Lyman

Started in: Lusk, WY
Ended in: Lyman, WY
Pandora’s Status: Purring like a kitten.

I was on the road for 14 hours today!

I was also lucky today to get to meet a lot of people.

I met 50% of the population of Shawnee (one person). We talked for a long while. She and her husband recently purchased a very small, rundown store and are slowly fixing it up (its in Shawnee, WY).

Of all the people I met (about 8) the best person was the archeologist. The whole thing was just like a scene out of a movie...

It was a sunny Wyoming afternoon, and I had just finished talking with this other biker at a rundown gas station, and was leaving when I noticed this even more rundown station wagon with its hood up. I went over to see if I could be any help. The car was overheating, and this confident, cute, and shy (all at the same time). The woman was waiting for her car to cool down. I was immediately smitten. We put some more water in her radiator, and then talked for a long time. She is an archeologist headed for Phoenix to work with an indian tribe there. She had almost entered the Peace Corps earlier! I think we could have talked for hours. Unfortunately, she had to go, so I gave her my email address with the hopes that she would write.

We were headed in the same direction for a little while, and even though I left before she did, she passed me, because even rundown station wagons can go faster than Pandora. I kept hoping that her car would break down (in a nice way) so that I could stop and help her again and then talk with her some more. Pandora started acting up at about that moment, and all I could imagine was Pandora breaking down, the archeologist's car breaking down, and then while I was fixing on Pandora some beefy, slow-talking, cowboy would drive up and help out the archeologist... I quickly told Pandora that if she broke down I would quit using synthetic oil in her, and she settled down -- to no avail, the archeologist motored on.

My route home will put my through Arizona, so maybe, if I hear from the archeologist, we'll get to meet up for some food and talk.

A weird side note: on average, I have been seeing less then 10 other bikers each day -- go figure, where are all the other bikers?