Day 37
Woke up to the sound of voices. It seemed like someone was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. I kept thinking I should go and help but couldn’t make myself move. Someone was knocking on my door and saying breakfast was ready. ‘How long had I been laying there?’ I thought. I reluctantly got up and headed down the hall. I felt lazy for not helping. After eating I went back to my room. Stupid I thought I should help clean up. I went back and washed the dishes and wiped down the counters. I went back to my room again and marveled at the mess I had made of all my gear. Slowly I got everything together and headed outside. Out of all the days so far I really didn’t want to bike today. For some reason I couldn’t snap myself out of my mood. I was feeling really sluggish and slow. The scenery was stunning but I couldn’t make myself care. I told myself I was being stupid and letting yourself get bogged down over one ride wasn’t a good idea. For some reason I wanted to cry so I stopped and sat down on the side of the road and for about 10 minutes sobbed. After I was done I rolled my eyes at how ridiculous I was being and caught up to the rest of the group. We took a break at a gas station right before we got on interstate 80. Unfortunately we were going to turn left and head directly into a massive headwind. We decided to ride in groups of two with one in the back. Every mile we would shift over so everyone took turns ridding in the wind. There was construction on one side of the road but the workers let us have the road to ourselves anyway. Riding in the shifting pattern reminded me of Ender’s Game. It felt like we made a toon to battle the wind.

The next 20 miles went by fast. We stopped in SinClaire. The town seemed to be composed of only the oil refinery and the gas station. I took a picture of myself riding the dinosaur. 

Not too long after we turned off the freeway and had a slight tail/sidewind. The mountains and sky made the landscape look surreal. About 20 miles from Muddy Gap (our end destination) the shoulder turned really bumpy and cracked. It was tricky to ride on the road then dart back to the shoulder everytime a car was coming. Thankfully it only lasted 10 miles and the shoulder turned nice, wide and smooth. Muddy Gap seemed to be made up of one gas station, a very expensive motel and a few rundown trailers. It was still early so we hung around and charged our electronics in the gas station. There was nothing around until the stop the next day so we settled for gas station pizza for dinner. Tomorrow we would have to survive on candy and snacks until we got to Lander. I think my goal of this trip is to not only make it to the west coast but to make it without getting any cavities. Mark had stayed here before but in a different style. He had stayed in a cattle culvert under the highway. We didn’t know exactly where it was but he knew it was somewhere between mile marker 6 and 10. We still had the Chinese couple that didn’t speak English so it was several minutes before we could convey what we planned to do. I don’t know if they got the message but they followed us nonetheless. 

It actually wasn’t that hard to find. Around mile marker 7 there was a huge gate in the fence so we knew the culvert was under us. It was tricky getting our bikes down as everything was covered in sage. It reminded of mapping in Pine Dale Wyoming from my geology field camp. The tunnel extended from one end of the road to the other so there was plenty of room for the nine of us to set our tent up. The Chinese couple thankfully didn’t show any surprise at our home for the night. They kept giving us the thumbs up and saying adventure or fun. 

We walked back up to the road to watch the sunset but the wind was so bad we decided that we would watch it some other time. In the tunnel it was still windy so I found some large rocks to hold my tent down. The floor of the tunnel was concrete so I couldn’t stake it. I went to bed early because there wasn’t anything to do. We’re trying to get an early start tomorrow. Our destination, Lander, is a bigger town so I want to get there in time to explore.