Day 27

Day 27 dawned with cloudy skies and an uncertain forecast.  checking out the weather forecasts and radar maps I hoped we might make it to our stop for the night before the rain rolled into the area.  We departed Steamboat Springs, CO by backtracking down Highway 40 into Rabbit Ears Pass once again.  Just as we hit the East summit of the pass we took Highway 14 towards Walden, CO.

In Walden we decided to fuel up even though I still had between 1/2 and 2/3rds of a tank left simply because i was not certain what the rest of our route would bring and I knew based on mileage if I left Walden full then our stop for the night was within range on that tank of fuel.  While fueling up in Walden we meet up with 4 bikes from Alabama who were on their way to Montana.  These folks seemed pretty pre-occupied by the weather which to me looked like a possibility of rain but nothing I would fret over at this point.  During conversation one of the fellows mentioned he had XM weather and there was storms just north of Walden so they all began suiting up.  We opted to hit the road and see what transpired along the way.  By the time we hit the junction to head east on 127 near the Wyoming border we had to stop and gear up for weather as well.

Not long after suiting up on Highway 127 we crossed into Wyoming.  It was around this time that Char and I both commented on how it was obvious we were heading home based on surrounding landscapes.

We crossed through a lot of this type of terrain today, grass covered rolling hills with the occasional rock outcropping.

After breaking for lunch in Laramie, WY we headed towards Highway 34 and our final stop for the day.  22 miles into Highway 34 we hit this construction stop and based on the fact the first guy in line had his SUV opened up and was walking his three border collies up the road I figured we might be here a while.  A quick check with the flagman confirmed we likely had about a 20 minute unscheduled break.  Sounds good, Char was quick to jump off the bike to walk up and down the side of the road and ditches to stretch her legs and rest her backside.

This was approximately 30 seconds later when the flagman mentioned "Ma'am you might want to be careful around the sides of the road, the rattlesnakes have been really bad lately coming out to sun themselves". Char is not a fan of snakes and was rapidly trying to climb onto the bike backwards so she could watch for snakes.

We saw literally hundreds of Pronghorn Antelope today.

Some local poultry was spotted as well.

Wheatland, WY is our stop for the night, thankfully we arrived early as I still have no plans for the next two days or hotel reservations in SD so there is plenty to do tonight.

Mileage covered today was 346.9 km bringing our trip total to 8041.5 km.