We climbed out of Atlantic City to overcast skies and entered the Great Divide Basin. We’d heard a lot about this 120 mile stretch of dry, desolate gravel. If you’re unlucky, you get endless headwinds or peanut butter mud. If you’re lucky, you get blown across with a tailwind. Some people even choose to cross overnight for the best chance of no wind at all. We rolled the dice with a daytime crossing and did ok for ourselves- the road was fine and the winds were mostly neutral, though a 5 mile stretch of strong headwind brought about by afternoon storms did dampen our spirits a bit. The basin is mostly just very very empty. It’s not flat (nothing on this route is flat) but there are few landmarks and every rise just leads to another further in the distance. We spent most of the day as dots on the horizon to each other. Water was scarce as expected, but the 2 sources we planned on both provided what we needed (Diagnus Well and A&M Reservoir). We camped at the reservoir with several other cyclists and CDT hikers and enjoyed a very lovely sunset.