Improper incentive - Day 38: Rawlins, WY to Walden, CO

Trail advice said to stay with Carim and/or Brandon in Saratoga Springs, about 40 miles from Rawlins, which would be a pretty short day. Apparently they're just the coolest people and they take anyone who shows up, even finding people with loaded bikes in town to bring back with them. I was feeling guilty about taking a rest day so soon after the Lander rest day, though, and thought it would be funny to show up where the women I met before would probably be, so I only stayed in Saratoga long enough to get some food. In retrospect, I probably should have just stayed since that kind of anxiety is exactly what I'd like to get away from in the first place.

The next place to stay would have been Riverside or Encampment, which I learned are not just one place named Riverside Encampment. That would have been a 60 mile day, which is pretty reasonable. I thought I would likely stay there due to a number of storm cells in the area, including one that dumped a bunch of marble-sized hail which stung through my rain jacket and kept ringing my bike bell for me. With no shelter around, I was just about to get off the bike and set up my tarp when it lessened. I stopped in the Riverside visitor center, looked up a radar map of storm activity, and saw that the cell covering my path out of Riverside was starting to fade and there appeared to be a brief opening to Walden, CO, CO, about 40-50 miles away for a total of 110ish miles. So, I left.

The storm cell I'd been watching continued to move away from my path, and I made it to Walden without getting a drop of rain. Riding at night through the Colorado portion was probably not the worst idea, either, as there was no shoulder to keep me out of daytime traffic. At night, traffic is sparse and well-lit, so it was easy to just get off the road whenever everything around me started to glow from someone's headlights. Walden had free camping in a park one block east of main street, but I was tired enough that I accidentally went west instead. There was another "park" there, too. I think I realized this was the wrong place once I saw that there were no tents around, but there was a cozy looking spot between some concrete barriers and a backup diesel generator where I wouldn't be seen. I assumed that there would be no power outages tonight and thus no need to start the generator, and went to sleep.

Here's a sign in Saratoga, likely addressing cycle tourists:




And here's the sign welcoming me to Colorado at something like 9 PM, which is still light at high elevation: