WHYoming? Because it was awesome!

So Wyoming was totally out of our way.... 

Something's off about point D....

Obviously we could've gone from Utah into Idaho and saved ourselves a lot of time. But why would we do that when we could see more awesome things?!

So in typical 4K fashion we added like 400 miles to our trip and backtracked east to go to Wyoming. Because Jackson!!!

The day started with a not-so-bright and early (the sun wasn’t up yet) of 4 am. We wanted to get to Jackson ASAP! The principal of the high school and his wife were nice enough to come in at that ridiculously early time and cook us breakfast. We looooove getting eggs for breakfast!!

Getting on the road right at sunrise!

At our dedication circle that morning, I announced to my teammates the news of my mom’s diagnosis. Some had heard already and some had not, but since I was dedicating the day’s ride to my mom I filled everyone in on the news. What happened next was really cool. One by one a lot of my teammates said “I’m also riding for Mary’s mom.” I think about 8 people did. And nobody rode for anyone else but her that day. I was so touched by their support.

After taking a deep breath and composing myself it was time to get on the road. With 108 hilly miles on the agenda there was definitely no time to waste.

The first 60-ish miles were rolling hills, a total lack of civilization and cell service, and COLD!! It was in the 50s until we'd been on the road for 4 hours. 

A cow crossing the road!!! We were thrilled to finally see cattle out in the "open range" area.
(Yes obviously we mooed at them)

Rolling hills in Eastern Idaho

I wore my jacket, but wished I had also dug out my gloves and leg warmers! I couldn't feel my fingers or toes until about 10 am. Around the time it finally warmed up, we threw our jackets into the water van as it passed, then crossed into Wyoming rather anticlimactically as there was no state sign... our water van drivers wrote “Welcome to Wyoming!!!!” on the road… so at least there was that.

Around mile 60, there was a sudden change where the ride became absolutely awesome. We entered the Tetons, and everything was green and alive and the Snake River appeared to our right about 500 feet below us. 

We were oohing and ahhing so much at the river that we had to get off our bikes to stare at it for a while. It was teal in color!! The winding, fast-moving river against the mountains was an amazing sight to bike next to… and we got to do that for 50 miles!

Becky and Joanna!

We saw a lot of whitewater rafters and we did consider ditching our bikes and rafting because it looked like so much fun.

Our lunch stop that day was amazing – a bike trip company in Jackson basically gave our food van all of their leftovers, so in addition to pizza we also had tons of stuff to make sandwiches with that we don’t normally get: pulled pork, lunch meat, vegetables, mustard, feta cheese. You might be thinking that sounds like an awfully strange combination to get excited about, but to that I will simply say: 4K OK.

Everyone was in a pretty fantastic mood leaving the lunch stop and we were ready to tackle the last beautiful 30 miles into Jackson. As we neared the city and were only 10 miles out, we encountered construction and some very heavy traffic. While we were waiting in the traffic a lady got out of her car to inform us that there was another road we could take on the other side of the river that was “a beautiful ride.” Intrigued but skeptical, we asked if it was the same distance, and she said yes.

Having no cell service, we couldn’t fact-check her info. It was either wait in the heavy and slightly dangerous traffic jam, or trust the random lady and take the road less traveled, literally.

Trust the random lady we did. We crossed the river to the road she suggested and immediately faced a sizeable hill. Groaning to ourselves, we trudged up it, but then realized that if the road bordered the river, it couldn’t possibly get much higher than the other side. Sarah promptly got a flat… but we weren’t even bummed because we got to stare at the awesome scenery the whole time. After taking care of the flat we continued along and were happy we took the detour because we were getting some amazing views being up that high that we would've missed on the other side! 

Moral of the story: Always trust strangers!

We rolled in to Jackson just before 6 pm! 

Not too bad for a 108-mile day for sure. Biking into the town was pretty nasty as it was rush hour and there was a ton of traffic and no shoulder. But drivers were very courteous. Jackson is a VERY outdoorsy town and people are well accustomed to cyclists. We were super excited while riding in because Jackson is awesome! It has such a western and welcoming feel. I was also recognizing things from when my family was in Jackson 8 years ago.

