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The TransAmerica Trail – Wyoming
Lander, WY
July 23, 2006
This morning I went to the Open Door Cafe for breakfast with Rudy – I had a bottomless cup of coffee, a waffle, and a cinnamon roll. They had four different coffees, and after sampling them all, my favorite was “Velvet Hammer.”
Rudy hit the road east to the Atlantic Ocean, and I hung around to ask about work. After a brief talk with the owner, Aaron, I was hired! It looks like I’ll be doing dishes from 9-3 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. They let me use their computer today, and I’m exciting to be working here – the staff seemed like a fun, energetic group of people from widespread coffee use – Aaron singing along to the radio in the kitchen – and various friends and family constantly flowing in and out.
Justin, Maya, and Rose are all here taking the day off, mainly because of some mechanical problems. The one book store/coffee house on main street has a table and chairs set up on the sidewalk, and I spent the better part of the afternoon there with Justin. We met a couple from Washington who are doing the Great Parks route – they talked with us for 10-15 minutes, and went to get something to eat. We came up with a game where one person says the name of a town we’ve been through, and the other person had to name the state. I wasn’t very good at this game – actually quite terrible. Justin would name a town I’d been through less than two weeks ago, and I couldn’t remember it without some prompting. It made me really glad I’ve gone to all the trouble of keeping this journal.
Once we got tired of the people watching and surroundings, we went to McDonalds. Justin had only ate fast food maybe twice so far on the whole trip – it was his idea to go, really – but I’m starting to feel like a bad influence! First Rudy takes a day off here in Lander, then Justin, Maya, and Rose do the same… and now I’m enlightening Justin to the cheap, hot protein of double cheeseburgers, and the energy surge after a few refills of fountain Coke. He was terrified, and at the same time fascinated, by the nutritional information on the tray sheets. As for me, I can recite some of it by memory! Next we stopped at the supermarket to pick up some food for dinner, and I watched some of a local baseball game at the park – between Lander and some out of town team.
Evening at the park tonight was very enjoyable, with all us five cyclists around the same picnic table, cooking our various individual concoctions. Myself from PA, the couple from Seattle, Maya and Rose from New England, and Justin from Jersey, all bringing something different to the table. Maya and Rose are raising money for Greenpeace. In a week or two, the Seattle couple will be backpacking in Peru. Life is good.
Rudy at breakfast
outside the bookstore with Justin and the Great Parks Route couple
at the town park. That’s actually a single tree.
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