Last night we jumped on the bikes and rode to Bear Creek about 10km out of town to a the Pig Races. This is a local charity event organised by the restaurant and in the summer the pigs race from Thursday to Sunday. Most of the money go to funding kids to go to universaty and study, but a portion of the money is paid out to the winner who betted on that pig. I still dont understand how it works as there is a Pool System used. On the way we passed the site of the mine disaster where 74 miners died.
It is the big attraction in town and supported by the local community. It reminded me of the night in rural Russia when we also rode into a small town and asked "what can we do in your town tonight" and ended up going to the local Stunt Car Show with Not-So-Brave-Stuntmen doing things we could get Peens to do after a few Brandy & Coke, but last night Milsy asked the lady at reception what we could do and she suggested we go put some money on the pigs. It is a proper event with Announcer and there were 12 races run last night, and the pigs had really nice names.
I won $25-00 in race 9 with Making Bacon, but sadly I lost on the other races so I lost more than I won, and that was just a friendly reminder to me why I dont gamble.
And this new friendy (yes I know it is not an official word) we made in line waiting to bet on the pigs also won $25-00.
This morning we had a 94km ride over a mountain and then we entered the Yellowstone National Park.
It is called Old Faithful as it is so consistent that they can even tell you when the next eruption will be, ours was going to be at 15h31, so we took our seats together with about 3000 others and waited, I was worried I would miss it, so I at least wanted a photo of the Geyser, so I got Rocky to stand in the No-Go-Area so that I could take this photo in case I got nothing better later. A lot of the areas are strictly no-go as it has happened before that a person steps on a piece of ground that was safe before, but the bubbling lava in the earths centre finds a new path to the surface and then Pietie steps on that section and the earth's crust breaks and boiling water squirts out and kills him. True, it has happened before, hence the wooden walk-ways and signs not to walk on the ground, but at least I got my photo in case Old Faithfull had a little disfunction-problem today.
But it did get better, much better. And I had enough time as it lasted for more than a minute.
Before we entered the park we stopped for a coffe and they were selling this Bear Fog Off Spray which is basically a Pepper-Spray for bears. But not 100% sure I would like to spray this at a bear as it might just anger him more and he might like pepper on his food. In other places where they have a lot of bears the hikers tie a Bear-Bell to their shoe so that the bear can hear them coming, as to not surprise him, but even this method is questionable as I would think there are a few bears who have already worked this out and follow the sound of their dinner's bell.
It costs R650-00, I suggest a pair of fast running-shoes might be a better investment for the same price.