"People dream of something, but be careful what you dream for," he says. "I didn't dream this. I didn't expect it. But when you travel 300 days a year, when you're on the road that much and always gone and people want you to do stuff — I get three to four calls a day for charities — you have opportunities. After winning the gold, the stress took its toll. After I won, it changed everything. I went from my training and wrestling to nonstop traveling. In March of 2001, I was gone every day."

Gardner's brother Russell once told the Rocky Mountain News, "So many things happened so fast after the Olympics that there was no way of overcoming it. In 35 days, he spent about six hours at home. Not only that, he became frustrated and short (with people). I think both changed."

Gardner married a Utah nurse a month before the 2004 Athens Olympics, but they divorced after less than a year of marriage.

"No, I'm not lonely," Gardner says. "I'm happy. I have lots of friends."

While he says this he is perusing an Internet dating site for LDS singles and making occasional comments about their beauty.

The Gardners, Reed says, tell Rulon that if he's going to settle down with a family he better get to it. "Every member of the family told Rulon he was making a big mistake," says Reed Gardner of the divorces.

The Gardner siblings, like their parents, are salt-of-the-Earth people. Rollin has taken over the family farm. Diane teaches school in Evanston. Marcella is a nurse in Laramie. Evonne Henderson is married and lives in Iowa. Reynold is finishing a Ph.D. in Oregon and hopes to return to Afton to teach. Geraldine Ward is a cardiologist in Cheyenne. Russell teaches at the Afton middle school and owns and operates a convenience store in town.

"Rulon lives a different lifestyle than the rest of us," says Reed Gardner. "One thing I tell him is that he ought to get a real job and get up in the morning."

He thinks about this a moment. He is a man who oozes wisdom, the kind that is accrued while milking cows 730 times a year for half a century.

Reed Gardner continues, "There is so much pressure being a celebrity. He's not the same kid he used to be, and I wouldn't expect him to be. Being a celebrity would change anybody. Someday he's going to have to slow down. At one time I thought he would be a coach. But he is not pursuing it, because that iron is still hot and he's making his living traveling around giving speeches."

Rulon Gardner has attacked his life away from the mat with zeal. He snowmobiles, wakeboards, travels the world, rides his Harley. He still trains occasionally with the U.S. wrestling team and conducts wrestling clinics around the country, hoping to help prepare a new Olympic champion. He has nearly completed his schooling for a pilot's license, after which he will buy a plane and pilot himself to speaking events, saving himself time wasted in airports.