on the bus back to where our route began.
Cut to arrival in Denver. 9pm waiting for our 12am bus to Rawlins. We find out that there are, for real this time, no seats for us on the bus. We must wait until the following day at noon. We take advantage of www.warmshowers.org and are sent the gift of Steven and Lynn. They are a retired couple about to go on the journey we are on in a few weeks. They have traveled the world by foot, bike, boat, and I'm sure much more, but my favorite anecdote about them is the story of how they pulled their children out of school for a year, when they were 10 and 12, to travel the world. Note taken.
After a great chat and cup of tea (they offer us to sit in their living room but we are way to dirty and ask to sit at the wooden table), they bring us downstairs where we have our own room, bathroom, and washer and dryer. It almost feels like we are getting it way to good for being only 3 days in, but we are practically table dancing on the washer in excitement.
We also have a solid wifi connect- what NEEDS to be on our spotify playlists? No pressure.