The forest campsite is closed for the season and the water was shut-off on the first of October apparently. Good thing we still have some left in our bottles. Temperatures drop below freezing at night. It's hard to motivate yourself to get out of the tent to take a piss, but when you gotta go, then you gotta go. Hopefully there aren't any bears lurking nearby. We've been hanging our panniers on tree branches since Idaho, and I sleep with my bear spray at the ready. The bottle only lasts a few seconds though, so you better not miss if you do need to use it.
It's pouring in the morning. We tie plastic bags on our feet and head off. Within minutes, our hands are freezing. It's going to be a shitty riding day. At the next stop, I purchase a pair of yellow kitchen gloves. Dan thinks they look ridiculous, but at least the other pairs will stay dry -- all four layers of them. It's snowing by the time we reach our destination. I'm looking forward to those hot springs.
People keep asking us what's the craziest thing that's happened to us. It's hard to pick a single experience, but let me finally tell you all about Jeffrey Dahmer city. No, that is not it's real name, but rather the name some people used when asking us if we were biking through a certain part of Wyoming. And no, it's most definitely not a city.
What it is, is an official ghost town. There's a bar, an abandoned uranium mine, and a few stragglers who mostly seem to live out of old, decrepit RVs. When we reach it, we find two very drunk men standing on a roof, tossing empty beer cans into a trash-filled fire. Below them is where our map is telling us to stay: a broken down pottery shop. It's seen much better days. The men stumble down from the roof, confirm that we can sleep in the shop, and proceed to inform us that they plan on getting wasted later in the evening. It's unclear whether they live there or are just squatting. Dan and I exchange looks.
As we enter the bar for dinner -- it's clear that we stick out like a sore thumb -- there are three things to note. A/ The place is packed with the town's entire population -- 20 people or so, down from thousands just a few years ago, B/ There is a baby in a playpen and little kids running around the place, C/ There's an AR15 behind the counter. Upon ordering, we're told that most the items on the menu are unavailable, but we still manage to score a couple burgers. Fifteen minutes later, a few hunters come in and are denied a chance at a meal. I'm glad we got a chance to change out of our cycling clothes.
At night, we sleep in the pottery shop, behind the broken storefront window. The ground is filthy, littered with debris, and there are empty handles of cheap liquor everywhere. Nearby, our hosts carry on drinking through the nigh while haggling over cigarettes. At some point I wake up to a man staring at me from the other side of the window. He doesn't say anything. I close my eyes and pretend to fall back asleep. It's all so eerie.
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