The logistics for our stay in Jackson were pretty complicated. We were to go camping our first night, split up for various touring activities on our rest day and then stay in homestays our second night. We decided having a central location to leave our bikes and luggage at would make things 10 times easier – the only problem is that real estate is crazy in Jackson, space is a top commodity, and not a lot of places even HAVE the space to store all our stuff let alone be willing to take it. Not to mention this week was literally THE height of tourist season in Jackson and things were crazy everywhere.

Luckily, the Lexington Hotel in downtown Jackson agreed to help us out, but not before quite a bit of coaxing. They agreed to take our bags but not our bikes, and we were still looking for a place for our bikes until like 4 pm, when they gave in and said we could store our bikes there too. Thank you Ed and Frank!!! (Ed is the GM and Frank was the one that did the convincing :)

It ended up being a perfect situation and the logistics fell into place quite smoothly. We stored our bags and bikes in The Lexington’s meeting room (which luckily wasn’t being used for 2 days) and were able to use their pool house for showers. I had set up a pizza donation from Pinky G’s for our dinner (best pizza we’ve had all trip), so the food van had time to go and set up our campsite while everyone was showering and eating, that way we wouldn’t have to set it up in the dark.

It wasn’t until about 9:00 that everyone was showered, fed, and ready to go, so at that point we headed to the campsite. Everyone packed their bookbag with their camping and rest day stuff and left the bulk of our bags at the hotel.

We camped at Shadow Mountain, which was a free campsite on the side of the Tetons! We didn’t get a good view of it at night because it was dark when we arrived, but in the morning it was gorgeous! It was about a 40-minute drive north of Jackson and involved driving up a really steep, gravelly mountain. Our van actually had a bit of trouble getting up there!! Once we arrived, everyone was exhausted, but in typical 4K fashion that did not mean it was bedtime. Some of the boys made a campfire and we all hung out playing games and talking late into the night.

Some people were paranoid about bears so we enjoyed pretending to be bears. We kept all the food in the van, though, so we weren’t really too worried. Also, our campsite had no bathrooms or water but that was 4K OK, I mean we’re used to using the great outdoors as our restroom every day anyway, and we have 4 giant water jugs so we just filled those up and brought them. I surprised myself because before this trip there is no chance I would’ve camped somewhere so primitive, but now it was totally fine. It was really fun to camp with the team!

In the morning we had a rude awakening at 6:45 by Joanna honking the van’s horn. Everyone needed to get up so we’d have enough time for rest day activities!! As we exited our tents, we made the interesting discovery that we had accidentally camped in a parking lot…. Oops. So that’s why it was so gravelly.

For the rest day, some people went to Yellowstone, some went hiking in the Tetons, and some went rafting on the Snake River. I opted for Yellowstone! I have been there before, about 8 years ago with my family, and I loved it so I wanted to go again with my team.

The drive to Yellowstone ended up being close to three hours, which for me meant naptime. When we got there we saw Old Faithful and then drove around to a lot of the other attractions: the hot springs, another geyser, the paint pots, bacteria mats, etc. I had forgotten how big the park was! Thanks to the van drivers that day because driving was a lot of work…and the rest of us slept every time we were in the van. Everything was just as beautiful as I remembered it!

Unfortunately half a day in Yellowstone is not nearly enough to explore it, but we did see a lot of cool stuff. Everyone enjoyed it. We arrived back in Jackson with about an hour to spare before our host families were to pick us up for the night, so we walked around downtown Jackson and shopped/ate ice cream. Nitkin enjoyed comparing the town to Aspen (he obviously though Aspen far superior). It is an adorable town but definitely undeniably touristy.

Our hosts picked us up from the hotel, and I was with Erin Neary along with Joanna, Sarah, Dave Wolfe, Paul, and Maroun. Though Erin was one of the first hosts to arrive I had to wait for everyone to get picked up since I was the one to coordinate these homestays. It was also a mail drop and one of our hosts was dropping off a carful of mail, so it was chaos in the hotel until all the mail was sorted through and everyone was off to their separate homestays.

