5 - Tuesday - 3rd Days Ride - Shoshoni to Cody

The target for todays ride was Cody and meant that we were now a full day behind our original plan.

We woke up today to clear blue skies. It was cold and indeed there was quite a freeze during the night as the film of ice on the bikes testified to but spirits were lifted into the stratosphere by the appearance of the sun.

I had read about the Wind River Canyon and had looked at it from above via Google Earth but nothing quite prepared me for the beauty of it. Cliffs a thousand feet high in places had been carved by the Wind River. The ride through it to Thermopolis was spectacular and everyone in our group agreed that the last two days of bad weather were a cheap price to pay just to ride through this canyon in the sunshine.

Thermopolis looked an interesting town as we rode through, packed as it is with thermal pools and interesting looking bars but time did not permit us to stop. Instead we pressed on to another 2 horse place called Meeteetse and found another fantastic Bar/Cafe called the 'Cowboy Bar and Cafe' with a name like that you would expect something pseudo but none of it. It was a real country place with food of the best quality and tiny prices. We all had coffee and a good ole slice of pie.

The road to this place and the road on to Cody is bordered by wide open plains and scenery that makes it hard to watch the road. As we were having such good conditions compared to the previous two days we were all in very high spirits.

Cody is a large town and is known as the Gateway to Yellowstone National Park and the famous Beartooth Highway. These two icons were what we had come to see but it now looked as if Yellowstone at least was beyond our reach because of time and with reports of snow and ice up on the Beartooth this too was doubtful. After some discussion it was decided that the group would split. Three of us were at least willing to see how far we could get whilst the other two did not want to risk it. Fair play to them, they knew what their limitations were and I respect their decision but for me I didn't spend a shitload of money and come this far to turn back now. Luckily this point of view rubbed off on Nigel and Mike otherwise I would have made the epic ride on my own with no one to share what was a spectacular day.