In the most recent census, Wyoming was one of the only states to actually decrease in population and is now the nation's least populated state, and with good reason. Wow, is Wyoming big, open, and boring! Montana is gigantic. Everything about Montana is big, but it is also very pretty and at least in the western part of the state, has diverse land features. Sometimes there are mountains, sometimes rivers, other times real fancy ranches, and other times just rolling praries. Wyoming, once you leave the northwest corner, has rolling hill after rolling hill of sagebrush. There are no ranch houses, no towns, no rivers, no trees, no nothing except one hill covered in sagebrush followed by another hill covered in sage brush. The cows that were supposed to be grazing in the fields even disappeared. There was nothing except for the occasional family of antelope. Supposedly, there is one cow for every 10 acres of land in Wyoming, my feeling is that estimate is way too generous.

Besides the monotonous scenery, there is the heat. I know you're probably getting tired of me complaining about the heat, but let me tell you something. I'm tired of the heat! There is no escaping the heat. This is the hottest summer the northwest has ever seen. Even CJ from Dubois, being a 3rd generation Wyomingite, complained about the heat and said he didn't remember it ever being this hot before. No one around here is prepared for the heat. Nobody has air conditioning, perhaps if they are lucky they have a fan that works, but usually it is one of those little personal desk fans. There aren't even any trees to provide shade. When Roger and I were riding up one long hill out of Dubois, we stopped halfway up when we saw an RV fixing a flat tire. We didn't offer to help, we just wanted to sit next to their vehicle because it cast a large shadow of shade and asked them if they could spare any cold water. When the couple finished fixing their flat tire, they drove off with our shade, so we continued up the hill.

About 45 miles into the day, we came across a couple riding a tandem bike heading east to west. As is customary, we stopped to say hello. The guy was originally from Connecticut and the girl was from Tennesse, but they had been living and working in Atlanta. Apparently, they both got tired of their jobs, decided to quit, sell their house, buy a bike and ride across the country. They have no idea where they'll end up or what they'll do when they are done. After hearing their story, I replied "there's a lot of that on this trail, huh?"

Several hours later, we reached Lander. After eating lunch at the local mexican restaraunt and inhaling one chicken and one cheese enchillada, we headed towards the city park to set up camp. In small towns across the country, there is usually a city park in which it is both legal and customary for bikers and hikers to set up their tents and camp out. Usually the parks are very pleasant, offer lots of shade and have public restrooms. In some cases, there are even showers, but not in the case of Lander. Instead, I had to resort to my water bottle shower, which actually works pretty good.

Along one side of the park was a little stream. Sitting in the stream, cooling off their feet, were two older couples dressed in biking attire. When they saw Roger and I pull into the park, they waved for us to join them. One couple was a doctor and his wife, from Missouri, who were taking a summer sabatical to tour around the country. The other couple was from Texas and were biking their way to the west coast to visit their daughter. Apparently they were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, or at least that is what I surmised after seeing the matching "25 years of love" tatoos on each of their calfs. The two couples had met on the trail in Virginia and had been riding together off and on, ever since.