I’ve been sitting here at the Senior/Community Center in Newcastle trying to work on today’s thoughts while one Big Rider after another has asked to see pictures. At one point, I was dancing to the country band that is playing for us on the stage and came back to find a crowd going through the latest web pages. Everyone is sharing their pictures here as well, but we don’t have easy access to look at other’s pages. We’re already remembering the good old days of last week with fondness.
Today’s ride was from Gillette to Newcastle. We had perfect conditions with a tail wind and slightly downhill riding. No more than the four hills that Jeff mentioned were in our way (did anybody really count?) The early riders were in camp shortly after 10 am having sped 76 miles down the road.
Almost everyone was in by 1 pm or shortly after, so we have a rare afternoon of a ride day free of pedaling. In addition, we’re sleeping inside the center and don’t have to set up or take down our tents.
The excitement of the day for me today, was seeing my first Welsh Corgi in 1300 miles. I don’t have the Corgi page going yet, but I promise it will be soon, now that I have a Corgi to feature. His name was Rocky, and he looks just like Striker, the tri-color male I used to have.
We are often along the railroad on this ride because that often represents the most reasonable route. The last three days have featured long coal trains headed to market. I counted one train at 120 cars. They are so long that they have three engines pulling and one pushing just to keep the train together.
Think about a group of coal mines that can put out enough coal to send 120 car trains in 3 directions dozens of times per day. Very impressive
We had one stretch of road on the way into Upton that was under construction. The entire road had brand new pavement side to side, but they weren’t quite finished so cars were going through in convoys. In ten miles of road, only one convoy passed in the other direction and none from behind. We had 10 miles of brand new blacktop all to ourselves with mostly downhill travel and a tailwind. What a difference a day makes.
Many bulk cargo trucks passed us in the last few miles headed toward Newcastle. We could only speculate that they carried coal.

Barb and Paula guard the drinking water in the town of Upton. The sign on the way into town proclaims that Upton is the best town on earth. If that's true, the water is safe.