Today was just another day ride, around 280 miles to get set up for tomorrows big ride through the Grand Tetons into Yellowstone Park. The first hundred miles on US-20W was through prairie land, with little scenery and mostly a lot of sagebrush. After the hundred miles, the scenery began to pick up, with hills, formations and outcroppings that were beautiful. There was always a hint of a mountain in the distance, but we were not close enough yet to make out details.The day was sunny in the low 70's with little winds, so basically a pleasant riding experience. US-20W became US-26W, and then became WY-789S with the mountains getting a little larger, and the scenery continuing to improve.
   Once we made it to Riverton, Wyoming we found a McDonald's and had our late morning coffee . Rejuvenated, and the bike gassed up, we headed for WY-28W. What an awesome road! The snow capped Rocky Mountains appeared before us a we made the turn out of Riverton. What wasn't apparent on the road map was that to get from Riverton to Pinedale, our destination, you had to cross over the tail end of a mountain range. So starting at around 5000 ft we climbed to over 8500 ft as we made our way down WY-28W. The views were spectacular, and since it was a calm sunny day there wasn't too much wind except at the top. We just slowed down and held on until we came down a little from the top, and the wind died down.
    At the end of WY-28W, we turned north on US-191N to Pinedale. The wind picked up a little, especially when we encountered some open prairie. It looked like you could see forever on either side of the road, while the mountains loomed ever larger in front of us. We were now down to about 7000 ft, and at this altitude, the clouds even looked different, probably because they were so close. There was actually darkness on the road whenever the sun was obscured by the cloud, so we were constantly going in and out of the light .
     Pinedale turned out to be a wonderful little western town of a few thousand people. About 70 miles from Jackson, WY it is probably much more lively during ski season. Consequently you get a great room at a cheap price during this time of year. There were several good restaurants in town, but one of the highest rated was a Mexican restaurant called Los Cabos. It had been a while since we had Mexican food, and even though it wasn't our typical Thursday enchilada night, we decided that Mexican it would be. Jody had the cheese enchilada and I had the chicken and they were delicious.
     Tonight is laundry night again, and it looks like we will need to send another package home with excess stuff again. I guess we'll send home some more t-shirts so we have room to buy even more. Tomorrow we will try to get an early start as it will be a busy day. We will be riding through Jackson into the Grand Teton National Park and on into Yellowstone where we will make a quick exit out the east entrance into Cody, WY. We have a hotel booked for the next 4 nights so we can further explore Yellowstone and Cody.

296.2 miles today
5224.8 miles total

7.493 gallons today
129.636 gallons total