What's 120 more miles?

Shadow Riders - Rawlins, Wyoming

When in Wyoming, here's a tip...Plan your day to leave as early as possible and stop around 3:00 in the afternoon to find a hotel if you don't have reservations.

Our 3600 mile trek this summer was based on living on a wing and a prayer for a hotel, never officially planning each nights stop. Just wherever the road led us. Five couples all needing rooms each night.

We left the north gate of Yellowstone early in the morning, crossing over the Beartooth Mountains, stopping for lunch in Cody. We drove all day to the next stop in the middle of Wyoming somewhere north of Lander. We were met by the hotel clerk who informed us that all the hotels within 120 miles were booked.

It was 5:30, getting dark and we would have to hop on the bikes and ride the 120 miles to next town of Rawlins. So what's an extra 2 hours and 120 miles? Five Harleys, full bore down one of the most desolate highways I had ever seen (talk about a rumble of loud pipes). Nothing to see but a long-ass strip of pavement stretched out in front. Not to mention having to be on guard for that one crazy antelope who may wish to spring across the road at any moment.

We were 5 miles from Rawlins when some of our riders couldn't take one more minute of the dropping temperatures that came with the setting of the sun. They needed to stop on the side of the highway to gear up.

I grabbed my point and shoot from my jacket pocket and snapped this photo. The sun was low and it stretched our shadows across the highway toward the storm off to our east. I like the photo. It seems to capture the mood of extra 120 miles at the end of a long day.

©2009 Laura Smetak All rights reserved. All photos and stories on this blog are copyrighted and use without the artists express permission is prohibited.