Day 11 - Big Horns

Wow!  Okay, I said it again, but Wow is really a great description for the day.  First, I got to ride all but the steep 18 miles of the ride.  I got in a total of 100.2 miles for the day when I really thought I would only get 50.  Plus, the ride on the bike and in the car were both extremely enjoyable.

The Big Horns are a pretty big mountain range.  The part we were going over climbed for 22 miles.  We then road along a meadow at the top of the range before decending about 8 miles and then climbing again for 5 and descending again for 11 or so. The range is beautiful. 

The mountains are not the pretty purple ones with snow on top, but more the jagged brown ones.  There were a lot of aspen trees on the climb and some flowers.  You could see many different shades of brown in the rock.  As we crested the mountain and entered the meadow, beauty abounded.  The grass was green and there were a ton of yellow and purple flowers.  The most amazing thing was smelling the flowers as I cycled by.  It was a cleaner fragrance than any "meadow flower" room deoderizer I have ever smelled.  There was also snow on the upper parts of the meadow.  It was all so beautiful. The two descents were not too complicated but they still were somewhat scary.  Since you never know the road conditions or what is around the corner I kept my speed below 40 mph.

So, I knew there would be 6 daysof climbing that I was really concerned about on this ride and three of them are now in the books!  I am very pleased that I have been able to ride as much as I have thus far - 1049 miles in 11 days - Wow!

Sunrise over the Big Horns - we started 30 minutes earlier today

Foot of the Big Horns

Driving up the lower portion of the Big Horns

Sunlight on the Big Horns

Vista from the Big Horns

Shadow of a bike off of the roof of the lunch van

Switchbacks!

Meadowland on the Big Horns

Red line shows our progress so far

Thanks again for reading.  I sure am having fun and appreciate all yalls support!