Day 23 (6/24): Shoshoni, WY; 95 miles

Team Photos

Fo’ Shoni!! I don’t care who ya are…95 miles in 4.5 hours in ride time is dang fast. For some reason the pedals were turning and the mph was stayin high. Didn’t hurt that I was riding with the hammerheads today…Geren, Pops, and Snyder…these guys like to move (I kinda prefer taking it a little more easy and soakin in the scenery, but zoomin is fun once in a while). Coming out of Dubois the roads were relatively flat and the wind was calm, letting us average over 25 mph. Got into a great rhythm and before we knew it we had covered 50 miles in just 2 hours…nuts! The scenery was very desert-like…sandy rocks and small shrubs…reminded me of the southwest.
Ended up having to hang out at the 50 mile mark for over an hour…little excitement of the day came when a high speed chase went down right on the highway where we were riding. Actually never saw any of it…was over before we got up to where the chase happened. Problem was Sollner got the frantic message from last night’s sponsor late so he frantically had us all stopped (good to know he loves us so)…when he realized it was over already we were back on track.

Couldn’t ever regain that rockin rhythm we had for the first 50 miles but we were still moving fast. After a crew chief lunch at mile 75 we were even more sluggish, and the sun started brutally beating on us (hit 95 degrees today!). No rest for the weary though…the fast boys had our paceline moving over 20 mph consistently until we finally pulled into the teeny town of Shoshoni (only 635 people…even smaller than Dubois!)

Our lodging is a pretty sweet Senior Center…has everything ya could want: AC, pool tables, cool water jug, internet…only problem was: no showers. So around 3 we packed into the vans over to the next town, Thermopolis (sweet name!) to hit up the “World’s Largest Mineral Hot Spring.” Took a nice soak in the hot water (which apparently has miraculous healing effects…mainly it felt like a smelly, cloudy hot tub), then hit some showers and rolled back over the Senior Center.

After a short nap we piled into the dining area where the sweetest ladies made us an amazing dinner of fried chicken, meatballs, salad, veggies…mmmm.

We now have the place to ourselves….couple guys are watching “Goodfellas,” couple guys are playing some poker, Karl’s doing a puzzle (haha). Think I’m gonna catch up on some correspondence then hit the hay…