Day 28: July 7

Waking up to the smell of woods, warm sun shining over head, and too many layers of clothing on. This is the camping life. Oh and lots of dirt underneath your nails.The dirt doesn't even phase you after a few nights of it, you eventually get used to it. Well some of us do. After breakfast and packing up our campsite this morning we made our way over to the restrooms one last time to refill the water bottles with an off white colored water that eventually settles and turns clear. Don't think too much about it, just drink it! And for the dirty feet that some of us get used to, for the others it's one last good washing before putting on socks and shoes. Down the hill and out towards the road riding bikes being passed by multiple moving vehicles.And being passed by a group of road cyclists this Saturday morning. The group of seven came up from behind, taking their turns looking at us and our ridiculous amount of cargo we are carrying. One by one they pass us and pulled over cars taking pictures of the mountains also watch them pass us by. One gentlemen takes the time to comment on our family riding together and referring us to a beautiful thing. We enjoyed hearing from him this morning using that as motivation, I tell Nick to try and catch the the cyclists that passed us and join in on there pace line. Not really thinking of it, off he goes full force ahead, we are catching them and doing all we can to hang on to the last one in line. Each cyclist pointing out the loose gravel, pot holes, orange cones marking construction area to one another so no one falls. The last gal in line not pointing out anything until she finally realizes we are right on her back wheel, well Nick on her back wheel and me behind the chariot. We were breathing hard, pushing and pulling like maniacs. The guy who commented a few miles back now was passing us by car, wonder if he realized we caught the group of riders. We continued hanging on a good solid 10 minutes at least, Nick said to the last rider thanks for puling us and let then go. We decided to ride the rest of the way on our own. The mountains were beautiful this morning to look at.The ride was pretty easy this morning not too many hills or challenges beside the 7 cyclist pace line. We stopped off near Jenny lake to refill bottles, grab an energy bar and rather than camping near Jenny lake as planned we decided to take the bike trail right into Jackson. We came across two road cyclists on the trail earlier on that chatted with Nick for a bit, passed by a couple other cyclists, and then made way ourselves. Nick mentioned the trail we were on was in dedication to a thirteen year old girl who was killed riding her bike on the highway. Not a happy thought, but the trail was beautifully paved and a whole lot safer for sure. The trail was alongside the highway to our right and to our left for a good portion of the last bit of the ride alongside the Elk Refuge. One of the largest refuges known, the largest I had seen; however not one elk was to be spotted by any of us. We took the trail all the way into Jackson where we stopped for a moment at the visitor center to figure out a place to stay and what not. After riding around we found ourselves at the Painted Buffalo Inn; laundry, indoor pool, and a park a block or less away for whistler.