Day 22 - Grand Teton National Park

Todays mileage: 78
Total mileage: 1063
End point: Moran Junction, WY
(actually 5 miles towards Dubois)

After writing my blog yesterday I stayed in the bar and got chatting to keith, originally from nyc, now a local and quite a character! We had a full on debate on nearly every subject: healthcare, guns, the middle east.. Jeremy Paxman would have been proud :) we did manage to agree on 2 things: 1. Both being atheists* 2. Tim Pawlenty being the best republican candidate for 2012. Whilst we were chatting various dogs had been roaming round the bar and keith was keen to bring his in too. Little did I know what I was in for. 5 big chocolate labradors appeared - carnage, but at least they weren't biting me! I left the bar and got a quick lift back with someone in a jeep.

This morning I awoke with gorgeous sunshine and was prepared to do some mileage. I headed up route 26 which continued next to the snake river and saw quite a few groups white water rafting, it looked awesome for this. I was thinking it looked far too cold but as I just went canyoning in england a month ago I remembered you are easily distracting by concentrating on not drowning and not hitting anything.

Slightly further up the road I reached the point of the mud slide which had closed this road all last week. A new gravel road a couple of hundred metres long had been built and construction crews were hard at work. I was impressed at the work they were doing. I reached Hoback Junction, were I would head north towards Jackson - the opposite direction from florida!

Happily I found a bike path leading in and out of jackson, although out was a bit up and down and some tight corners - good fun though :) The town itself was gorgeous; clean combined with wild west. I must come here at some point as I could see more chairlifts mocking me. Although Vail might still be top of that list.

I headed to fitzgerald's, the local bike shop and a good one at that. After getting a new spare inner tube I started chatting to the guy and it turned out one of their staff was about to attempt a world record unsupported ride across america. They had wanted to do Race across America, but it costs $30k and requires 2 support crews. So he was going to cycle unsupported across in 12 days !! I was invited to check his bike out, it weighed in at 30 pounds all in. I'll put the link up tomorrow for his challenge, so you can see what he is taking. Whilst he had the scales out I asked him to weigh mine - it wouldn't register meaning I was over 60 lbs!

I left jackson and entered Grand Teton National Park. The views were epic, stunning .. Crazy beautiful, and I saw bison amongst a world of other animals. The shoulders were wide and drivers considerate and slow. I clocked up the 1,000 mile mark and am now camping just east of the park exit.

Disaster has hit though because my keyboard has stopped working, so I have typed this on my phone, nightmare - so apologies for the typos. Going to give it another go tomorrow but otherwise might require a new strategy. It also means I haven't written as much as I wanted :(

*( as many of you know I am a passionate and outspoken atheist. Whilst it's very tempting for me to push science and logic over faith in this blog, and get some richard dawkins quotes out - for the sake of world peace and my religious readers I'm going to park my atheist bus in these brackets on day 22.. I promise to keep the bus parked here unless absolutely relevant to the ride, e.g. I camp next to the president of american atheists and we get into a detailed philosophical discussion on Russell's Teapot and Pascal's Wager!)