To see this in chronological order, click here, and it will start at the beginning. One quirk, though – when you get to the bottom of every page, you’ll need to click on “Older Posts” to see the newer posts. Yeah, it actually makes sense, but don’t worry, just do that and it will work fine. It will open in a new tab.

Or Flyover Two, if you prefer. We’re going to do it again!

The big question everyone asks is “where will you go this time?”. The answer surprises most folks – “Pretty much most of the same places we hit last year, but some places we’ll stay less, and others we will stay longer”.

To go to the next trip, click here and it will start at the beginning. One quirk, though – when you get to the bottom of every page, you’ll need to click on “Older Posts” to see the newer posts. Yeah, it actually makes sense, but don’t worry, just do that and it will work fine. It will open in a new tab.

We learned a lot last year. A pop-up camper, even one as big as The Beast, is not enough to ensure a comfortable stay, so we start this trip (and will end it, no doubt) in a new hard-side trailer. We gave this some thought, and went with a mid-priced one. We can’t afford a top-of-the-line trailer,  but knew that a low-end one will not last – we owned one of those a few years ago, and construction quality is very important. Don’t cheap out. We’ll have more room, and much better seating options (VERY important), and also very important, you can just pull over if you need to use the bathroom, or if you need to grab a quick meal in the middle of nowhere. Or, if you just need a quick rest stop, find a safe place to park and you’re good to sleep or rest a few hours, no need to set it up. Also, with a bigger fridge, we can carry much more, and better, food with us. And have a bigger freezer for my fudgsicles and ice cream! Comfort will be huge.

Oh, we still kept The Beast – it has its uses, and we will probably use it sporadically after our return – there are some areas we want to go where the new trailer won’t go easily, and The Beast can go through a lot of rough terrain. Short trips. Yeah, because this year we hope to be out almost six months. Woohoo!

Here’s the new trailer. It needs a name. Well, if the last one was The Beast, then I guess this one is The Beauty! And what a beauty it is!

Here’s the outside door side, with the awning extended:

Here is the other side, showing the two slide-outs extended:

And lastly, here’s the door side at night, with the LED lighting strip turned on. The photo doesn’t do it justice, when that strip is on, it looks like the mothership just landed!

I’ll post photos of the inside as I get them.

 

 

Ok, I’ve been tricked. Or I misunderstood. Probably the latter. It’s not two words, a verb and a noun. It’s just one word. Not at all the meaning I had inferred. Rats! I was soooo hoping … oh, well, story of my life! Never mind!

Ok, so Bangtail (one word, a noun) is a mountain range, and on it is the Bangtail Divide Trail, which is what we did. ALL THIRTY-ONE GRUELING MILES. Ok, ok, the trail is only 23 miles, but if you make it a loop, you have to ride the highway for eight miles, either at the beginning, or at the end. We decided to get that out of the way up front – wise choice! We put butts on bikes at 10:18 and headed to the highway. We took butts off bikes at the truck at about 18:20. EIGHT HOURS on the bikes, minus a few rest stop along the way. 3400 feet altitude gained ONLY ON THE TRAIL part of the ride. The road was probably another 500. I am BEAT.

 

What you have to understand is that The Bear and I were not really prepared for this ride. We had only ridden maybe 10-12 miles in the dirt in Dallas prior to this. Ten years ago when we got away from cycling, this would not have been a hard ride, and on the trip so far, the rides have been under 10 miles, but we thought “What the heck! We can do it!” Well, the proof is in, yes we can. Should we have? Well, the way I feel right now (twelve hours after we started this misadventure), I’d be tempted to say no, but I’m actually glad we did it. Just goes to show, you can do a lot more than you think, if you just put yourself in a life-threatening situation that is very hard to back out of. Is it the smartest thing we’ve ever done? NOooo!!! But life is full of such things, especially around me.

