Rain, Wind, and Ryan Van Duzer.

June 24, 2023

Quote of the day:

Thunderstorms are as much our friends as the sunshine.

Wow, this person has never ridden a loaded bike in a thunder storm before.

So let’s start with Ryan Van Duzer and his ilk, like Flyscout Ryder, and Debs and Tom. If you are like me you have spent countless hours watching these overly positive folks ride their loaded-down bikes all over the place, smiling and laughing, and having a good old time. And if you are like me you got suckered into thinking - hey, that looks like fun, I wanna do that too. Well, be careful. These guys edit their videos and rarely show themselves suffering through rain and wind and freezing Wyoming summers. That’s their job. They are getting paid through their YouTube channels. That’s how they finance their trips and the more followers they have the more money they make. So it pays for them to be happy go lucky and collect all the suckers they can. Hey, they got me too.

That being said, never back away from the challenge. Go for it but with a realistic expectation and the knowledge that you may not have balmy weather and tail winds with no hills. Or that when you do get crapped on by Mother Nature it is ok NOT to be all smiles and giggles like those guys.

So do I view this as challenge? I didn’t at first. While planning my route my thoughts were on seeing parts of the country I had not seen before and meeting folks who may have a different lifestyle than what I am used to. And if the weather had not been as miserable as it has been since Coeur d’Alene, that is what I would have been doing. I would have stopped at every historical marker, every interesting geologic feature, every farm to moo with the cattle, every small town mom and Pop grocery store to buy a little something and talk to a local. But this rain and wind has been a challenge and most days I am focused on getting down the road in one piece to find a warm overnight, dry out, warm up, and eat/sleep.

Am I disappointed? Maybe a little. If I stop someplace most folks don’t care to talk and just want to get out of the weather like me. The folks I have talked to are fed up with this weather also. The lady at the Free Museum in Greybull said by now the temps are in the 80s and 90s and farms are having to irrigate like crazy. She says she has never seen the area this green as it is usually as dry as Eastern Washington. In fact the irrigation system and fields here look much like those in Eastern Washington.

So the weather has altered my journey from one of seeking to one of conquering. I am not afraid of a challenge. Since retiring I have been working as a sort of handy man for one of the radiologist I used to work with as a PA. One of the first challenges he had for me was to build a bocce ball court. Actually we conquered that challenge together. This thing is basically a 12 x 72 foot roadway complete with curbing, drainage, multiple layers of ever smaller rocks, and topped with a smooth rock dust that had to be perfectly level. And we did this by hand! No bob cats or back hoes. I don’t recall how long it took us but it was a challenge for us both.

So for todays challenge: I left Cody under grey skies with the promise of rain by noon or so. The continental breakfast at the BW motel sucked to say the least. So on the way out of town I stopped at the local IGA and got some supplies for a mid ride meal. My second breakfast was a large cup of fresh fruit. Gotta stay regular out here. Rt. 14 from Cody to Greybull has a nice shoulder the entire route. My original route would take me to Basin but there was no vacancy at the only motel in town and I knew I was about to be wet all day so camping was a last resort. The Historic Greybull Hotel was my ticket.

To my great surprise and delight I had a tail wind most of the way. Well mostly a wind off my port stern. For you landlubbers out there that is off my left flank. The terms starboard and port came about hundreds of years ago when ships were steered using a long oar over the gunnel/side. To standardize things and keep boat traffic organized at port, this steering oar was always placed on the right side of the boat leaving the left side free of obstruction. Thus the left side of a boat is the side that is docked to the port and the right side is the steer board side. At least that’s the way I heard it.

Anyway, Rt. 14 is not a straight shot and winds and curves here and there. At this times I had cross and head winds. I would guess the wind was blowing at least 30 and sometimes 40mph. This is not too bad if steady but it was gusting and the passing motor vehicles made it even gustier. Many times I had to hold fast to the bars for fear of being blown off the road.

Now I don’t k ow whose idea it was to place KYBOs along this route ( remember those, Iowan for porta potty?) but I’m glad they did. I am again in big sky country (no trees country) so relieving oneself can be a problem or at least embarrassing. The first one I used was placed on a bit of a slope and while inside rocked about in the strong gusts. I was convinced the thing would blow over and I’d be even more stinky than I am currently. Not to mention permanently blue for the next few weeks. But when I exited I noted it had been placed right up against a taut barbed wire fence. They even had a hand washing station out front!

By the time I got to the second KYBO I had long since donned my rain gear and been drenched several times. Since I was about half way to Greybull I figured this would be a good time to eat half my sandwich. So I huddled leeward if the smelly beast and ate as the next person round of cold rain bore down on me.

My rain jacket was given to me some years ago by my niece. Thanks Jill, you saved my a$$ this trip. It did not come with a hood so I bought one of another brand that just happened to attach as if made to order. With the hood pulled up over my head I had no peripheral vision, only tunnel vision. So I was pretty much focused on the shoulder of the road riding in the darkness of passing rain clouds. Suddenly the shoulder shown bright. The rapture, I thought? No, the sun burst through a cloud for all of 10 seconds.

Not far out of town on a flat grassy plain I could see small white blobs. Hundreds or maybe thousands. Of course the were sheep, which are common here, but without my prescription glasses I swear they looked like white grubs squirming in the grass. Then a couple miles distant another odd site. Hundreds of airplanes all facing north. Turns out this is an airplane museum way out here in the middle of nowhere celebrating aerial firefighters. It was closed when I stopped so I don’t know if the was a private collection or the work of some avionics enthusiasts.

I also passed a large bentonite mining operation. This, I learned from the museum lady whose husband works at the mine, is a type of clay that has the ability to swell and absorb water. She said it has multiple uses even as a kitty liter clay. According to Wikipedia: The main uses of bentonite are in drilling mudand as a binder, purifier, absorbent, and carrier for fertilizers or pesticides. As of around 1990, almost half of the US production of bentonite was used as drilling mud. Minor uses include filler, sealant, and catalyst in petroleum refining. Calcium bentonite is sometimes marketed as fuller's earth, whose uses overlap with those of other forms of bentonite.