Day 13
   
   5/10/01
   Mile 1368
   Cheyenne, WY
   
   I'd spent the night in the park, where there was a designated tent
   camping area.  I managed to drag myself out of the tent at 6:30am.
   Every day is later than the delusions I have about being able to get up,
   say, an hour earlier and getting a lot of miles in before lunch.
   
   An hour later, I'm packed, I've eaten at a McDonalds, and start
   heading west towards Greely.  It starts to sprinkle before I get a single
   mile.  Small potatoes, I say to myself; I can handle this no problem.
   
   The rockies get progressively closer as I roll past fields and
   stockyards.  Cows are odd animals.  Rarely, when I go past them
   grazing in their fields, they come up to the fence as if to greet me.  More often
   they stampede away from me, but only AFTER I've passed them, for some
   reason.  Even then, they don't run directly away, but closer to
   parallel to my path.  Most commonly of all, they simply stare at me, and I watch a
   hundred eyes following me as I glide past.
   
   At the huge feedlots here, the cows ALWAYS run up to the fence.  No
   doubt since there is no grazing here and they must be fed corn, they
   have come to understand that the sight of humans means food to cows;
   unfortunately (for them), the reverse is also true, as the McDonalds
   sausage in my stomach was attesting to.
   
   Let's all cheer on Mike Wood, who goes on his adventure this weekend:
   a 100-mile ultramarathon in Virginia.  Sounds like a Deathsport to me!
   
   I'd been noticing my chain starting to occasionally pop on the gears.
   That's a sign that it's stretched out and needs replacing.  Also, I
   have a rear-view mirror on my sunglasses that had broken, and I'd had
   to tape it back on (tip: keep a length of duct tape wrapped around your
   tire pump).  When I reached Greely, I decide to stop at Bike Peddler,
   where I met Bill Waller - who just happened to be the designer of the
   Take A Look rear-view mirror.  The mirror I had been using was called a
   "Third Eye", however they seem to have a design flaw in that they
   never last long.  I've had to buy several of them, because they always break
   at the same spot.  Bill was entirely aware of this and graciously gave me
   one of his models, which are all-metal and should last a lifetime.
   
   They had my favorite tires there, so I bought two of them, a spare
   tube, a new seat, and had them replace my chain.  They were quite
   friendly, and interested to hear of my journey. I added them to the mailing
   list, as I have with many passers-by that see me eating or getting groceries
   and ask about the loaded bike.
   
   By the time I left town it was nearly 4pm.  I thought I would be able
   to make it to Cheyenne by sunset, but I was sadly mistaken.  What I
   didn't know was that the remaining 52 miles had a pass to go over that
   was almost 1500 feet of elevation gain, and that the headwinds were so
   reliable there was a wind-turbine electrical generation farm ahead of
   me.  It was after 9:30 when I finally got to town, well after dark.  I
   couldn't find a campground, and so resorted to going off in the grass
   behind a truck stop, hiding my tent there.  By the time I've set up and typed
   this log, it's about 11pm as usual, and I can barely stay awake.
   Tomorrow is not going to be a good day I can tell, and the mountains
   loom ahead of me where the real work starts.

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