Day 12; Where the deer & the antelope play

Started off the morning in Sheridan, WY to a beautiful sunrise and comfortable temperatures in the high 50's.  We both liked the Western feel to Sheridan....the main street with shops to buy saddles and real cowboy hats and boots!  But there's no shopping or stopping at 7:00AM rollout time...it's time to ride!  We were on our way to Gillette, about 110 miles away on Hwy 14.  Just one turn to make out of town onto the 2 lane State highway and go East.

The route was memorable for the rolling green hills right out of Sheridan.  Mike kept asking....where did this come from?  The views to the Southwest were of the mountains that we just climbed over the day before...the Bighorns.  As we got further away from Sheridan, may be 15 miles or so, the hills started to get smaller and browner and soon we were in a drier and less agricultural lands.  We did see the occasional cattle herds scapering away from the road as we passed as well as some beautiful horses (wild?)  grazing alongside...but the real treat were the Pronghorn antelope that peered at us suspicously as we rode.  We were truly in the land where the antelope played!

Right outside of Gillette, we passed a huge strip mining operation with the classic gigantic dump trucks hauling ore (or dirt?) from one place to another.  Gillette calls itself the "Energy Capital of the Nation", we imagine that's from all the natural gas operations in the area.  Gasoline is a bargain here at $2.62/gallon.  No wonder Wyoming has so many big pick-up trucks!

Staying at our 6th Super 8 motel with a 7th night tomorrow in Custer, SD.  Mike & I went the mile into town and found "the best pace" to eat in town......the Chop House"....and it was very good...filled with locals eyeing us as suspciously as the antelope we saw earlier when we walked in with cycling shoes and t-shirts/casual wear.

As a side note, my sister reminded me that the Gillette community was a sponser of various Estonian refugee families after WWII.  One family, the Repnau's spent a number of years here before moving onto the L.A. area.  Apparently there were a couple of waves of Estonian immigrants to Gillette.....one in the teen's and twenties and the other, after WWII.  I tried looking up some familiar Estonian surnames in the phonebook (under "K" and "T", mostly) and found a few families that could very well be 2nd or 3rd generation Estonians in the area.  A further side note,  An email from my friend Andres remarked that his only memory of passing through Gillette many years ago was that the local high school team was named the "camels"....probably due to arid look to the local landscape!

Back to the ride today......108 miles in 5:58 for an 18.1mph pace.  Nearly 4,000 feet of climb over many rollers.  Roadkill...4 skunks and 1 antelope.  Both Mike & I are pleasantly surprised that we feel as good as do right now.  No real soreness or aches....the massages really help.  The weather conditions have been extremely favorable for us through the first 12 days.....absolutely no rain and tailwinds for the most part.  And the forecast for the next few days is more of the same.....as Mike would say....woo wee!

Finally, the article in the Estonian newspaper "Postimees" of us cycling across America (and raising funds for the UW Baltic Studies Program...for me anyways) has published.  Unfortunately it is on the Internet site only and it is by paid subscription....so not readily accessible.  If anyone out there has a subcription and could find the time to write and short synopsis in English in the following comment section...that would be great.  Otherwise the author of the article has promised to send me a paper copy of the article in the mail...which I'll see when I get back in mid-August.  Seems like a long time from now and many miles away but it's going by fast!