Saturday, July 19, Day 5

We get up early -- too early, for Dillon, which apparently does not rouse until about 9:30am on a Saturday. NOTHING is open -- but finally we notice the Dillon Farmer's Market setting up in a parking lot! We wander over and peruse the fine selection of...pies, pastries, and various incarnations of beaded american flags. The only vegetables to be found are a few chives in a ziplock bag, next to a few sweet smelling rhubarb pies. Nat decides that pie for breakfast is a Man's breakfast, and we chat with a lady at length about coffee as she boils her water on a Coleman camp stove. It's no Portland -- but then Portland doesn't let you eat pie for breakfast at its farmer's markets.

9:15am On the road! We zip down roads and magically return to Idaho!

1:15pm We went to a crappy climbing shop in Idaho falls to replace lost slings and biners. It was too cold by far in the store (Tash had to take an overpriced down jacket off a hanger and wear it for the duration of the transaction), and they had only crappy notched biners and no double length spectra slings. We left with our medium equipment BUT found a delectable Thai restaurant! Hailie recommended that we not eat in Idaho Falls, it being "A Shithole," but secretly that Thai food was surprisingly toothsome. Not too shabby, Idaho. We then headed east on Rt 26, where the speed limit is disappinting but Nat saves the day by pony-tailing Tash's hair for her as she drives!

1:49pm WYOMING! All hay must be quarantined.

3:34pm Pinedale! Pop 1142. Elev 7175. "Welcome to Pinedale -- All the Civilization You Need!" We head to an outstanding climbing shop and an outstanding pizza shop for calzones, hit el road.

4:30pm
Leaving Pinedale, our car smelling of calzones, our sights fixed on the snowy peaks in the distance, we motor out onto the plain. After breezing through Boulder, pop. 75, we set out on tiny Rt 353. Turns out pretty much every paved road in Wyoming has a speed limit of 65.

Before long the pavement ends and we’re navigating by GPS through a maze of branching dirt roads. The road curves so wildly that when we crest a hill we just have to trust that we’re not being led into a blind hairpin. We’re surrounded by hills dotted with huge granite boulders – all likely unclimbed because people know that such better climbing lies in the mountains. Antelopes abound on the sagebrush plain. One darts into the road and Tash daintily avoids it.

We climb higher, and the forest starts. Tash is confused by why the patches of forest start and stop. Cows are still grazing all over the place.

As we climb higher, 8 and 9000 feet, we’re confronted by a new species of wildlife: hippies! The Rainbow Family is apparently encamped out here, and we begin to see signs of their inhabitance. We pass an old couple in long dreads and tie die – they simply glare at us. Nat worries about whether we would murdered in our sleep like the victims of the Manson family. Later, we pass a more friendly-looking group, complete with hula-hooping girls. They wave and flash us a peace sign. Tash and Nat discuss whether it’s possible to go hang out with hippies, or whether they’d be insular and cliquey.

After and hour and half of washboardy dirt roads, we pull into the Big Sandy campground, elevation 9080. After much discussion about which would be the least windy campsite, we put up our tent and prepare for an evening of relaxed camping. Tash indicates to Nat that as a matter of course, she would much prefer to arrive at a campsite before dark and have time to have a fire and play some guitar. In two years of camping in Oregon, we have never done this. Nat promises to try to be better.

Fire is built, and we pull out the guitar to write a song. It will be a good song – pay attention to MySpace. A group of middle aged men from Logan, Utah donate two logs to our fire, which had been sorely suffering due to our meager firewood scavenging. Tash built the fire while Nat got the tent ready, and Tash did a very good job. She used only natural materials – no cardboard for firestarting paper at all. We ate our calzones and had some warm Moose Drool.

As the mosquitoes started to buzz around us in earnest, we retired to the tent.