Into the wide open

It was chilly this morning, at around 5:30, when I hit the road. Slowly but surely, the altitude is rising as the road takes me towards the Rocky montains. Wyoming offers wide spaces of prairies hardly bounded by the horizon. A dirt road crossing, some cows or horses in the fields, a ranch in the distance or few hills are most of the entertainement you get on the road.



Yet today, I knew that I was heading for long day on the road as the map showed just few towns on the way to the next important one, Riverton, some 120 miles away.

Still I had planned to stop in Powder River to take my breakfast: it seemed big enough on the map to host at least a gas station. After riding some 35 miles (50 km) it felt like reaching an oasis when I spotted the sign of a gas station in the distance. When I got there, a paper on the door read 'out of business': the next gas station is 20 mi ahead...



Eventually I found some kind of a breakfast in a small shop headed by an old lady 10 miles further. There was nothing there other than that and bunch of rusting cars. I made it to Riverton having crossed just 3 towns with at least one shop open in 133 mi (213 km).

Although the road runs through the open wide, it offers great scenery such as this canyon, Hells Half Acre,



or just past Boysen State Park,



And I bet that in the winter time, when the immensity is covered with snow and blown by the wind, there are even less tourists and crazy bike riders around. I guess inhabitants develop a sense of belonging to this infinite land of Wyoming which also translates into this humoristic sticker: