Big City Life- Milwaukee

After three weeks of farmland, we emerged from the corn and crossed the border into Wisconsin. Our lodging in the state of cheese was in a suburb called Brookfield, which was 15 minutes outside of Milwaukee. Originally the plan had been to stay there for one night and then ride into Milwaukee the next day where we would have the following day off. However, due to the traffic and logistical problems of city riding, the plans changed so that we had two days off and spent all three nights in Brookfield. After arriving at our lodging at Immanuel Lutheran Church, we headed to the mall to have a Girls Night Out. There we broke up into groups and hung out with girls age 18 and younger and took them around the mall to shop and to have fun. My friends and I paired up with a highs holler named Andi. We had a blast walking around the mall; smelling candles, making my friend Derek try on girls clothes at Forever 21, putting in goofy hats, and generally causing trouble. We also stopped in Hot Topic and bought Andi a shirt with her favorite super hero on it, Iron Man.

The first night in Milwaukee, all of us of age took a taxi into the city to explore what the city had to offer on a Saturday night. After a fun night in Milwaukee, we all came back to the gym and for the first time of the summer, had the ability sleep in with a luxurious 11 am wake up. A big fan of sleeping in, you better believe I took full advantage of the late wake up and did not rise from that gym floor until the lights came on close to noon.

Feeling refreshed and recharged after sleeping in for the first time of the entire summer, the team then went to lunch with a group called the Moms of Hope. The Moms of Hope were parents of children with Spina Bifida, a congenital disorder that causes difficulty walking and sometimes even total paralysis of the legs. After eating lunch with the Moms of Hope and their kids, many of whom were close to our age, we went bowling with the whole group. A couple of my friends and I ended up getting a group together with a few of the guys with Spina Bifida who were college aged as well. Conversation was easy and we all hit it off, talking about school, sports, girls, and other normal conversation topics of your 20-some year old males. I especially made a connection with one of the guys named Travis, who I have been keeping in contact with since leaving Milwaukee. This was the first time I have kept in contact with a client beyond the actual friendship visit itself, and it was a great feeling to know I made a connection with someone that was beyond the visit itself. After bowling, we traveled to a yacht club along the banks of Lake Michigan where the parents of a past Pi Alpha treated us to a nice dinner. Originally, the plan was to take all of us out boating on the lake, but sadly it was raining and so that was not possible.

The next day was not quite as relaxed as the first one. Our sponsor Kathy had a planed a FULL day for us. We left the gym at 7:00 am and headed to her office for breakfast. She worked at Independence First, a local company focused on giving people with disabilities jobs and other opportunities they wouldn’t receive otherwise. After breakfast, we headed to a Boys and Girls club where we put on a puppet show and colored with the kids. Then, we drove to lunch at a summer camp for young adults with developmental disabilities. After we ate lunch, we rotated through activity stations with them, playing kickball, wii, and doing puzzles. After lunch came the fun part of the day. We drove to the Olympic Training Facility where we got the opportunity to play wheelchair Ice Hockey.

After wheelchair Ice Hockey, we were shuttled over to a gym where we got the chance to play wheelchair basketball. Wheelchair basketball was a little more up my alley, as hockey has never been my spor. But that doesn’t mean it was easy. A guy from a local team (that just so happened to be the current national champions in wheelchair basketball) came to play with us, and needless to say he was running the floor. Shooting the basketball was a totally different feeling when sitting in chair, but I got the hang of it after a few air balls. After we had played a few games, it was finally time to head back to lodging, so we said goodbye to all the clients we had been spending time with over the day. By the time we got back to the gym, it was 9:30. That day, we had participated in 14 straight hours of programming. Everyone was exhausted and ready to go to bed, but we all felt satisfied knowing just how much we had accomplished in one day. We all slept well that night, and were ready for the ride to the Chicago area the next day.

Children of the Corn pt. 2 – Iowa

Aside from my 21st and my parents visit in Grand Island, Nebraska was my toughest state by far. I was not used to the heat and the absence of the daily climb and descent provided by the mountains left me nothing to work towards on the bike. I was already tired of the endless farmland, so naturally, the idea of crossing over into the state of Iowa did not bring me any happiness or relief. I expected it to be a carbon copy of everything I had seen in Nebraska. However, the Journey of Hope has taught me many things so far, one of which is that no state is the same. Every time I have crossed a state line, everything changes within 10 miles. Always.

