Kiki Bikes Across America

Saturday, July 25th – Lewis Lake in Yellowstone Park to 8 miles north of West Yellowstone

We woke up fairly early, or at least I did. I got up at 6:40am and walked around the campground while I waited for the rest to rise. Once they were all up we started packing up and had breakfast (kid cereal again, which was awesome!) I had trix and apple jacks again which was amazing! We rolled out of the campground around 8:45am and headed for Old Faithful (the geyser) and watched that around 10:30, I think it was. It was pretty neat and there were tons of other geysers in the park that we could have seen, and we saw some from the roads, but not shooting the water up in the air like Old Faithful. Nonetheless it was pretty neat. I also met some Germans who were visiting and was able to practice my rusty German again which was nice – they were from Hannover and Mainz, and visiting a relative who lives in Illinois.

We crossed the Continental Divide again...

We had our last meal with Jack and Dave at the lodge and then Chase and I packed up our bikes and changed back into biking clothing and started to look at the maps again under the awning of the lodge as it was raining now. We spoke with one guy from Seattle, Washington who seemed to know the roads in the northwest fairly well, so he was trying to give us suggestions or tell us if the roads we were looking at would be good to ride and so forth. So we think we’ve come up with a new route to get back to the coast in time for Chase to get back to Texas and hopefully in time for me to ride down the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco.

Buffalo in Yellowstone National Park

Finally, around 2pm we headed out of the park and started riding the 30 miles to get out of the West Entrance towards West Yellowstone. Spotted buffalo, a bald-headed eagle, and elk in the park before leaving. About 3 miles before we exited we saw another touring cyclist so we stopped to chat and it turns out he’s also riding to Astoria, Oregon (the end of the Transamerican Route). Craig (the cyclist) also had ridden the Northern Tier back in 2003 and now he’s doing the TransAm Route as it’s his last free summer for a while (he’s studying at UVa’s Medical School). We rode to West Yellowstone together and just as we were about to take our photo of the entering Montana sign, Chase sees some cyclists he knows from WAY BACK on the bike tour. He ran into his “Z-team” buddies (the 5 guys who just graduated from JMU this past May). He last saw them back in Eminence, Missouri on June 25th (Day 30). So it was really odd to bump into them again such a long time later and especially since we were supposed to be on the Western Express Route and they on the Transamerican Route. But we’re caught up now and who knows, maybe we’ll finish with them or before them.

The Z-team, buddies that Chase rode with earlier in the trip. He last saw them in Missouri, and then met again in West Yellowstone!

So we stopped and ate at this pizza place which gave us a 1/2 off discount for cyclists, so that was awesome! Chase, Craig, and I all got 12″ pizzas and then shared them and they were decent – not the best, but not horrible either! After eating, we went to the grocery store to pick up some things for breakfast and lunch the next day or so. We wound up with plain bagels, ham, and cheese for lunch, and cinnamon raisin bread and peanut butter for breakfast, along with some apple sauce. Pretty yummy and odd, but tasty:) The three of us rode out of West Yellowstone then in search of a place to camp – we rode past a campground that was full and decided to camp in the National Forest Land, so we went back on an access road and pitched tents on this track that was pretty nice with grass and pine needles. We hung our bear bags (filled with food, toiletries, and anything scented), pitched our tents, and called it a night around 9:30 or so.

Camping in the national forest 8mi. North of West Yellowstone