Monday 10th Aug

Hello Wyoming...no great change from northern Colorado but I'm waiting with bated breath.
Took the scenic route from Boulder (what a cool town) via some great canyon. Stopped at some bar with a bit of a festival on, whatched the stoners dancing too fast to some quite chilled music and some annoying hippies hula hooping at the front of the stage. Mum did her ususal interrogation of an unsuspecting American. The poor woman had no escape as she was stood in the river with mum blocking her exit. She could have tried crossing to the other side but she'd have been swept away in the raging torrent. I could see she did consider it though. Dad and me had to rescue her by carrying mum away, still talking....
A bit further on I spotted a moose in a pond about 50 yards from the road. Eventually, after much driving backwards and forwards we were all at the side of the road, watching this distant moose, taking lots of pictures that will show a black spot in the middle of the picture! We got bored of that and turned to head back to the car to discover we were being watched by a young moose about 10ft behind us in the trees. When we saw it, it shot back into the woods only to emerge another 10 metres up the road and wandered across in front of us! It was huge - glad it wasn't full grown. Got some good pictures of it but on the other camera, so can't put them on here. Then it sauntered off towards the pond. So that was Sundays excitement.
When we made it back to Walden we discovered that the motel owner who locked my bike up in her trailer, who promised to be back on SUnday evening, had buggered off again due to some emergency and no-one else has the combination to the lock. And she wasn't answering her phone. Oh joy. I'd already had an extra day off more than planned and could have done without a further day off, particularly in Walden. After much begging and impressing on the stand-in manager the necessity of getting the lock combination, we got a call at about 11 to say it was sorted. Phew...So I set my alarm for 6, slept through it, and got on the road at 8, which is about standard. This time though I have the luxary of mum and dad carrying the bags - that makes such a difference. I'm flying along the roads, although I'll be just as tired as I'm making up for the third day off I had so its 120 miles today. 40 to go I think.
I stopped off at Encampment, to see a pioneer village, that has been reconstructed in a museum setting. I don't know why I stopped, I doubt I would at home. It was ok, not that exciting. I then made my way to Saratoga, where they have hot springs. I thought I could relax in those for a while after nearly 70 miles of biking. Ha. I nearly burned my feet testing the water out. They weren't joking when they called it hot springs. I battled it for half an hour then decided to get a life by getting food. I was going to try and be healthy but they had cookie dough ice cream sundaes with butterscotch sauce...what was I supposed to do?
Finally given up the battle with the phone. I'll now just accept reception when I get it and use wi-fi when I can.
I lost my yellow band that Lysa had done with 'Touched by Ruby' on Thursday sometime, presumably when I took my gloves off at some point, which was rather annoying. I don't particularly belieive in 'signs' or random things having any significance but within half an hour of setting off today I found a yellow band at the side of the road, with 'Livestrong' on it, one of the Lance Armstrong ones, so I got it and it's on now. Ta Rubes.
Not sure what mum and dad are upto today...dad wants to go fishing but it was very expensive in Estes Park so he's having second thoughts. Mum mentioned doing some washing so I left here my underpants and a shirt to do.....
Off to Rawlings now...laters. Hope the scenery gets more exciting.