Another Day of Options

With my day of leisure behind me, I was back on the bike today. Although, somewhat minimally. In case you’re wondering about the increase in shorter riding days, well … it all comes down to timing. And, if my calculations are correct (and I really hope they are) I’m a bit ahead of schedule at the moment. So, if I’m going to spend some extra leisurely time somewhere it seems like Yellowstone is a good place to do so.

The current situation is that I’m about 650 km from Salt Lake City and have eight days to do so. That SHOULD be doable. Of course, the placement of towns along the way will greatly influence each day’s distance so I have no doubt my route will continue to be a work in progress.

Anyway, on with the update.

For the first time in a while, there was no rain last night. None. I found that particularly convenient as it meant I was packing up a dry tent this morning. Thank you nature.

As seems to be the case of late, I had a couple of options for today’s goal. Norris or Madison. Both had campgrounds with hiker/biker sites but Norris would be a ridiculously short day. So, even with my need to slow my pace, Madison was the leading candidate for the day. However, Norris wouldn’t be disregarded completely.

Since I was passing through Norris anyway, it only made sense to check out the geyser basin located there. Again, considering this is Yellowstone, I was not alone in having such a plan. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

Between Mammoth Hot Springs and the Norris Geyser Basin there was some pedalling to do. And, as I had been warned by Nate and Anna, that route included a not insignificant stretch of construction. More specifically, they’re repaving a section of about 5 km. The biggest downside to this was that single lanes of traffic were being guided through the construction area by a pilot car. And cyclists didn’t fit into that plan. Instead, cyclists were required to put their bikes and gear in the back of said pilot car (pickup truck, actually) and driven through. How unfortunate. Pedalling through construction isn’t fun but being shuttled through just seems like cheating. However, that was out of my control. I’d worry about that when the time came.

Fast-forward a couple hours later and the aforementioned time came. However, in actual fact, it didn’t. As luck would have it, today was Sunday and therefore the construction zone was quiet – well, other than all the RVs and other traffic. But it was two-way traffic. Yes, it meant I’d have to pedal 5 km on a rough road but at least I’d get to pedal. No pilot truck for me! This probably made me happier than it should’ve. Either way, I pedalled along and the road wasn’t nearly as bad as I was dreading. In fact, Google has sent me on much worse roads. MUCH! All in all, it was a pretty painless 5 km.

When I arrived at the Norris Geyser Basin, I clearly wasn’t alone it making it a planned stop for the day. The lineup of cars, trucks, and RVs was significant. It was a line that I simply bypassed on the shoulder. Sometimes there are definite benefits to travelling by bike. 6,000′ climbs aren’t one of them but skipping a line from time to time certainly is.

The main attraction at the Norris Geyser Basin is the Steamboat Geyser. However, unlike Old Faithful, it doesn’t stick to any sort of predictable schedule. At best, it’s vague schedule only sees it erupt every six or seven days. Or significantly longer. Considering it had erupted a few days earlier, it was safe to say I wasn’t going to see it do its thing. Oh well. There was nothing I could do about that and a bigger concern was brewing in the distance. It was a large dark cloud. On the upside, I was now only 23 km from Madison Campground. On the downside, there was a large dark cloud in front of me.

I decided to take some time and have a bit of lunch and see which way said cloud was going. If it was in fact coming towards me at least I’d have some shelter options by staying where I was.

Fast-forward about 30 minutes and two peanut butter and banana covered bagels later and the forecast seemed promising. The clouds looked to be giving me an opening and I took it and hoped for the best.

The “best” came in the form of a relatively easy (and dry) ride to Madison. The clouds were seemingly not interested in drowning me today so there was even time to stop for a few more photos along the way. The “best” got even better when I arrived at the Madison Campground.

Not surprisingly, the hiker/biker site was empty. But, I didn’t expect the campground to have a small store. And yes, that meant ice cream! No, they didn’t have real ice cream like Moose Tracks (that would’ve been asking WAY too much) but they did have M&M ice cream sandwiches. And that was ok with me.

The only other excitement of the day came at supper. Note: The range of what constitutes “excitement” tends to expand a LOT when on a cycling trip – especially where cooking is concerned. For example, tonight would be The Great Potato Experiment. I had bought five (very) small red potatoes when I was in Gardiner the other day but forgot about them until tonight. Tonight I would see how cooking REAL potatoes with my alcohol stove would go versus my previous experiments with mashed potatoes from a pouch.

Even though the potatoes were small, I still opted to cut them in smaller chunks to help speed the cooking process. That was definitely a good idea. However, they still took quite a while to cook. And by “quite a while” I mean it used up all the fuel I had poured into my stove. Just to be clear, that’s not a lot of fuel but it was more than I would’ve used to cook the powdered potatoes (or my usual pasta delight).

I ended up combining the potatoes with a package of Ramen noodles because, well … five small potatoes is hardly enough for supper. Generally speaking the result was pretty good. Butter definitely would’ve helped the potatoes. And probably salt. From a presentation standpoint, the redness of the potato skin made the Ramen noodle concoction look more impressive.

Bottom line, while it was nice to have REAL potatoes, the win has to be given to the powdered potatoes. They take a fraction of the time to cook and have butter and cheese and other “natural” flavouring included. Sorry red potatoes. It was a fun experiment though. Again, “fun” being relatively to the moment.

All in all, I’d say today was another great day. Admittedly, I kind of want another M&M ice cream sandwich (except replace “kind of” with “REALLY”). Maybe tomorrow.

Today’s totals:
Distance: 60.11 km
Ride time: 3:15:04
Average speed: 18.49 km/h (This kind of surprised me)
Maximum speed: 47.19 km/h