Sunday and Monday August 22nd and 23rd

Paste the following link into your browser to see photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/113862939710452121802/DropBox?authkey=Gv1sRgCKXlxP_J1Ib2Dw#

First I want to thank again those that have pledged to donate to Healing American Heroes, every penny goes to the help those that were wounded from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. For those that have not yet pledged, if you can please do so, we need all we can get to help the large number of returning soldiers. Please go to the following link to make a pledge:

http://americasheroes.wufoo.com/forms/ride-the-divide-for-wounded-warriors/

We awoke from the small grove of aspen trees we camped to go back into Atlantic City for breakfast before our long ride to A&M Reservoir 80 miles away. We got delayed by about an hour plus waiting for breakfast to start and didn't leave town until 10am. Immediately had a very steep climb out and hit the strong winds coming off the plains. Look at the pictures on the link above to see how wide open the terrain really is, not a tree in site. In fact, we didn't see a tree until we entered Rawlins a 130 miles later. We rode 80 miles and climbed 5,815 vertical feet on a ride that is suppose to be fairly flat! Given our late start we were only 26 miles into the ride at lunch time, which wasn't very encouraging and we knew we had to get moving to make our water source for ride day. The ride had gusts up to 40 mph, blowing us sideways all day long, except for when we rode directly into the wind, which felt going uphill. About 20 miles into the ride a truck was coming right at me as the driver was looking at the open vista, I waved at him to see me and he corrected to the other side of road and stopped. He asked us if we needed any water thinking I was waving him down, sure we could use some, still had 60 miles to go. He jumped out of his truck and pulled out two large ice cold gatorades! I had to take his picture because we have had so few drivers stop to talk and no one offers us anything. John and I drank those gatorades like a college kid drinks his first beer on a Friday night. We kept battling the wind and the soft sand in the road until lunch, which we had quickly in the shade and buffer from the wind, of an idle road grading vehicle.

Several hours later I finally got the picture I have been trying to get for days, a prong horn that was close enough to get a good image. The big male came right across the road in a full sprint, probably chasing some females as mid August is the start of he rut and males are getting their harem in place. Just after the prong horn picture we ran across a wild horse, wild because we are still in BLM land and other than a few cattle there are no other animals being crazed out there. We finally pulled into A&M Reservoir at 9:30pm, using my helmet light to get us the final miles. There is nothing there but water and a little area to camp. We quickly pitched our tents, ate freeze-dried dinners and hit the sack. That night our tents got the wind test as a storm pulled through blowing and raining like a small hurricane.

Monday morning we got moving a little late, but only had 55 miles to ride to Rawlins. Still a lot prong horns all over the place, my guess is we were blocking their morning drink. The wind picked up again and blew us sideways until we hit the pavement, turning directly east we got the full benefit of the westerly wind and started flying down the road. Saw another badger, man do those animals spook the hell out of me! Right before breaking for lunch we ran upon a guy walking alone on the very desolate road. He is hiking the Continental Divide by himself, I startled him when I rode up next to him. His name is Evan (also calls himself The Fugitive which we didn't delve into). He looked like he just woke up one day and said "Leaving to hike the Divide?". After a few words about water we got on with it, making Rawlins about 3pm. Checked into a hotel and started the routine of clothes washing and bathing, sure is nice to be clean.