I got up and packed as early as I could to try and beat the heat and also to catch the sunrise; the sunset was a deep orange and I figured the sunrise might be equally as spectacular, and it was. As I walked out of the hostel around the church a pronghorn family was eating at the trees on the grounds. I actually saw a lot of pronghorn today, usually eating the greener shoots along the roadway, I guess that the water run off from the road causes different vegetation along the road, all the roads in the high desert seemed to have a ribbon of green either side. The pronghorn seemed oblivious of the cars but when they saw me coming on my bicycle they usually fled before I got close.

The start of the day I continued to follow the Sweetwater River downstream, before joining up to a busier road and crossing over the Continental Divide into the Great Divide Basin. This is a very high plain that’s very flat with rock twisting out of the ground only in the distances. The map marks the passes as the Continental Divide, and so do the road signs, but the Great Divide Basin doesn’t actually flow into any sea, although as I was riding it seemed like probably an academic fact, it looked like not enough water fell here to flow anywhere. There was no shade for almost the entire day, and the clouds didn’t form until later in the afternoon, so I had no respite from the sun. I tried to shade under a shrub to eat some lunch but was only partially successful, it at least gave me some more energy for the climb out of the basin and into Rawlins, the destination for today.

Rawlins is the end point of section 5 of the TransAmerica route, so now I’ve completed 1,654 miles of the trail, over 24 days that’s about 70 miles a day, although in reality I’ve cycled more than that with the extra miles particularly in Yellowstone and Grand Teton. I’ll probably spend one more night in Wyoming before crossing into Colorado. Wyoming has been incredibly hot, although I think I just got unlucky with the weather there, and incredibly windy, which I understand is a constant. Luckily it has mostly been in my favor, although today a couple times I cursed it. The Wyoming desert is really pretty, if testing. Bicycle is a great way to experience it, although maybe if it weren’t quite so warm. The roads have also been great with wide shoulders, not a single motorist has honked in anger and yesterday multiple motorists honked in support as I crawled up the incline.