We got an early start, hitting the road at 7 am in order to have a few hours of lighter headwinds. The whole ride was only 47 miles, so we arrived at 1:30, in time to tour the Judith Basin County museum, and then go over to the CM Russell Stampede rodeo.
The scenery was nice. The wind was not. It was pretty flat, as the road turned northwest before we ran into the mountains. We just put our heads down and ground into the wind. You still get there when you go 8 mph, it just takes longer. I know we can cover 45 miles under the worst possible conditions so we didn't worry about it.
All day I kept thinking "O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. For purple mountains' majesty above the fruited plain."
At lunchtime, we passed by the town of Moccasin, which is almost a ghost town. Supposedly there are 162 residents, but it seemed pretty well deserted and dilapidated. One landowner would like to sell his property:
We were happy to see Stanford from about 4 miles away. It in a valley.
If you enlarge this you can see the water tower. The pink dot on the road shoulder is Marie. She drops me going up hills. However I can relentlessly grind into the wind. It balances out.
The collection in the museum was eclectic. Apparently they solicited the community for old stuff, the people responded, and now the building is full of old stuff.
In keeping with our knack for intersecting with major sporting events, Stanford (population 394) was hosting the the annual rodeo.
That's the water tower you saw in a previous photo.
Our motel was one of the rodeo sponsors so no one was here when we arrived. We went over to the rodeo to check out the scene and the guys taking tickets let us in for free after learning that we had ridden there.
You could tell the real cowboys from the posers: the real ones all limped. I think motorcycle racing looks a lot safer. Bronc riders essentially crash (highside) in the first 10 seconds of every ride.
We dined at one of the other sponsors of the rodeo, the Water Hole.
I sat directly under a TV that was showing a demolition derby. I couldn't see the screen but I heard the play-by-play announcers.
Tomorrow's forecast is for 5 mph winds. Thanks to each of you who exhaled in a westerly direction. You haven't reversed the wind but you have weakened it.