All Good in the Hood

Day 30

Rawlins, WY to Saratoga, WY

Distance: 41 miles

TITS: (3h41min)(Training bra)

Units of alcohol: n+2 (where n is a very large number)

Just a short hop today – I was obviously being kind to myself when planning this stage – and yet still enough time for it to be a game of two halves.

The road out of Rawlins paralleled the Interstate, and then joined it, so Steed and I were let loose to play with the traffic on I-80 for a while. And that while was shorter than it might have been given that we had a stonking tail wind pushing us along at a great rate of knots. I was actually thinking that I might arrive in Saratoga too early, until I came off the I-80 and changed direction, and BAM! Back with the crazy sidewind for the next 20 miles…

Even with the wind, though, I made it to Saratoga and the Hood House B&B around lunchtime, and checked in. Carol told me I was the only one in the house so I got to choose my room, and chill out watching TV in the living room, drinking tea and eating the leftovers of the breakfast items I sneaked out from the Hampton Inn that morning.

By around 4.30pm, I thought I’d pop out a get a quick bite, with ideas of returning and sitting on the sofa flicking through a weighty book of contemporary US poetry, before getting an early night (and hoping that the house wasn’t haunted).

Fast forward a few hours, and I am sitting at the Bar in the Historic Hotel Wolf, having eaten my HT (salmon, rice, veg) drinking yet another glass of wine with the owner Doug, and his son Judd, who looks after the bar, and  chatting away merrily – the two gin & tonics I sculled at the bar waiting for the restaurant to open by then a distant memory.

I was about to leave when an Australian cyclist called Matt walked in, having literally just arrived (in the dark). I don’t remember much of what we talked about (!) other than that Matt is going in the same direction as me, so we might see each other on the road again at some point. And he seemed like a good guy.

Finally making my departure, I swayed back to my B&B and into my room, where I promptly fell asleep, waking up around 1.30am - to answer a text from Valerie querying whether I was OK, given there was no blog – and finding myself fully clothed with the main light on, the lap top open on the bed next to me and an empty packet of Skittles.

Ah well… sigh.

Me x