The Final Mile ROAMIN’ IN WYOMIN’ Listen. That’s the Cowboy State. And it’s calling. by Jeff Sambur

After three friends bailed on me for a Labor Day weekend backpack trip, I turned to one I could trust. I entered the laundry room where my vintage 1981 Trek touring bike hung like a forlorn criminal from the gallows. “Wanna go roamin’ in Wyomin’ with me?” I asked. My steed silently answered, “That would be swell.” I thought out loud, “We make a good team.” So we set off to , destination: Sheridan. On Interstate 25, I passed cutouts of buffalo, cowboys, and the legendary jackalope. I a few billion years old. The began warming up to the five-thousand-foot climb idea of cycling in this and the headwinds I wilder western state. In encountered made me feel Sheridan, I abandoned my almost that age myself. SUV at the home of a At last, the climb friend’s mother. ended, and a descent down “Yes, Sheridan is Ten Sleep Canyon began. booming. We even have The limestone rock forma- crime. I have to lock my tions reminded me of door while I’m at home,” something you might see she lamented. I agreed that in Arizona or Utah, not AMBUR

the world just ain’t what it northern Wyoming. It was JEFF S used to be. a nice surprise. I headed south out of If you’re looking for open road, Wyoming is the place for you. I spent the night in town toward Buffalo. A Ten Sleep, population 344. brisk northwest tailwind welcomed me back to the open road. According to legend, Ten Sleep got its colorful name from the The foothills of the were filling in with new Indians. The town site is ten sleeps (nights) between a subdivisions adjacent to old ranches. I spotted a flock of wild southern camp near present-day Casper, Wyoming, and a north- turkeys and a few frisky antelope. ern camp near Bridger, . That evening in Buffalo, I visited the Occidental Hotel, built After dinner, I moseyed through the swinging doors of the in 1879, for some local color. Buffalo Bill Cody, Theodore Ten Sleep Saloon. I spotted a few old cowboys who could have Roosevelt, General Phil Sheridan, and Calamity Jane have all stepped right out of a Frederic Remington painting. The saloon’s slept under the Occidental’s roof. It’s even rumored that Butch bumper-sticker collection was entertaining as well: “This town Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hoisted a few shots of red-eye doesn’t have a town drunk. We all take turns at it.” The next there. I skipped the shots and, instead, nursed a cold one as a morning, I read the following description of Ten Sleep printed Patsy Cline imitator entertained me and a group of glassy-eyed on a breakfast menu, “East of envy, west of worry, south of sor- stuffed elk, moose, and deer that stared at me from the walls. row, and north of normal.” This town might not have a lot of The next morning I met an old biking acquaintance for people, but it did boast some of the more quotable ones in the breakfast. I tried to coerce John into riding with me to the top of Cowboy State. 9,666-foot Powder Pass. He must have known about the climb I left the quiet of the Ten Sleep valley and ascended up and as he politely declined the offer. over into a stark desert littered by oil derricks and their accompa- I rode past informational road signs displaying the age of the nying odors. After picking up a few lunchtime bananas in rock strata nearby. One sign announced that the rock there was Worland, I began riding on Highway 431. The road ran beside

