For the first time on the trip, I was beginning to feel demoralized. My legs were tired and sore, the weather was unbearably hot, the heat had forced me to fall behind on my mileage schedule, and I became worried that I was spending too much money. When you're on the road riding all day, your mind wanders all over the place. You contemplate current events, recall fond memories from grammar school, calculate complex math problems, debate with yourself the advantages and disadvantages of a free-trade market, and try to convince yourself that just because you were a huge fan of "Different Strokes" and watched it every week, you were no way responsible for or contributed to the personal misfortunes of Willis, Dana, and Arnold.

When you're on your bike for so long, you think about anything, but how hot and uncomfortable you really are. You stay away from the thoughts that can bring your emotions down, you stay away from thoughts that might actually make you feel like what you're doing is crazy. Today was the day I slipped, I let myself get negative. I let myself think about the things that were tough about the trip, and not the things that were going great. I was falling into an emotional funk and I knew I had to get out of it anyway I could.

Around 1:00, we reached Jeffrey City. It's not really a city and barely a town, but it does have a motel and a cafe. We had planned to call it a day once we reached Jeffrey City, but the idea of stopping after only 60 miles didn't do anything to help me out of my funk. I felt bad, Roger was feeling the effects of the heat and really wanted to stop for the day. I on the other hand, felt reasonably strong, not that tired, and extra motivated to try and log about 40 more miles to get closer to leaving the nothingness of Wyoming. We discussed the options and began to realize this could be the end of our riding partnership. I really enjoyed Roger's company and having someone else to ride with, but I couldn't stop here. I needed to make more miles, needed to get out of Wyoming, needed to get into Colorado, and needed to get myself back on schedule for 400 miles a week and get out of this funk that I was in. Roger, clearly drained from the heat, still was having fantasies of taking a nap at the local motel.

After lunch, we both just sat around the table not really saying much. Then Roger, pulled back his chair, stood up and said "let me just make a phone call, then I'll be ready to hit the road."

"You're gonna come?"

"Sure, I can probably tough out a few more miles, besides, I want to get the hell out of this state too." Immediately, my funk disappeared. All seemed good again. I still had a riding partner, we were going to make up some miles, and we were going to get closer to leaving Wyoming. On the road, your mental attitude can be your most fragile piece of equipment. Fortunately, it can also be your most resillient.

According to our maps, 93 miles southeast of Lander was a little town called Lamont. At the town of Lamont, the map signified there was a cafe and a campground. Roger and I decided that this would be our destination for the night. Since there wasn't anything for miles before Lamont, our decision to reach Lamont, meant that no matter how bad we felt, we had to reach Lamont. It was going to be hot, going to be hilly, going to be windy, and going to be tough, but eventually after much exertion and exhaustion, we reached Lamont.

I'm not really sure who Lamont was or is, but I do know Lamont is not a town. I can see how other designations on the map can perhaps call themselves towns with a few trailers scattered around to house the locals, but Lamont has none of those quaint western charms. The only thing in Lamont is Grandma's Cafe, a long dilapidated white building seperated from the road by a large gravel parking lot. Either Grandma's attracts quite a crowd on weekends, or the cafe also doubles as a popular truck stop. In either case, we had no choice, Roger and I were going to spend the night at Grandma's Cafe.

When I entered the cafe, I had to walk through two doors, first the outside screen door, then down the hallway through a wooden door that lead to the cafe itself. On the wooden door hung three pieces of white notebook paper with black magic marker scribbled on each sheet. The first sign read "Restrooms for customer's only," the second read "We truck all of our water in," the third read "Keep the door shut, we're trying to stay cool!"

Inside the cafe sat grandma and her teenaged waitress in one booth next to the kitchen counter. Neither one was talking to each other, or bothered to look up as we entered the room. They just stared straight ahead in opposite directions, motionless and oblivious to the world. Sitting in a lounge chair diagonally across the room, underneath the air conditioner and next to the television broadcasting the local news from Los Angeles, obviously they had a sattelite dish in the back, was an old man, perhaps grandpa, sound asleep. Roger walked up to the booth that sat grandma and the waitress, "do you guys have a place where we can set up our tents?"