Jan crossing highway 20 to big space - wed 7pm

Gary Dye in Lima 9pm wed - Got lost after Butte for a couple of hours

Pete at flag ranch - 12:46 wednesday

By: Mike Curiak - 9am Wed morning

I'm at Flagg ranch Wyoming in Yellowstone. At 4am, I almost had enough starlight from millions and millions of stars, to ride without lights. Occassionally a skunk or porcupine would be scurrying across the road. As I got closer to sunrise, climbing up into the Tetons, I started to hear the haunting shrill cries of loons, I started to see more movement from rabbits and squirrels. Just at sunrise, I came upon grizzly and cub eating at the side of the trail. When they heard me, they took off running to the other direction. I heard moose out in the tree and out in the marsh chomping around. Then the sun came out and I finally got warm.

It's been a good morning. The calls of the loons brought back a flood of good childhood memories. We would get up early before school to go canoeing or waterskiing with my parents and my brother. As of 9am, a lot happens out here.

I've got about 156 miles and 2 huge climbs to make it to Pinedale and I'm hoping to make it there to catch some rest. I need to make it to the bikeshop too. I need some new bar tape since my hands are killing me right now.

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10:28am, Wednesday

I'm reporting from the Grand Tetons National park and I wanted to add a couple of things. I'm thinking about how our emotions radically changes during a race like this.

The first day, you don't think much and just go hard and try to get rid of all the anxiety leading up to the race.

The second day, you're paying for the hard effort from the first day. A little bit of depression sets in because you realize you have so far to go still.

The third day, you hit a teeny little bit of rhythm but not quite enough so you get some pretty negative thoughts thinking 'what did I get myself into? Can I possibly finish this? I'm in so much pain and I don't know how I'm going to do this'.

And gradually you start building up good momentum. The fourth and fifth day things just get better and better. You feel good and you look back and say you've covered 600-700 miles already. Maybe this is doable after all. That's basically where I am right now. I no longer entertain thoughts of stopping or quitting. But I still relish an extra 10 minutes of sleep. Sometimes you're so low during the day that you just pull over and take a nap. So that's what I do from time to time.

Speaking of emotions, I was just riding through a part of Yellowstone that burned in 1998. I remember as a senior in highs chool seeing watching on tv the smoke and the devastating damage from the fire. But now as I come through here sixteen years later things are regenerating and beautiful. There's still standing dead and downed trees but there's also carpets of grass and riots of wildflowers, lupins, lilies, orchids. And you realize that with bad, there's always good. And on that note I'm going to ride and put in some good miles.

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1:16pm, Wednesday

Just wanted to give you two pieces of information. Number one, I just pulled off my shoes to work on my feet and the stench from it is enough to gag a rat!

The second thing is everyone knows out here that the diet is far from ideal. The ideal is to have a clif bar or two every few miles and chase it down with gatorade. Unfortunately, that's not an option as we're dependent on gas stations and convenience stores. Swedish fish, gummi bears, licorice, beef jerky, twinkies, ding dongs is normal diet here. The bad thing is that there's always stuff stuck in your teeth. My tongue is actually sore from constantly taking stuff out of my teeth. The good thing is if you find yourself bonking, you can always dig around a little more and find yourself something to eat.

I'm on my way to toga key pass and hope to be heading up union pass in 2 hours and hopefully arrive in Pinedale sometime tonight.