On the morning of July 11th, the team rode out of Omaha, Nebraska, headed for the destination of Griswold, Iowa. Right after crossing the Iowa border, we ran into road construction. We were forced to rack our bikes on the vans while they drive us the 15 miles across the construction area. When I hopped out of the car on the other side, the scenery had changed. The yellow brown color of most of Nebraska had been replaced with green fields and farms as far as the eye could see, all spread across rolling hills. The already short ride was further shortened due to the construction, and my pace line partner Matt and I easily made it the remaining 35 miles to lodging. Once we arrived, we once again racked our bikes and drove down a gravel road to lodging for that night. It was a small cabin that was used as a retreat center for Creighton University, settled in a green pasture with nothing else surrounding it. After we showered and ate lunch, we all loaded in the vans and headed for an unknown destination. When we hopped out, we were at a swimming hole; complete with a rope swing, floating dock, and raised platform to jump off of. After lying on the dock and attempting the quadruple backflip line off the raised platform, it was time to head to dinner. We went to dinner at a three time Pi Alpha’s Dave Adickes parent’s house, where we were served sloppy joes with the treat of a post-dinner sundae bar.

After dinner, we headed back to lodging for the night. Despite the awesome day, I found myself feeling a bit homesick. I was going through my phone, looking at the calendar and trying to figure out how many days I had left. I was mentally and physically tired, and I wanted it to be August 9th so that I could ride into DC and be done the next morning. As the sun was setting, Nick called us all together to participate in another Pass the Polar ritual, so that we could reflect on the trip so far and say anything we wanted to say to the group. I was closer to the end of the circle, so I had the privilege of hearing everybody else go before me. Everyone was saying just how special this summer was, that they couldn’t believe that we were already half way done with the trip, and they couldn’t imagine going home and not spending every living hour of every day with their fellow teammates. Sitting in that circle, feeling the cool summer breeze and hearing all of these heartfelt accounts of just how special this trip was to my fellow teammates gave me the spark that finally turned me around. Before the bottle had even gotten to me, my outlook did a complete 180, and I was again in the right mindset. After the ritual was over, it was time for bed. It was really hot in the cabin, so a number of us decided to sleep out under the stars where it was nice and cool. I must say, it was one of the better sleeps I have had this whole trip.

While this trip is an incredibly special and enlightening one, it definitely challenging in so many ways and the daily grind can wear you down sometimes. It is key to keep this in mind and try to work to get back into the right mindset so that you can get the most out of what the trip has to offer.

The following day we rode 95 miles into the capital of Iowa. We encountered some rain and a lot of humidity, but there was cloud cover all day and we made it Des Moines no problem. That night we had dinner at Dave Adickes house. Dave had out photo albums he put together from his time as a cyclist and crew member on North Route in the early 2000’s for us to look at. It was really cool to look back and see what north route was like about 10 years ago. While a good amount has changed, the major cities and foundation of the route is still the same.

The next day, the team had a mellow 45 mile ride into Marshalltown, Iowa. When we arrived, it was not at lodging, but in the parking lot of a water park. After eating lunch, we had free range over the water slides, diving boards, and lazy river; and you better believe we used all of those to their full advantage. After having a great time beating the heat and blowing off some steam at the water park (and getting a nice sunburn in my case), we headed to lodging. After a quick nap and shower, we drove to our friendship visit which was dinner at a bowling alley in town. We were met there by one of the larger groups of people we have encountered so far, and we easily filled up all of the lanes. All 35 of us spread out amongst the lanes and made new friends to bowl with. On top of bowling, there was music so we were all dancing and having a blast with the clients when we weren’t trying to knock down pins. All and all, it was quite a fun day.

Over the next three days we rode 90 miles to Cedar Rapids, 60 miles to Iowa City, and 60 miles to Davenport. Over the course of those three days, the weather got progressively hotter and more humid. This heat wave culminated on our last day in Iowa, an 80 mile ride into Dubuque, Iowa. In morning circle up, my bike got a pinched flat tire, so I volunteered to be sweeps for the day so I could have ample time to change my flat. Just a refresher, sweeps means that you are always the last pace line for the entire day. It is a way for accounting for all the riders and making sure nobody get lost or left behind.

