Day 24: Dillon

Distance: 67 avg: 11

Today’s riding was so bad I don’t want to talk about it. Two words: fucking crosswinds.

I had a very entertaining show this morning while I had my breakfast: I got to watch cowboys drive cattle! First a guy came by and closed the gate to the park I was in. I was wondering why at first but then it became clear when a herd of cattle headed towards the park!

A cowboy on a horse was yelling at the cows, and moving around attempting to control the chaos. He had a lasso and would use it more for show than to rope a steer. It was fascinating to watch. The fellow on the horse had a border collie that followed him around, too!

The cows were being stubborn, and wouldn’t march down the road. It took a while, but finally they all got moving.

I broke camp and headed out. I hit a small town called Jackson and found a great little place: Rose’s Cantina. I ordered a Brownie Deluxe and started surfing their wifi.

Suddenly I hear that cliché sound in every western movie: cowboy boots with spurs, jangling on the hardwood floor. I look and a cowboy, the 6’6″ John Wayne type waltzes in with a leathery old rancher. I’m completely awed by the fact he’s actually wearing spurs. He’s equally interested in my biking adventures. We hit it off great and chat for near an hour. He was very nice and very intelligent, and after my earlier experience with the cattle I was very excited to meet a guy who did this for a living. He’d come over to the cantina for a bowl of chili after driving cattle that morning. He said he was going to ‘do some work with them tomorrow’ but I neglected to ask him if that meant making some steaks. 🙂

I kept on biking over to the biggest town around: Dillon, population 3500. I was pretty fucking tired of the wind, and was not looking forward to attempting to set up camp in such conditions. I was also worried about damaging my tent.

I take a second and check the weather: 35mph winds with 46mph gusts! And that’s what I was biking in?! That clinched it. Hotel time! I needed to do laundry anyway. 😛