Boulder or bust...and on the road again

Just a note: The pics are posted roughly from most recent to most ancient, although they aren't perfectly in order, so if you want to follow along, start at the bottom of those Derek posted this evening.
Sorry about the crazy long delay in blog updates, but daylight hours are precious and 6 days a week spent pedaling hard leaves little time for library drop-ins and leasurely internet access. I guess it's been over two weeks now since Missoula, but I can't even decide if it seems like yesterday or an eternity ago that we were there. From Renee's lovely abode, we headed south through the Bitteroot Valley of Montana. The ride was mostly flat, but mountain ranges surrounded us on either side. It was fairly picturesque, although smoke from the summer fires that regularly plague the surrounding region put a bit of a damper in the view at times, but we still got some descent scenery. Ths region is known for the high quality of its natural grasses for cattle grazing...giant haystacks are found throughout.
The climb out of the valley led us across the Continental Divide for the first time and Eastward towards Yellowstone! Shortly after crossing into the park, we hit the Wyoming state line...and continues on into our 5th state.
A few days before hitting Yellowstone, our afternoons began to be characterized by short (but intense!) mountain thunderstorms which make riding a bit of a hassle and sometimes too dangerous to do. But the do produce some pretty awesome rainbows...
After spending a night in the oldest national park in the world, we spent the day viewing the geysers, etc, and then biked on to Grand Teton National Park to the south. In the short stretch of road between the two parks, during a bit of a storm, we saw a black bear crossing the road right in front of us. It wasn't too interested in us, and was kind of scared of a car passing by, so it took off pretty quickly without mauling us or stealing our dehydrated powdered beans...but it was still pretty exciting.
We spent a rest day last Tuesday in the Grand Tetons, recooperating and preparing for our next big climb...up 9600 ft. high Togwotee pass. We got pretty creative with Derek's hair and safety traingle signs. As if everyone didn't already know we were from California...
Well our big climb of Togwotee and reaching the top was kind of bittersweet. We hit road construction a mile or two from the top and they wouldn't let us ride up. Instead, they stuck our bikes in the back of the pilot truck and took us most of the rest of the way up the hill. Another truck took us down about 6 miles on the other side. This was especially disappointing because it was the highest point we had reached, and, as far as we knew at the time, the highest we were going to climb.
On the other side of the pass, we met up with Dena! She's with us for a couple of weeks. We broke her in pretty quickly with some big days...right through central Wyoming and into COLORADO!
Well, not quite that easily. The night before entering our 6th state, we spent the night in Saratoga, Wyoming. They have hot springs and a free public hot pool located in town. We really wanted to go take a dip, and, even though we knew we werent' allowed to, we decided to try to camp in the woods behind to pool. Around 12:30 at night, we awoke to the shining of a flashligth and a cop saying "Alright, you aren't allowed to camp here...get up...that's a $210 fine" and telling us where the nearest campground is. He said he would be back to check on us later and took off, never to be seen again. But we packed up and took off to spend the rest of the night at the campground and avoid the fine.
At some point in there I got a flat after going over a big bump. This was my second of the trip, but I was sort of waiting for it to happen. The first was in my back wheel and was also caused by a big bump. When I went to change that tire, I realized that, in all my silliness, it had not occurred to me to get bigger tubes when I change tires for 1 1/8 in to 1 1/4 in width. I knew the same thing would happen in my front eventually, but I decided to just wait and deal with it when it popped. Well it tok about 1500 miles, but now both my tubes are properly sized and, assuming I don't run into any unfortunately placed nails on the road, I should be good to go.
Shortly after entering Colorado, we got off the TransAmerica trail to head to Boulder. We decided to take the scenic route through Rocky Mountain National Park. We got the town the of Granby pretty easily (53 miles from Walden, where we had spent our first night in Colorado), which is where we left the trail. According to the oh-so-reliable road map of Colorado that we were using for off-route travels, it is 39 miles from Granby to Estes Park on the other side of Rocky National and roughly 30 from there to Boulder. We figured we would bike in a few miles and do the rest the next day. It wouldn't be very many miles, but we knew we had quite a climb in front of us.
Well, upon leaving Granby, a roadsign informed us of the fact that it was actually 62 miles from there to Estes park, making it over 90 to Boulder. Now this wouldn't be so bad because we still had a few hours of daylight left and the entire next day to bike, except for the little elevation change: Granby was at about 8000 feet and the top of the pass that we had to climb was over 12000!
Well, we made the best of it anyhow. We biked 16 miles past Granby that night and camped in the woods, and then hauled ass the next day: along the highest paved through highway in the United States!
Near the top, there were signs welcoming us to the Alpine Tundra, and holy crap it was freeeezing cold up there. To top it all off, we arrived at the top just in time for the daily afternoon thunderstorm...so our 25 mile descent into Estes Park was chilly. But bundled up, held onto our break levers for dear life, and prayed that we could avoid any run-ins with cars like the Subaru which had apparently ran off the road and into a tree before we passed it or the line of touristmobiles stopped in the middle of the roadso the occupants could view the elk by the side of the road.
But we made it...and the ride into Boulder after that as relatively pleasant. Ate a big pizza dinner, and came home to my old friend Kirsten's house to lay down our heads and take a rest day.
And we're back on the road in the morning....and onto Kansas!