Day 48-Casper to Glenrock (29 Miles)

After an amazing of morning of sleeping in a little bit, an enormous breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes and preparing the cart, it came time for Russell and I to wish our wonderful hosts goodbye and hit the road.

We jumped on the North Platte River bike path for the first eight miles or so which took us to the east end of town. I was recognized from the article once by a cyclist passing by. We stopped underneath a bridge to take cover from the rain a few miles in where we talked with a local also taking shelter on his ride to Mills.

Following the bike path came perhaps the sketchiest stretch of road in the entire trip. I've come to notice that fringes of towns are perhaps the most dangerous. The open highway has a shoulder, the cities have sidewalks, but the transition area has neither. After surviving this mile or so, we were rewarded with a nice frontage road before jumping on the highway to Glenrock.

The longest run Russell had done up to that point was 13 miles, and we more than doubled it today with our 28. He finished like a champ and was given a giant cinnamon roll cake after another customer learned we had run from Casper that day. We ate our massive cowboy burgers and enjoyed a few refills of soda.

Troy and Jodi drove all the way out to Glenrock to pick Russell back up and take him back to their home in Casper. I didn't have to drive all of the way back to Denver but I did have to run another mile or so to the home I would be staying. Desiree, a friend of Jeff, the guy who wrote the article in the Casper Star, was generous enough to let me stay with her for the night after Jeff asked her if she could help out. Yet another small world connection occurred when I found out she had taken a class with Mary Donahue, my host in Chadron, at Chadron State College.

After showering, I went with Desiree to her cousin's birthday party on the other side of town. Here I ate another dinner, cupcakes and ice-cream while enjoying the great company of her extended family. We returned home, watched Netflix and I met her cousin Josh who had just finished up with his work at the city rec center. I crashed on their super comfortable couch to rest up for the run to Douglas tomorrow.

Russell and I at the (almost) end of the run