Day 45 Saratoga, WY to Rawlins, WY
Today could have been a very frustrating day for the team, but it wasn't. The road between Saratoga and our next hosts in Rawlins, WY is an incredibly busy interstate with very fast moving traffic, including a lot of trucks. Although the route is technically rated okay for cycling, we as a team decided there is just no way we would take such a risk. The only other roads connecting the two towns are gravel roads that even cars have trouble getting through sometimes.
So as a team, we decided to shuttle between the two towns. Usually this would really frustrate us because we're here to bike and bike as many miles as we can, but today was a wonderful day, all thanks to our incredibly generous hosts at the Saratoga Alliance Church. I said in yesterday's post that although they are first year hosts, 4K (and each of us on the 2014 Portland team) should make every effort to come back to this wonderful town. Today affirmed that idea in every way possible. Aside from a wonderful breakfast, when the church heard our predicament, they told us about all of the great places in Saratoga we could go to relax and rest, including some hot springs (unfortunately I didn't personally make it to the hot springs, but I'm sure they were great... despite the fact that it's the summer). When they realized that we would have some trouble shuttling all of the luggage, bikes, and people, a church member stepped up and offered to move a lot of our food for us with a pickup truck. When we didn't know where to go for lunch donations in such a small town, the church came together and prepared lunch for us, which was supposed to be "nothing special", but then turned out to be elk steaks that they had hunted and processed entirely locally (even the localvoire Kelsey had some). I think Peter said it best when he said, "when I called Pastor Scott a few months ago, I was a total stranger. But now I feel like I've known you guys forever. This is the first time you've hosted us, but it feels like you've been hosting us since the very beginning of 4K." Pastor Scott and Saratoga Alliance Church - if you read this, I just want to say thank you yet again.
Sorry Pastor Scott... for some reason this seems to be the only picture I took in your lovely town... but it did make me laugh...
I could keep gushing about Saratoga, but our trip continues onto Rawlins. As we shuttled to Rawlins, it became quickly obvious that we made the correct decision to shuttle and not bike. Although the interstate had a very wide shoulder, driving 75-80 mph in the vans, we were being passed incredibly quickly by cars moving around 100 mph. Whether it's legal or not, the team wouldn't have felt safe biking in such dangerous conditions.
Tonight we're being hosted by the First United Methodist Church in Rawlins. We had a great dinner of stir fry, and I actually had a really nice chance to have a conversation with someone from the church about mountain biking around the area. Definitely seems more of a possibility than riding road bikes on interstates. One of the jokes is that we're actually mountain biking across the country... sometimes seems like a bit too much of a reality. Next year 4K... maybe mountain bikes?
For Team Portland 2015 maybe? Gravel road, no problems...
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