Walking Man

“Moving in silent desperation

Keepin’ an eye on the Holy Land

A hypothetical destination

Say, who is this walking man?”

- James Taylor

Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, this does not refer to me. Not yet at least. I still have Colorado to go. Yesterday, as I was driving east to Nebraska, there was a man walking along the shoulder of the eastbound lanes on I-80, heading west. He was near the Continental Divide. He appeared to have only a backpack with a small American flag sticking out the top of it. I thought it was odd, but really no stranger than some dufus on a bike riding on the interstate. This morning, I got up early to make the trek back to Rock Springs and continue on my way. Lo and behold, I see the same guy walking along the interstate again. He appeared to have gone 15-20 miles in the 20 hours or so since I’d seen him before. Yesterday, he was approaching a small town. Today, however, there was nothing for over 60 miles the way he was heading. Where was he going? What was his goal - walk across the state or maybe the country? Who knows but I hope he gets there safely. Not 10 minutes after I saw him this morning, I saw another man, walking west off the side of the westbound lanes. He appeared to have a bit more gear, and perhaps a bit more sense because he wasn’t up near the traffic. I had the same questions about this second guy as well.

I got the car back in time and had arranged a ride from the same Uber driver as yesterday. He arrived at the airport at almost the same exact time as me, so it was about as efficient as could be. He gave me a ride out past Rock Springs to the spot where the highway heads south towards Flaming Gorge. When we got there, he did me a solid and offered me a ride a bit further to the top of the first hill, about 3 miles. He helped me get all my stuff together and then gave me 4 extra bottles of water. There were no stops between the drop off point and my destination - or at least what I thought my destination was. In my haste to get going, I neglected to put on my little skull cap under my helmet. The result is a bald head that looks quite a bit like a Michigan Wolverines football helmet, with alternating pale pink and dark red swooshes, where the holes were in my helmet. For good measure, I also failed to put on sunscreen, so basically all skin above my shoulders is aglow this evening. I had made it about 10 miles down the road and what do I see, but another man walking along the road towards me. This is definitely not an interstate, and the level of traffic on this road, especially in the direction he was walking, could generously be called “infrequent," bordering on “rare.” As he walked past, I noticed he was carrying 1 bottle of water and nothing else. He stopped and told me his transmission had gone out and asked how far was it to Rock Springs. I told him probably 15 miles. I offered him some of the water that my Uber driver had given me, but he declined saying his one was enough and that he hoped he could get a ride soon. Not sure what else I could do, I kept going and passed his car not 1/4 mile from where I met him. I also noticed the car had new tags, so he couldn’t have owned it more than a week or two. Hopefully, there are lemon laws in Wyoming.

The rest of the day was a series of climbs and downhills. Generally, the downhills were steeper and at one point, I hit 45.6 mph. About 60 seconds later as I was starting to climb up the next hill, one of the latches to one of my saddlebags came undone and the bag started bouncing against my rear spokes. I’m very thankful that hadn’t happened moments earlier, or you probably wouldn’t be reading a blog post tonight. The last 6 miles of Wyoming were a sweet descent but no sooner had I entered Utah than things began to change. I believe Utah is an acronym. Any of these fit:

Ugly Trash Along Highway

Untimely Thunderstorm At Hand

Uphill To A Headwind

I was very grumpy. I got so pissed off at one point, that I yelled at a woman in a pickup truck who, despite me waving her past on multiple occasions, had the nerve to stay behind me and turn on her flashers to warn the drivers behind her as I was going about 8 mph up a hill. Not my shining moment. I finally got to Dutch John, Utah, a little resort community near the Flaming Gorge Dam. There was a restaurant and at about 4:00, I had my first food other than a McDonald’s breakfast burrito at 6:30am and some dry Lucky Charms I was munching in the car ride earlier. My maps said I had about 4 miles to go to my motel. My maps were wrong by about 2 1/2 miles, all a steep uphill as I was beginning the climb out of the Gorge. At that point, I was grumpy, sunburned and mostly blind, as so much sweat was dripping in my eyes - remember no beanie - that they stung and I couldn’t see. It was hard (and futile) to take my hand off the handlebars to wipe away the sweat because the uphill was too steep to ride up

one-handed. I finally got to the lodge and the lady inside took one look at my Wolverine head, my sunburned face, my shirt dripping with sweat and the usual array of grease smudges and dirt on my hands and legs and asked me if everything was ok. I assured her I was until I have to start right back up the rest of the hill first thing tomorrow. The Flaming Gorge was nice too.

This is early in the ride and not yet to the Gorge, but the colors were pretty spectacular

Of course. I’m in a freaking desert where it rains once a millennium, but why not today?

9% is pretty steep. 2 1/2 miles at 9% and you better make sure your brakes are working

#41 (Nebraska was #40 but since I drove in, no picture). My brother pointed out the irony of the slogan and the image of an extinct animal.

Part of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir created by the dam. Couldn’t get a picture of the Gorge because of traffic and lots of chain link fencing over the dam

Guess where I am

Wolverine Head