DAY 33 Freakin' Wind

Well got away reasonable early after a night which was punctuated with trains and car noise ALL night. The trains all blew their horns as they got close to, entered in to and then left the town of Rawlins, we do not know why, there was no one there! Rawlins was a rather large disappointment and we where happy to leave.
As we headed out of town it was already warm and starting to get windy. We saw another cyclist a wee way ahead so catching them became our (Scott's!!) goal. It took a while but catch him we did. It turned out to be Alan, a GDMBR rider from California who we had heard about from his brother, Anthony, at Red Rock Lake about a week or so ago. Turns out he was travelling with Patrick (Louisiana lad), although he had left Rawlins a little earlier than P. We chatted, before all heading off into the wind. We rode together chatting until Scott saw a big snake on the road so stopped to make sure Jo didn't miss (run over) it. Turns out it was a Western Diamondback Rattle snake, cool :-). By far the biggest snake we had seen.
We finally caught back up with Alan when he stopped for lunch and while we ate, Patrick turned up too. Great to see him again and to tell our different tales.
We pushed on after lunch leaving the pavement and starting uphill on gravel. The wind was still blowing and making life a bit miserable.
After climbing for quite a while we dropped down and as we started the next climb we noticed another cyclist in the distance. As we closed in we realised it was Ben (the other Louisiana lad). It was great to catch up with him also.
Everyone was suffering and running low on water. I stopped at the next stream and filtered some water. Both Jo and I had just about had enough for the day but we still had another 20km to get to the nights suggested stop. We caught up with the others where Alan was filtering water and discussed the possibility of stopping near by for the night. It seems everyone was sick of the wind and we soon found a spot to pitch our tents and relax.
Apart from being visited by a herd of cows, the evening passed without incident, although the night was filled with the call of Coyotes, which we found really exciting and cool.
We enjoyed hearing each others stories and company.
A hard day to get back into it after a couple of days off the bike.

DISTANCE: 70.3km
AVERAGE: 13.5km
RIDE TIME: 5.12hrs
ASCEND: 910mtrs