Day 63 Ten Sleep to Burlington

Wednesday 21st July
Daily mileage 68miles Average Speed 12.8mph Ride Time 5hr21min
Total Mileage 2547

We are camping on a campsite that is also a ranch and the horses which are kept a short stone throw from our tent were being attended to before 6am so we had no choice but to wake and made it to the gas station for coffee and on the road at 7am. We cycled 20miles along a very quiet county road to a t junction where we turned left for 15miles into Manderson. A deer was spooked by us passing and was running along side us for a while on the road edge then jumped the barrier with such ease and cut right in front of us and up the cliff on the other side of the road.
The terrain was awesome and very varied. To the right there were plains of green lush fields with the backdrop of the mountains and to the left was big red cliffs that reminded us of Ayres rock. The road was quite flat with the occasional hill but actually we were declining without realising it. I have mentioned before how we can smell the road kill before we see it, well I don’t think I mentioned about how much Skunks stink as road kill. We always try to hold our breath until we pass it but with a skunk its just impossible and its wretched.

At Manderson we stopped in a café for breakfast and bottomless coffee which we deserved as we had clocked up 35miles before 9am! Continuing we clocked up a further 12 miles North along the Greybull River downhill into Basin where we had a short stop to grab a few bits from the market. The road here was very odd, long and straight with flat land either side that was very baron with no colour anywhere, strange. We carried on now west for 12 miles on very slow road surface of loose gravel into Otto which was like a ghost town and we were very aware of the rain clouds on the horizon. Speaking of rain clouds, I noticed today that I still have my bruises on my arms from the hale stones last week!
　
Despite a forecast today of Easterly winds with no rain, we had rain and a Westerly wind which is in our face of course! We put our rain jackets on and continued a further 10 miles into Burlington where we crashed in Gramma’s Café for more coffee and pie. We got chatting to some customers and they called the maintenance man for the town who said we could camp in the park and he drove over to unlock the restrooms for us.
We had planned on making it a 100 miles today into Cody but with the rain and wind in our face and nasty road surface it has been a tough morning and so we set up tent at 3pm and watched a movie or two with take away pizza from the café!