Saturday, July 21st: Colter Bay, Teton National Park, WY or … rain, rain go away!

It’s a habit: wake up and look at the sky! This ride is cursed: it rains! But this morning the sky didn’t look too bad. Not clear blue, but … one could hope. So I got my usual seat in the front. We start with a small climb to the Continental Divide. But what do I hear? Herman Van Veen singing with a bad cold and not able to keep the right tune? I wish my boss would just stick to her camp songs instead of trying this new stuff. If Herman could hear her… She’d be in trouble! Good thing that divide was not too far off! 

What’s that.. a drop of rain? See, the curse has already arrived! Me, I get that plastic bag over my head again and my boss takes out rain jacket – no… no pants and no shoes! Dressed like that we cycled along Lewis lake (yup, good old Lewis!). My boss thinks all those rivers and valleys make so much sense. It’s easy to remember the names and it’s easy to connect them to historical facts. Why isn’t it like that in Belgium? What’s in the name of the Schelde or the Ijzer? No wonder it’s hard to learn them! There are hardly  any stories connected to the names! And the drops – they vanished as soon as my boss stopped singing. This year we are able to see the Lewis Falls and the Lewis Canyon: another spectacular view in this wonderland. 

Who knows: maybe we'll get some foreign exchange students!

Here fire crossed the river as the wind blew embers across the gorge! We are now in the last downhill stretch of Yellowstone Nat’l Park. Before descending we see the peaks of the Teton Range. 

Yieha… downhill!!!! Once out of the park the Snake river greats us – our new friend. Having crossed the continental divide, everything flows to the Pacific from now on – even that stream of pee I did against the tree. Flagg Ranch is our food and drink stop. It’s also a meeting place for cyclists… a guy is going from Pinedale to Cody – going to buy a pick up there. Before reaching Jackson Lake in Teton National Park, there is this little hump we have to attack. 

Up again, while the sun makes us sweat like. Fluffy hair is not an ideal outfit in warm weather. But we can only think about the rewarding downhill. That first view of the grey snowcapped  mountains next to the lake… 

It’s another ten rolling miles with nice views, lots of wildflowers along the road and some grunting of my boss on the small inclines before we reach Colter Bay. 

Here we are almost back in civilization and the first thing we notice is a newspaper with the news about the shooting at the opening of the movie Batman – in Colorado! Being in the greens for only four or five days without TV… it seems as if there is a totally other world in Yellowstone, where all work according to the rules of Mother Nature. These shootings… they are not written in the book of Nature.