Alive in: Togwotee, Wyoming

I finally returned to the road after a humanizing three day weekend at Colter Bay. Besides just being worn down, I'm fairly convinced that the altitude has been affecting me. I've been between 7,000 and 8,000 feet since I entered Yellowstone, and I can feel the impact on my breath and heartrate. In any case, the time off really helped recharge my batteries. In between reading, eating, sleeping and blogging, I spent some time contemplating my schedule. I've been behind for some time, and up until recently figured I'd expand the trip as needed, but the gap keeps widening, and I've got Mary to get home to. At this point, I feel like I want to stop killing myself, and get as far as I get by the original deadline. I think I'll be happy if I make it to Pueblo, Colorado, and catch a train from there. Anyhoo, I'll keep my eyes on the calendar and see where I am in a couple of weeks.

Incidentally, the views of the Tetons behind me are much more impressive than the ones I had coming in. I came in parallel from the north, and I'm leaving perpendicular to the east; the sense of scale is clearer from twenty miles east than it was standing across Jackson Lake from them. Huge!



Today's character building challenges: insects, pine sap, and road construction. Criminy, the bugs in Grand Teton Forest are big, aggressive, and numerous! And I finally accepted a ride from someone - mandatory, really, but I was happy to have it: I reached a seven mile stretch of road construction, nothing but open earth. I'd heard about this from Keith the mechanic and friends, back at the gate to Grand Teton. I was shuttled through in the bed of a pickup truck acting as a pace car. It was 6pm by the time we reached the far end, and Tony, the driver, said it was 12 miles to the top of Togwotee Pass and that there was going to be blasting further up the road tonight, so I had him take me a mile back and drop me off at a local lodge.


I beat motorcycles!

While at Colter Bay, I finished reading one novel - Tim Dorsey's The Big Bamboo (he's like a sillier version of Carl Hiaasen) - and picked up a left behind copy of Michael Crichton's State of Fear. I knew nothing about the Crichton novel, but he's usually a reliable entertainer. As I got into it, I was wryly amused to discover that it's his global-warming-denial polemic. It's transparent and condescending and reads like a Jack Chick tract, but I'm finding it funny, given what I'm up to.