056: Day 69: June 16: Harrison NE to Douglas Wyoming: 85 miles today and 2481.9 in total (m414.5)

Wow, today we hit another record!! We did 85 miles in one day. Both of us were very impressed. But, this took careful planning, we looked at the weather forecast and the wind directions and noted that we could cycle from early to about 10:00am in the morning before the wind picks up and then from about 3:00pm when the wind direction would change to that of a tailwind. This planning worked out so well. 

Soon after leaving the Sage Motel in Harrison at around 5:30am, we began seeing some rock outcrops and 

we continued cycling next to an abandoned rail line. The Government of Nebraska has a lot of work to do here. 

Just before the border with Wyoming, we saw this historical marker talking about the bus times for the railways and how this siding (literally miles from everywhere) was a very important cattle loading siding.

This crack in the pavement shows the position of the State Border. We noted that Nebraska had a welcome sign up, but not Wyoming.

I was happy to see the first signpost for the Teton National Park and Yellowstone soon after we went into Wyoming.

We passed Van Tasselt, the first town in Wyoming and came to realise, as we cycled along today, that the Towns and villages in Wyoming are even smaller than the ones we left behind in Nebraska.

This butte has a colony of swallows nesting against its side. They were quite noisy when we passed.

We saw many coal trains during the day.

And the flowers became fewer, but standing out even more in this harsh climate. 

We passed this historical marker for the Texas Trail. 

Lusk is the first biggish town we came to after about 30 miles of cycling and we went to a "Yes" gas station and convenience store to while away the hours until the afternoon cycle.

This steer must be bucking a lot.

Manville is the first town west of Lusk and we noted, but passed this rail trail.

The store at Manville is called "3 Sisters" and this is their road sign. The horse and rider actually move.

The school at the town of Shawnee is all boarded up and the playground is overgrown. In these sparsely populated areas, schools in neighboring towns are combining to form a viable school. This makes for a lot of bussing kids to school and home.

We started seeing sage and

snow or blizzard fences.

So much land and even more sky. Wyoming could also be Big Sky-country, just like Montana.

We reached Orin at about 06:30pm and stopped for a slurpie (Ben) and orange juice (Christine).

This bear is screaming for some cool air and berries to eat.

We were also following the North Platte River Valley and saw these vistas.

Just outside Douglas we had a water stop and this cloud brightened up the surroundings.

We slept at the 4-Winds Motel in Douglas. Before we went to bed, we planned out the next day and saw that we had another very early morning ahead of us. 

I did not complete the blog and I already had some queries, where is your next installment? We have to thank all of you for your comments and feedback as we cycle along. I wish to thank Jim Harris for coming back to us so diligently on the flower names, etc. Also for Paula and Bob and Sue for giving us the moral support in the form of regular comments However, I never realised how many people read the blog. Thanks also for the support message and texts we receive so regularly.