Short Day today because - well just because

Today we opted for a short day, only 51 miles.  I'm glad we did, because the only other option was to go another 50 miles down the road.  There is little between towns here, so options, including dry options like hotels, only exist in certain places.  We've been planning and re-planning, over and over all week, to try to figure out how to get into West Yellowstone, the next big target on our trip.  The problem we had was that we could have done this in 3 days, but all 3 days would have been 90 to 100+ days, and we're going through cold and rainy weather that rivals winter at home.  So today we left our bunkhouse in Jackson, headed toward the (relatively) big town of Dillon.  

All day as we rode, we were either in a drizzly rain, or not far from it.  As we rode through the Big Hole Valley, the mountains on both sides of us were inundated with ominous clouds.  The forecast for Jackson, where we were leaving, called for snow within the next day.  As it was, it rained cats and cold dogs during the night, making us feel even better about not camping.  As Patty repeatedly tells me, "I love not camping."  That has made sense here, because just about every night for the last week the night has brought driving rain and very cold temperatures.  This morning as we left Jackson, it was 39 degrees.  

Our ride today was mostly rolly-polly hills in the valley, with the exception of 2 passes, the "Big Hole Pass" at 7360 feet, and "Badger Pass" at slightly less (no sign at the top with elevation).  For some reason, both of these passes, while much shorter than yesterday's pass, seemed to really get to us.  Perhaps it's because we are now well above mile-high status and it's a bit harder to catch our breath.  Particularly for Jerry, who took a beta-blocker medication this morning for his heart, and regretted it all day.  It made his day pretty miserable, so I'm glad we could end it early.  

The mountains held lots of rain clouds

Our highest point today

We got into Dillon and began looking for hotels.  We look for cheap, but clean hotels, and thought we had found one in the Sundowner, a local place that was rated to be cheap but clean, with WiFi.  $88 for a triple room, so off we went.  Unfortunately when we arrived we saw a sign in the window that announced that their hot water was not working.  Deal-breaker, as one of the most satisfying parts of going to a hotel each day is a hot shower to wash away the stench and the cold from the day's ride.  We did find a somewhat good deal at the Super8, but I haven't always had good experiences there.  I talked the FairBridge Inn into matching the Super-8 price, plus we get a breakfast in the morning.  It's more hotel-generica, but it's new, clean, and unfortunately out near the highway, not in town.  Oh well, we have bikes.

Dillon is big enough that we happened to ride by a Patagonia outlet.  This was fortunate in that for the past week, while it has been cold and rainy, and we've been wearing our rain gear, sweating up the hills has produced a torrent of wet for my standard issue cycling gear.  This gear will work when it's hot, but when it's enclosed by rain gear there's nowhere for this to go.  I opted today to wear the one Patagonia item I brought, my R1 zip neck long sleeve shirt.  I hesitated to do this on the ride, because it's been my go-to after ride shirt.   It was such an improvement!  Just this R1 shirt, and my raincoat, and I was much more comfortable.  Hence, Jerry and I both wanted to add items (and weight) with a couple of shirts.  Jerry called from the hotel and found they were closing early, in about 9 minutes, but a very nice employee, Jessica Thompson, said she'd stick around to help us.  We rode over immediately and she helped us from their back door, after they'd closed.  We both bought 2 long sleeve wool/synthetic blend base layers, and I added a short sleeve T-shirt.  Not that we want to add stuff, but all along the way we've been figuring out what items work and what don't.  I learned my lesson today and I'm putting away the cycling jerseys until it gets warm enough to ride with them only. 

So we're headed out to dinner soon, hopefully getting some well needed rest and getting ready for the next 2 days to take us into West Yellowstone.  We'll take a day off there to explore the park (my first time) and I hear it might turn sunny.  That would be a good development, since the forecast tonight could be up to 12" of snow in this area.  Let's hope we can skip this little development.

Ouch. Snow developing. Time to get out!