Stage 8

Thursday July 14th, 2005

Atlantic City Campground to Flagg Ranch Campground
With a little sheep herding in between

Out of Atlanic City camgpround we headed out into a high speed dirt and gravel road thru some ranch land. At least 12 herds of antelope ran across the road in front of us thru this area.
A lone Indian on a horse was herding this herd right down the road. Instead of riding thru I thought-- why not enjoy the show---we pulled over and watched his 3 dogs and horse worked the sheep past us. We only guessed why some of the sheep were painted red--Pregnant ?? Sick ?? don't know.

He had a spare horse in tow with 2 small dogs working the herd--they did come by for a very quick scratch on the neck--then back to work.

There was another much bigger dog (BigDog ??) who seemed to be doing nothing but lagging behind and getting a much longer scratch.

We thought he might be watching for stragglers or predators---or he was just lazy ???? We watched in amazement at this for maybe 20 minutes--the Indian just gave us a quick look of acknowledgement--but never came over to us.

This was Monty's scariest part. If I haven't said--Monty has had no real dirt riding experience and has only been riding gravel backroads with me for about 6 months--this was new terrain for him--things me and Kevin were totally comfortable with Monty had never done before but got thru it and became a much better rider for it. I was proud of him.

You know the saying------the picture doesn't do the difficulty justice---ya-da----ya-da------ya-da !!!! The really bad sandy part can't be seen.

This is the part TwoTailDog never got to because of an impassable section where the road no longer existed. We barely got thru where he fell several times--but man was it tough. This is just South of Pinedale---I recommend you stay on the highway and by-pass this as there are worse parts than this.

I know there are you tough guys out there that are going to try this section anyway---have at it !!! Going South will be much harder than doing it North like we did.
Lunch in Pinedale---Sunny, 75° and no humidity of course.

I love this river here--and the old bridge supports---looked like good rafting.

Mosquito Lake

I renamed it

"Biting Flies From Hell Lake"

They are hard to see---right in the middle are two Moose's. Momma moose and baby moose. They were closer when I saw them--but were walking away by the time I got my camera going.

Union Pass

I've tried not to do the obligatory pass pictures--so just this one.

Thank god we were protected from the horror behind these mountains--Teton Nartional park was behind them--and thousands upon thousands of bumper to bumper motor homes belched their way around---parked side by side for miles--getting away from it all. All paying 4 times the price for everything that god had made free for all of us to enjoy.

Ok--I'm just pee-ed for having to pay $15 to drive 12 miles on the road by my bike---and always will be--end of rant.

While I'm ranting----Don't ever get within 75 miles of Denver, Colorado--end of other rant.

Ok--were away from it all again--Flagg Ranch Campground. We had a nice camp here and a good nigths sleep--untill Monty got the flip-flops a flip flopping !!!!

Flip-flop Flip-Flop Flip-Flop Flip Flop Flip-Flop

End of Flip Flop rant--for now :)

252 Miles for the day

Stage 9 Railroad bed and tunnel