Through Hell with a Handcart – Day 20

Date: Thursday 26th August 

Route: Lander, Wyoming – Sweetwater Station, Wyoming

Distance: 39 miles

Total climb: 2572ft

Net climb: 1370ft

Today was, in truth, a half-day although we managed to sort out some important non-pedalling matters.  For me the day started with my first experience of the US healthcare system.  For the last few days I have been coming down with a cough which has gradually moved down into my chest and so I walked about a mile to the Lander Medical Clinic to get myself checked out.  I can report that the service was fast, efficient and high tech (before I had even sat down I had had my blood pressure and oxygen level checked), if a little expensive at $80.  The doc prescribed a course of antibiotics and some cough syrup to help me sleep at night; no bed rest was required, so I was good to get back on the bike.  I left the clinic very happy with my treatment although the sheen was taken off the experience by the fact that my prescription drugs came to a grand total of $86.  On the basis of my very limited experience it is easy to see that there may be real problems with US healthcare, particularly for the least well off in society.

After I had walked back to the RV it was time to head, with Team Heagney, to the bike shop in Lander to pick up the new wheels that we had ordered a couple of days ago.  Our original wheels have been gradually worn down over the course of the ride and are now showing signs of the strain (with a few too many broken spokes) so it was time for Diana and Rosie to get some new shoes.

We dropped the bikes off with the guys at Freewheel Ski and Cycle, who were friendly and helpful and gave us a good deal on the new wheels.  Fred opted for a new rear wheel whilst I went for both a new front and rear wheel.  We left the bikes at the shop for the wheels to be fitted and to get generally tuned up – this was going to take a while so we had a few hours to kill in downtown Lander.  Along with Team Heagney we browsed in a couple of shops, lunched in an organic pie shop which, as it turned out did not offer pies at lunch and headed to the Safeway supermarket on the edge of town (a shop which was the first to pass muster with Team Heagney’s retail expert, John).

After we had stocked up on groceries for the evening it was time to pick up the bikes and set off in the blazing mid-day heat.  We had initially hoped to head to Jeffrey City (contrary to the advice of the guys in the bike shop) but then discovered that there was no longer an RV park to be found there.  Instead we settled on Sweetwater Station as our target for the day.

The ride itself was fairly unremarkable save for the heat which really was tough to bear.  It felt like a warm afternoon in the sixth circle of Dante’s Inferno.  We were again flanked by scrub grasslands and rocky outcrops, although these surroundings were rather less dramatic than the previous days.  We soldiered on through the heat and finished the day with a long winding climb, into the wind, up to the evocatively named Beaver Rim.  This plateau provided a fantastic viewpoint back across the valleys and rocky hills that we had been travelling through for the last few days.  The climb itself also provided Fred “David Bailey” Parkes with the chance to exercise his creative muscles in taking a series of four photographs from four different angles all at the same location.  The results, are, at the very least, photographs…

After completing the only significant climb of the day we made it to our campsite with the sun still fairly high in the sky.  The campsite was the Mormon Handcart Historic Site, which stands as a memorial to the Mormon families who, in order to escape religious persecution, headed West to Utah, carrying all of their possessions in wooden handcarts.  There is a Mormon Mission next to the campsite and also some examples of the handcarts which visitors are allowed to have a go with (obviously we gave them a whirl).  Given how tough it has been to make it this far, on top touring bikes and carrying about 35kg each it is hard to comprehend how difficult it must have been for those families to carry all of their worldly possessions, thousands of miles, in rickety wooden carts.  The Mormon belief system may be unusual, but the courage and determination of their forbears cannot be questioned.    

An unusual campsite, without doubt, but situated in a beautiful location which was a joy simply to sit back and soak in.  That said, we felt that we should drink our evening beer inside the RV in order not to cause offence to our new Mormon friends.  The beer tasted good; we hadn’t got too many miles under our belts, but the girls have some new wheels and are in good nick and we were surrounded by the immense high plains of Wyoming.

In other news:

–           My lunch included a soup described as a “Pork and Squash Soup” – unfortunately the cafe forgot to mention the Jalapeño chillies which were included therein.  For the second time in the trip I have been undone by hot food. 

–           Fred managed to cycle over a beer bottle and cut his leg in the early part of the ride.  Here’s hoping the cut heals up soon.  He exacted his vengeance on beverages in general by aggressively drinking two cans of Budweiser in the RV

–           Sweetwater Station – our base camp for the evening is so named because a wagon belonging to some of the early pioneers and carrying sugar, crashed into the river.  The pleasant name hides the fact that at that time, such a incident must have been disastrous.   We resisted the temptation to re-enact the incident by dropping some Haribo Gummybears into the river.

– At the campsite we met Al Young, a lady cyclist whose past adventures put our current efforts somewhat into the shade.  She was part of the Odyssey 2000, a circumnavigation of the world by bike, to mark the millennium.  She completed the ride, stopping only to recover after breaking her neck in France.  A pretty humbling achievement.

JBS