Well, lets just say I chose a rough day to be sweeps. From the start of the day, we were given rack points most of the team thought to be unachievable, so everybody was moving slowly because they believed they never had a chance to make it to the finish. On top of that, there was road construction in a number of places on the original route, so we ended up having to ride 20 extra miles. To cap it all off, it’s was about 105 degrees outside combined with 100% humidity. My teammate Alex and I baked in the sun all morning because if the team’s slow pace, and by lunch I had hit a wall. I could barely stay awake on the bike, and I could tell I was not far off from reaching heat exhaustion. I thought about racking, but decided to wait until after lunch to see if I felt any better. After drinking some Gatorade and sitting in the van to get out of the sun, I felt good enough to go on. Our PM had decided to cancel our event and let us finish out the day, but our team was still moving slowly. Eventually, with about 20 miles to go, we got stuck at a crew stop for over 20 minutes. Because the pace line that was holding us up was not following the Policy and Procedures of the road (P&P for short) we were given the green light to give up our sweeps jerseys and finish the day at our own pace. Frustrated with the day and over the intense heat, Alex and I turned up the pace. At the time we believed the day to be 80 miles, but with the re-routes there was another 20 miles added, making the day a hair under 100 miles. To make matters worse, those last 20 miles were filled with steep rolling hills. In those last 40 miles from when we gave up the sweeps jerseys, Alex and I went from dead last to first place. We gave literally everything we had left in our bodies, not because we wanted to finish first, but purely because we just wanted to get out of the heat.

I cannot explain the amount of relief that overcame me when we reached our gym and walked in the air conditioning. Everyone came in frustrated and angry, but that quickly faded for exhausted happiness. We hadn’t really been challenged physically as a team since we left the mountains, and we sure had been that day. It felt nice to push the pace again and we all felt accomplished when we came in to lodging dead tired but successful. Lodging that night was at a summer camp for teens with disabilities called Albrecht Acres. Before dinner and our friendship visit, we showered off and loaded into the vans to go to a team event. The team event was a visit to the Field of Dreams. While there we played some mock baseball games, ran the bases, took pictures, and of course made a number of poor jokes along the lines of “If you build it, they will come”.

After we had our fun at the Field of Dreams we headed back to the camp for dinner, followed by friendship visit. The visit was a a big dance with all the campers and counselors. Everyone had a blast and this was probably one of the teams favorite friendship visits on a whole. After the friendship visit was over, a big group of us went to local watering hole to hang out with all of the counselors (most of whom were British girls) and blow off some stream after a tough day if riding. It was a nice change of pace to hang out with a group of girls our age and be forced to try to remember our manners and our decent behavior after hanging around a group of smelly guys for a month and a half. Sadly, we had to return to the camp after a short period of time because we had to ride another century the next day, and like most grown men, we had an 11:30 curfew to adhere to.

So that pretty much about sums up Iowa! We’ve got days off in Milwaukee and Chicago coming up in the next few days, so be looking for that blog post very soon.

Children of the Corn pt. 1 – Nebraska

After I left Denver, I had what I would call a rude awakening. It started on our 95 mile ride out of Denver into a small town called Fort Morgan on the Fourth of July. From the start I was was feeling off, but when a member of my paceline got two consecutive flat tires, leaving us out in the sweltering heat, I just crashed. The entire rest of the day I struggled on the bike like I hadn’t before on this trip. It was brutally hot, the roads were bad, and there was nothing to look at. I was not even 100 miles out of Denver and I was already sick of the farmland. Refusing to believe this was part of my beloved state, I dubbed everything East of Denver International Airport as West Nebraska.

After what felt like an eternity, we reached lodging in Fort Morgan. After we arrived I just threw my bike down and laid in the grass under a tree for nearly half an hour, refusing to move. I was physically tried and frustrated, but more than anything, I was mentally defeated by the day. After a shower and a nap, we went to dinner at the local Elks club. After almost falling asleep at dinner, I retreated to lodging. The rest of the team got ready to head out and watch the fireworks show, but I had no energy to do anything else but to sleep. I took two Benadryl and passed out, missing out on all the holiday’s festivities. That day definitely had a sobering effect for me. I came out of the mountains cocky and feeling like the rest of the country would be a breeze. But that was far from the truth. I was dealing with a new set of challenges. Humidity, sun, heat, and longer mileage were all new factors I needed to adjust to.

