It’s been a while since we had all the essential factors in place for posting pictures, but finally at Felicia’s house in Wilson, WY they are all here: computer, basic iPhoto skills, fast internet, time. So here are a few more or less randomly selected photos from the most recent leg of our trip, between St. Louis, MO and Jackson, WY.
We spent a lovely day here with Felicia & friends & family. We’re right on the edge of both Grand Tetons & Yellowstone National Parks, not to mention lots of National Forest land. As you might expect, it is thoroughly gorgeous and everyone we met seems to be appreciating it fully, going rafting and tubing in the rivers and biking all over the place and hiking the parks. We’re now fully armed with an annotated map of Yellowstone that contains all the best spots only reachable by bicycle, where we’ll be heading tomorrow.
We’ve got an unprecedented 2 confirmed sleeping options for tomorrow! We booked a campground in the park since in Yellowstone, unlike everywhere else we’ve stayed, it is slightly difficult to camp for free (no houses to camp on the lawn, and lots of cranky park rangers waiting to kick you out of the most tempting roadsides). But then some fellow bikers we met earlier this week texted us and offered us the opportunity to share their floor in the Old Faithful Inn, which means sleeping inside for two consecutive nights, as well as all the warm and fuzzy feelings that come from meeting people with whom you stay in touch over multiple days.
We’ve had a lot of great encounters on this trip, which I’ve promised myself I will briefly chronicle the next time we’re on a computer. Meeting new people is usually pretty great, and on this trip–especially the last few weeks of it–they’re often punctuating hours and hours of people-free landscape, so we’re usually really happy to talk. But it’s been a pretty rare occurrence for us to run into anyone twice, and so the times we’ve done so it’s felt incredibly significant. So I guess that’s all to say that I’m looking forward to seeing these guys again, so much so that I have to kind of look at it and figure out why, because really I’ve only known them for two days. Conclusion: ongoing relationships are important, especially when they are scarce!
All of this is heightened in Wyoming, which more than anywhere I’ve been is the land of nothing. Felicia told me the population was less than half a million, and I can believe it. We bike miles between towns, and they’re mostly pretty insignificant even by the new standards we’ve developed. At this point, I consider a town pretty significant if it contains a gas station, a really big deal if it additionally has a grocery store, and populations above 1000 are something to remember.  It’s going to be weird going back to school: I’ve always thought of New Haven as a very small city, almost on the edge of a city and a big town, but now that I’ve traveled for months and  seen maybe 4 or 5 cities that are bigger, it seems huge, and everything about the basic city way of life seems very strange and far away and hard to understand. This is a strange thing to find myself thinking! I have never lived outside a city!
OMG… Your pics espec the turtle are fabulous. Nice tans! It feels like you are almost home. You’ll probably have a bit of culture shock being in Seattle… I can’t resist asking… did one of those cute turtles get tucked into your saddlebag?
Hugs and kisses.
We are rooting for you two — Memere saw some of the photos today. Janet and I took her for a walk around and showed her the blog on a computer in the hospital day room. Great photos!
Hope you have a good trip through Yellowstone and on to Montana! XXOO
KATIE
your hair is so lONG
love the pictures
and i still can’t get over how exciting this is.
go girl
That is one small turtle and some big mountain scenery.
Your route seems to avoid cities and towns as much as possible.
Whoa, you ARE tan, Rhiannon!
That scenery looks gorgeous. I can’t wait to hear the whole recap in a few weeks.
I continue to be wowed by your adventures. Great photos!
I love the photos. You two have made great time! It seems you will have plenty of time to rest before school starts. It’s been fun to follow this far. Great job!
Katie Katie Katie!
The other day I thought to myself “I wonder if Katie Harrison ended up doing that cross-country bike trip…?” and just today I thought to check your facebook page to see if you had a blog link somewhere, and sure enough I ended up here! I haven’t even read any of your posts yet but I’m _so excited_ that you’re doing this and am going to go read everything right now! Hope you’re having a fabulous time–I’m sure you are 🙂
Best,
Alison
An hour later, I’ve caught up to my other comment. Reading these posts is wonderful–I had so many similar feelings while on my bike trip, and they’re frighteningly easy to forget.
And I think I have the exact same picture of the Tetons. 🙂
Hi Katie,
My name is Jane and I’m with Dwellable.
I was looking for blogs about Wilson to share on our site and I came across your post…If you’re open to it, shoot me an email at jane(at)dwellable(dot)com.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Jane