The trail starts pretty much straight up. 23 switchbacks (we did it South-to-North, as recommended by several locals) that gain you 1,600 feet in a couple of miles, but the hard climbing continues until about mile 5. Remember, we started this adventure at 6,500 feet and eventually topped out at almost 8,000! Ok, it was only 7,980 or so, according to map and GPS. But there were a few ups and downs in between there! The end is like the beginning, though mostly downhill for the last five miles. The in-between is actually not terribly horrible, though it did have its moments, including one hill where I swear the slope was 100%, or very close to it! Ride it? HAH!! I was lucky to push the bike up it! Gained probably 150 feet in about a tenth of a mile, and the hill was probably half the altitude gain, over maybe 200 yards. Brutal. At about 7,000 feet. Doubly brutal.

About a fourth of the way into it, I shot this:

VERY beautiful scenery. A while later, I felt it needed a pano to do it justice:

Click on that pano to see it a lot bigger.

The last shot is not that great, but shows how varied the scenery was:

This is probably two-thirds of the way done.

And I ran out of water about a mile from the end!

This is an IMBA Epic Trail, and I can see why. Wow. Glad we did it.

Oh, and my cousin? Didn’t even phase the little shit, he beat us by two hours! I’m gonna put ex-lax in his water, I think …

Tomorrow … rest day? Nooooo, can’t do that! But it WILL be a much easier ride, I can guarantee that!

Well, after all the rain last night – AGAIN – we just gave up on riding and decided to let The Bear’s arm have some more time off. Late breakfast of scrambled eggs with onion and bell pepper, plus some AWESOME German smoked sausage we bought at the farmers’ market the other day. WOW, what a breakfast! Plus we had bread and jam (also from the farmers’ market!). We hope to hit a lot of local produce and such while we’re on this trip.

Went to lunch at another eatery suggested by Jaralei – Tally’s Silver Spoon. We had burgers, and they were pretty tasty! Dessert was at another of her suggestions – Armadillo’s Ice Cream Parlor. A word of warning here – DO NOT ORDER LARGE. Seriously. I’m used to getting rooked by eateries, but this place takes the opposite to extreme! The Bear had a Strawberry Butter sherbet on a cone. She got a MEDIUM, and it was fully six (Yes, 6) inches of sherbet above the top of the cone! I got a Large vanilla shake, expecting something maybe 20 oz, but it was 32oz! Wow! Talk about getting your money’s worth! $7.00 for both! Anywhere else, the shake alone would have cost that.

Ok, after that it was just go buy knick-knacks for the pop-up, to make the trip easier. Tonight we pack, so we can get an early start. Wyoming tomorrow!

Today, we go to the Badlands! A bit over an hour to get there, but once there, some fascinating geology. We poked around a few places, looked over some overlooks – the terrain is all (almost! You’ll see later) pretty similar, and I got some shots, like these. Here’s a sweeping view:

This was close to where we came in, on the North and East end of the park.

How about another?

Pretty cool, huh? What next?

Lunch! That sounds good before we continue! There is a place called Badlands Lodge, and they have a restaurant, so we decided to try some of the local fare. Buffalo burgers! Yup, had to try that. They taste just like chicken! No, not really. But it DOES taste a lot like beef, which should be no surprise. Mighty tasty, and we had a good waitress with a sense of humor.

We decided the next thing to do was to hike into the Badlands, so we put on our Camelbacks and trekked off into the heat. We started our hike at noon, and according to Weatherbug, it was 101F – didn’t feel like it, but it was pretty warm. We did a five mile hike (two out, two back, and about another mile on various areas at the beginning and at the far end). Here is the trail head where we started:

Yes, we really are going to go out into that!

Here is another shot along the way:

And another, this one with The Bear out front, leading the pack:

This is almost back to the beginning:

And here’s a shot of me, two cameras, of course! Had to have my 28-300 on the full-frame, and then my fisheye for those sweeping panoramas:

Yes, we went WAaaay back out there, then returned. Nice hike!

Oh, yeah – at the far end, these two guys showed up. Look like deer, but with curved horns like a ram:

Here’s a closeup of one of them:

Ok, onward!

Next, we get to some REALLY interestingly colored hills:

And this one:

Unfortunately, it’s hard to do justice to a panorama here, but if you click on the pano, it will blow it up for you, then you can easily return with the back button.