After a more than full night of sleep, I woke up feeling much better the following morning. That day, we had an 85 mile ride into Wrey, CO. I rode with teammates Mike Jones and Saurabh Mehta and that day we decided we would ride the first 50 miles without stopping. With a steady pace and a good tailwind, we made it 50 miles in no time. The last 35 miles came quickly as well and we were done with ride an hour before lunch. It was a great feeling to have such a good ride the day after what I would describe as my worst ride of the trip so far. After we ate lunch, we headed to the water park that happened to be behind lodging to enjoy ourselves on the hot day. After we had cooled off, we napped and then had dinner brought to us at lodging by a local Boy Scout troop. Following dinner, we played a few rounds of Tips (the basketball game of choice on JOH North Route) and then headed to bed.

The next day we had an early wake up at 5:00 am for a long day ahead. Today we would be leaving the state of Colorado for Nebraska, with a quick pit stop in Kansas. The day was a 95 mile ride into McCook, Nebraska. I rode with two of my good friends on the trip Austin from Florida State and Blake from TCU. I chose this paceline because I knew the day as going to be long and I knew if I rode with these guys we could make the time pass by joking around and talking. After we crossed into Nebraska and made our detour to the Kansas border, we still had about 70 miles to go. Blake, Austin, and I passed time by creating fake life stories about various members of the team. This provided a number of good laughs, but then the hunger hit, so we put the pedal to the metal and pushed it to lunch. We ate lunch overlooking a lake, filled with boats and swimmers. Naturally, we got jealous they were enjoying the water on a hot day while we cycled, so a few of us decided to hike down after lunch to jump in. When we got down to the lake, we discovered that it did not look quite as appealing up close. The water was bright green color and there was a dead fish floating on the surface. While I was inclined to skip the dip, my teammate Colin gave us his pitch for all of us to get in. He claimed that this trip was all about making memories, and we would always remember that day a few of us jumped in that disgusting lake in Nebraska. He then waded in and a few other followed. I was one of the last to be convinced, but finally, I took off my jersey and slowly walked in the water, squealing like a little girl the whole time. When we were all up to our chests, we counted to three and ducked our heads under. We sprinted back out of the water, afraid we would end up with some deformation or evil super power from being in the bright green water. We ended up being alright, got back on our bikes and rode the last 20 miles to lodging. McCook was a small town so there was no friendship visit, so we went and saw Despicable Me 2 with the whole team.

We had another early wake up the following day, but there was finally light at the end of the tunnel of a brutal stretch. It was the last of a four day stretch of just under 400 miles ridden with a 95 mile ride to Minden, NE. I rode in a two man paceline with myself and Sanjeev from FIU. I decided today was a good day to try to complete the 100 mile pull challenge (stay at the front of the paceline for 100 miles). We got out to a really fast start and by the time we reached lunch, we were well out of reach of any of the other pacelines. It was tiring, working against the wind all day, but I just kept pushing . Sanjeev hadn’t had a first place finish yet and I told him we would get it that day, so that was extra motivation. Finally, we rolled into lodging in first place, and then got back on our bikes to finish out the last 5 miles for the century. It was a good feeling helping Sanjeev get his first 1st place finish and we were both in good spirits. Minden was an even smaller town than the day before, so at night we had a big basketball tournament in the gym we were staying in. My team ended up winning the championship handedly, but the amount of fun everyone was having was what really made the night.

The following day was July 8th, which also happened to be my 21st birthday. Naturally, I was in better than good spirits. On top of all of this, we had an easy 50 mile ride into Grand Island, NE. I rode with two other guys who had coincidentally had their 21st birthdays within the past 7 days. The birthday paceline made it Grand Island in no time, so we had plenty of time to sleep in the shade before the police showed up to shuttle us to our arrival. We rode to our hotel where we were greeted by all of the people we would hanging out with over the next two days. They gave us a warm welcome, we introduced ourselves, and then headed inside to feast on a lunch of KFC and Sonic slushies. We went off to our hotel rooms quite satisfied and I took a long nap in order to prepare for the festivities of the coming night.

