October 20th, 2015
Hwy#30 east, passing through Medicine Bow for lunch and arriving in Rock River around dinner time…except Rock River has neither rocks, restaurants, or rivers.
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Hanna, Wyoming, United States of America
Destination: Rock River, Wyoming, United States of America
60.48 km trip, 3:07 time, 56.6 km/h maximum speed, 19.1 km/h average speed
What happened…
Andrew writes: So yesterday I mentioned how Amanda was hungover, and I told you the story behind all that..so today we’ll pick up where we left off. I think it was 0400hrs when we finally went to sleep, so we didn’t wake up until 0900hrs and left Hanna around lunchtime.
The ride to Medicine Bow was uneventful, and all I can really recall was that the wind was at our back, and the Old West Bar in M.Bow offered up a $5 burger and fries.
The ride to Rock River though took us through a construction zone, where they insisted that we ride in the back of a pilot car. We’ve got truck transport down to a science, and it didn’t take us any time at all to load our bikes into the back, and I sat in the box, while Amanda rode up front. It was a short ride all things considered, but it meant that we got to Rock River in really good time.
There isn’t a lot in Rock River, but there is a nice park in the middle of it that we considered camping at, and there is also a nice, new school. So we sat in the park reading, and cooking/eating dinner until it got dark. Meanwhile, about a dozen kids of all different ages showed up at the park and were playing tackle football. We didn’t want to camp in the middle of that, so we rode over to the school grounds in the dark and started setting up our tent in the baseball diamond.
We were interrupted by the principal of the school who someone had reported our presence to. Mr. Fickus was a decent enough principal, and in retrospect, a pretty brave guy for coming out in the dark to confront two would-be hobos. He even offered to open up the school for us to wash up and use the bathroom. Getting his approval to sleep on school property, along with our promise to leave before sunup, made us feel a lot more comfortable, and we drifted off to sleep just as the first pitter-patter of rain drops started hitting the tent.
Amanda writes:
Another day in the USA, another wonderful person. The principle at the school where we camped out was very nice. I can only imagine parents coming to him reporting cyclists riding in the dark toward the back of the school. I tried to picture what a Canadian principal would do in the same situation but I don’t actually think I’ve ever been near a rural school. I’d like to think we’d be treated with the same respect.