Erin put us up in her apartment above the Anvil Motel, which was only one block away from the Lexington. Not only were we right in downtown Jackson but her apartment was awesome and the king-size bed I got to sleep in was literally a cloud. It was amazing.

To top that off, Erin took us out to dinner – at the restaurant she owns! She is the GM at Nani’s Cucina Italiana, an awesome Italian restaurant in downtown Jackson. Obviously this was right up my alley. We were all wide-eyed in wonder at the amazing food we got to eat. We basically just asked her what to order and she told us – I got the melone pasta, and I was kind of skeptical about melons being in pasta but it turned out to be absolutely delicious just like she said. She also got us an assortment of appetizers as well as a giant tiramisu for dessert. 

Paul got wine so he was a happy camper!

Melone pasta.. delicious!!

Giant tiramisu that was gone in about 10 seconds
 

Slightly blurry, but: Paul, Maroun, Joanna, Erin, Dave, me, and Sarah!

I did NOT want to wake up in the morning. In fact, everyone realized they didn't want to leave their homestays so the night before we had pushed back our departure time by a full hour. That was good but I still wanted to stay in the cloud-bed forever.

In the morning Erin cooked us eggs and pancakes... so we got a breakfast cooked by a chef!! We considered ourselves pretty lucky.

Because everyone was all over the place, we were REALLY late getting on the road that morning. I think the relaxed vibe of the town had gotten to us even in one day of being there. Oops. 

That morning, my grandparents showed up to see us off! They drove all the way from St. Louis to come out and visit me on my trip. I was very happy to see them!!

Heading out of Jackson, we had Teton Pass in store for us at the very beginning of our 88 mile ride. Teton Pass was no joke!!

Just another day on the 4K....

Just before I went up the mountain (and also lost cell service for the rest of the day) I got a call from my parents saying that my mom's cancer was confirmed to be colon cancer and that they were going to do major abdominal surgery to remove 1/3 of her colon right then. It was a lot of information to process in a short amount of time. I was glad that she had a diagnosis, but now I was worrying about her surgery and what this diagnosis meant for our family.

It was ironic that I got that call right at the base of the mountain pass. It was kind of symbolic for me as the mountain represented the battle in front of us. I thought about that on the way up and whenever it got hard I pictured my mom at the top of the mountain. I kept in mind that when the going gets tough, I may be able to get off my bike to get immediate relief, but when my mom is recovering from her surgery and getting treatment in the coming months, she won't have the option of getting immediate relief from her pain. Thinking of that made me all the more determined to get up the mountain, and assured me that I would fight through without stopping. 

Ok fine, I did stop once, to get this awesome picture!

At a 10-15% grade for 5 miles, Teton Pass is one of the toughest climbs by bike in America. It was really challenging. With every pedalstroke it seemed like you covered very little ground. It was very steep, with no breaks in the difficulty for the full 5 miles. But it wasn't too much for Team Portland. Everyone made it up the mountain and as usual we celebrated at the top :) 

The descent from Teton Pass was my favorite of the trip so far! It was a 10% grade downhill for 6 miles. That is VERY steep and steep = speed. It was scary but super fun. There were some tight turns but not too many, so I let myself go pretty fast, and hit 39 mph. Funnnnn :) At the bottom we crossed back into Idaho.

And we found a Wyoming sign at this border... YAY!

The rest of the day was filled with more pretty scenery, and not much else to talk about! My mom's surgery went well and they removed the tumor. I didn't get to talk to her after it because she was all drugged up and resting, but I talked to my dad.

Jackson was incredible and I'm so glad we added it to our agenda even though it sounded crazy. The rides into and out of Jackson were two of my favorite of the entire ride so far, camping was a great experience, Yellowstone was awesome, and our homestays were great. Thank you, Wyoming, for a wonderful 48 hours! ;)