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Rather than backtracking two miles to the grocery store, I topped off my supplies at the Dollar General. I then went to the post office to mail some items home and got rid of my bear spray.  I’m out of grizzly country now and don’t want to carry around that heavy metal can any longer than I have to. I’d meant to test it in the basin but was too preoccupied with riding and forgot to have my fun.

At the post office, I ran into a CDT hiker. I joined him and three others at the lunch buffet at a Thai restaurant down the street. Then, I went to get a coffee before heading out of town. I couldn’t resist the ice cream in the shop, so I splurged and got two kiddie scoops of huckleberry ice cream to celebrate having made it halfway.

Not long after leaving town, I entered a 17-mile construction zone. The dust, along with the smoke-laden air from the forest fires, made breathing difficult and parched my throat.

As I took a break, a beat-up truck came down the road, hauling a chord of firewood. Grant, a Rawlins local, asked if I was seriously riding that thing. I answered, ‘Yes’, and he said, ‘no’. I said ‘yes’ again. At first, I couldn’t tell if he was about to give me a hard time or just thought I was loony. He turned out to be quite a character (in a good way) and one of the friendliest guys I’ve met. We talked for some time, mainly about the arrowheads and stone tools he finds out on the land. He spread his most recent findings out on the hood of his truck. He had some beautiful arrowheads, some as old as 8,000 years. He gave me one of the arrowheads, along with a bunch of freshly picked tomatoes to take with me! I really enjoyed meeting Grant, and now I think  I see arrowheads everywhere on these gravel roads. If I keep stopping to check every little pebble that I see, I’ll never make it out of Wyoming!