Phil's Shots of Life: 2013 Adventure Ride, Day 7 (July 26)

There were tons of ants in camp, which made it easy to hurry through breaking it. I couldn't wait
The road into Stanley was awesome...just look at dem mountains! We filled up the tanks in Stanley and headed out on highway 21, which I think is also called the Custer scenic byway. I was enjoying the ride so much I missed the damn turn. Good thing Mike was keeping an eye on the us yunguns and got us turned back around. Oopsie!

There weren't as many critter as I/we were hoping to see...actually, there weren't any at all! As we entered Bear Valley I thought for SURE we'd see some furry beings, but nope!

At least the road was great. Smooth, well-traveled, and just all-around awesome 5th-gear riding.

It was a good thing I was looking so hard for critters because a dirt-biker damn near t-boned me coming off a single-track from who-knows-where. After that bloke I saw three more riders...two of which were riding side-by-side and making it impossible to pass on the dust road. We left Bear Valley and headed on to Yellowpine along a purdy little creek...

we came around the corner to find this huge airfield full of helicopters, planes, and over 300 firefighters. This has been a terrible year for fires and this was now one of three camps we had seen so far.

Finally made it to Yellowpine and stopped into the local cafe for lunch...and whataya know, they had wireless! No phone, no cell service, but they could surf da web whenever they want! Weird but I wasn't complaining...I had a chance to Skype the wifey and show her around the town a little bit. Before we left town we made sure to stop at the local hooch house where it also turns out a dusty traveler can get anything from gas to groceries. Handy.

Yellowpine Cafe

Yellowpine cafe

We set up camp and just relaxed for a bit. Mike wasn't feeling too well so we didn't see much of him for a while...

Golden Gate Campground - nice pose Scotty

While Mike was trying to recover from something he ate Scott and I decided to try our luck at fishing the stream...

Beer and fish...what could be better

We had some luck..nothing massive really - lots of minnows. A few Scott decided to hang up in the bushes on his back cast (on accident of course). A few 8-inch rainbows took the bait. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful...soup and leftover pizza for dinner and hit the sack pretty early.