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the barely trickling Gooseberry Creek. The next morning, I eavesdropped I took a day ride up to the top of The contrast in scenery was dramatic. On on the morning breakfast clique and Dead Indian Pass on the Chief Joseph my left side were irrigated green fields; on learned a thing or two about pick-up Scenic Highway. I was on part of the my right were harsh-looking Wyoming trucks, ranching, and hangovers. An same route taken by Chief Joseph and badlands. The Absaroka, Bighorn, and earnest woman dropped off the local 750 Nez Percé Indians as they attempted Wind River mountains surrounded me. It newspaper. I noted that the Meeteese sen- to escape from the United States. Cavalry, was a lovely day’s ride all in all. ior citizens were thanking the Fiddle-back seeking refuge in Canada. They were In the Shoshone Indian language, Ranch for the donation of one pig. Life caught thirty miles short of their destina- Meeteetse translates to “meeting place.” seemed grand in this town of 351 people. tion after eleven hundred miles and three When I arrived there, I realized the name Both the weather and my mood con- months of fighting and fleeing. At the was right on. The 90th annual Labor Day tinued to be fine. I had an easy ride to time of his surrender in 1877, Chief weekend celebrations were coming to a Cody, a small city founded in 1896 by the Joseph spoke these immortal words, close. Rodeo cowboys and spectators were famous western showman Buffalo Bill “From where the sun shines now, I shall spilling out of the bars. They were armed Cody. The colonel was a busy guy. He fight no more forever.” with cans of Keystone Light and shots of was a scout, buffalo hunter, Pony Express Despite the very politically incorrect tequila. Their silver-plated belt buckles rider, and computer genius. Nah, he really name of this pass, the scenery was spec- were the size of Frisbees. I snuck around wasn’t a computer genius, but he sure tacular and well worth the effort of the like a person who had arrived way too late managed to do a lot in his life. He invest- eleven-mile climb to get there. It’s a for the party. It was okay though. As a ed time and money into this town fifty shame Chief Joseph probably didn’t have woman from nearby Thermopolis told miles east of Yellowstone National Park. the luxury of being able to stop and view me, “People in Meeteetse are just a bit dif- He also built the Irma Hotel, which still the beauty that surrounded him. ferent.” stands to this day. continued on page 44

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That evening, I relaxed on the porch of the Irma Hotel. I sipped some suds as I watched the Cody night life pass me by. Buffalo Bill would have been proud of me. After another breakfast washed down with weak coffee, I took off for Greybull. The air had that crisp feel of autumn. My AAA map called this stretch a scenic sec- tion. I guess they’re right if you think of sagebrush and solitary buttes as scenic. A highlight of the ride was passing part of the Bridger Trail used in 1864. The Bridger Trail was once called “the short- cut to the goldfields” of western Montana, and wagon-wheel ruts were still evident in the sage. Later on, the rush-hour traffic of Emblem, population ten, wasn’t much of a problem. Upon arrival in Greybull, I retired to the combination museum-library. A spry ninety-one-year-old Greybull booster informed me that bentonite now fuels the local economy. So what is bentonite? Well, it’s in practically everything: deter- gents, sheep dips, insecticides, fungicides, oil paints, juices, and even laxatives! It would be hard to swing a cat without touching this claylike stuff in some shape or form. She then went on to tell me about the time the nearby flooded because of an ice jam. She smiled as she recalled dodging the ice floes on the sidewalks and streets. I had a really pleasant stay in this bentonite-fueled town. The next morning, I got an early pink canyon walls. After a series of low-pressure tailwind pushing me along. start for my ride up and over the Bighorn switchbacks, I waded through a horde of After the ninety-six-mile jaunt, I arrived in Mountains. The bespectacled waitress in retirees to get a good snapshot of the tum- Sheridan and packed my steed back into the Uptown Cafe greeted me with a pot of bling waters of Shell Falls. Twelve miles my SUV. “I reckon we’ll go roamin’ in coffee, the local newspaper, and a smile later, at the crest of 9,033-foot Granite Wyomin’ again someday,” I said to my — things you don’t see too often in big- Pass, I watched cowboys round up cattle metal friend. I believe I heard my bike ger cities. The high-pressure weather pat- into waiting semi trucks. It was time to answer back, “I’ll be waiting.” tern that had been blessing me on my get the bovines out of the high country ride was beginning to break down. It before winter struck. The landscape was Jeff Sambur is a forty-nine-year-old cyclist, backpack- would be a race to see if I could beat the parklike with patches of Engelman spruce er and avid beer drinker who craves retirement so he cold and rain back to my vehicle in and lodgepole pine. It took another twen- can ride and write his life away with his girlfriend, Sheridan. ty miles before I began the plunge out of Jane. I passed Shell, population fifty, and the mountains down to the ranchlands entered a gap in the mountains marking below. the beginning of the extremely beautiful I cruised through the towns of Shell Canyon. I stared in wonder at a rag- Dayton and Ranchester and along a fif- ing creek that bisected the yellow-orange- teen-mile stretch of Interstate 90 with a

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