During my nap, I had this dream that my parents showed up in my hotel room to surprise me for my birthday. As it turned out, that actually wasn’t a dream and my mom and dad were standing right in front of me. They had decided they wanted to be there for my 21st birthday, so they booked a flight to Omaha, Nebraska and drove into Grand Island to spend the two day break with me. That night we went to dinner at the local Elks club for dinner and a dance with the ARC of Grand Island. I think my parents really enjoyed seeing us interact and dance with the clients of the ARC, because they finally got a first hand experience of what they sent their son off to do for an entire summer.

Later that night I went out with my parents and all the other of-age team members. I won’t go into too many details, but I must say my first beer ever tasted great! The next morning, we woke up early for a day filled with programming. After breakfast at a local diner, we headed to an elementary school where we put on a puppet show for the kids in summer school. From there we headed to lunch at a park, which was built by another summer Push America trip called Build America. The more time we sent in Grand Island, the more we realized how much Push America had an effect on the town. As one of the longest standing sponsor visits, we had come to develop very close relationships with many of the people in the small town. After lunch we got to tour two separate facilities in town that assisted people with disabilities. One of these facilities was the local Goodwill, who employed people of all ages and types of disabilities in their warehouse. While there I got to hang out and play video games with Brad, a son of one of our sponsors in Grand Island, and a guy who was well known across North Route teams from year to year. After we were done with the afternoon’s programming, I spent the last few remaining hours with my parents before they had to drive back to Omaha to catch their flight home. It was so awesome to have them around for my birthday, and their departure made me a bit homesick.

However, I did not have much time to feel down, because as soon as they left, we were off to a dinner at a local church. At dinner, I sat with Brad again. He was a complete riot; challenging all of to arm wrestling matches and then cheating because he didn’t want to lose, making jokes, talking trash (all friendly of course), and just trying to be the center of attention. Brad was one of the clients I have connected most with on this trip and I feel blessed to have met him and to have had such a great stay in Grand Island. I can now see why this town is such an important stop along JOH North route, and and it’s a a town I will never forget.

After Grand Island, we moved n to Lincoln and the capital Omaha. Both days were chalk full of programming and I could barely get a minute of free time (one of the reasons why I am so far behind on blog posts…sorry!). However, I was able to break away for an hour before curfew while in Omaha to have a quick visit with one of my good friends from school Zoe Vann. I hadn’t seen Zoe in a while because she has been in London studying abroad, so it was good to catch up, even if only for little bit.

So, that is all for the state of Nebraska! Sorry for the delay, but after we have left Denver, the programming has increased by a lot and it has been hard to find time to write. I am in Eastern Iowa now, and I hope to be caught up with my blog posts in the next few days. Thanks for reading!

Leaving the Rockies

As I sit here in the Starbucks below my hotel in Denver, Colorado, I can’t help but feel accomplished. I have successfully crossed the Sierra, Wasatch, and Rocky Mountain ranges, spanning across four states. I am Mountain Man. However, the completion of this feat is quite bittersweet. I love the mountains. I consider myself a climber on the bike, and I feel at home in the mountains. When I rolled into Sports Authority Field yesterday here in Denver, the realization hit me that all I had ahead of me was corn, flat land, corn, and more corn. I will eventually reach the Appalachians towards the end of my ride, but those are mere hills compared to the great Rocky Mountains (sorry if I offended any of you East Coasters). But this is just part of the Journey of Hope. Things change everyday when you move town to town across the country, and you must learn to adjust. This will be a harder adjustment for me than most others on the trip, but I will take it in stride just like I have every other one before this and,eventually, I will learn to like the corn. Hopefully….

Anyway, back to my past few days. I last left you when I was in Steamboat Springs, CO. The following day we had one of the hardest rides of the trip, a 105 mile trek to Breckenridge, CO. A group of special guests had joined us in Steamboat Springs, Bruce Rogers and his family. Bruce Rogers is the founder of the Journey of Hope and one of the founders of KRG capital, a Denver-based equity firm who is the ride’s biggest sponsor. So needless to say, we were expected to be on our best behavior in the coming few days. Bruce and his family were also joined by a number of KRG capital employees who were going to be riding with us as well. The night before the Breckenridge ride, my crew chief told me that I would be riding with a guy named Dustin Jackson, a category 3 team racer and all around cycling bad ass. This idea made me both excited and nervous. I was just hoping I could keep up.

The next morning after we ate breakfast, my teammate Travis and I introduced ourselves to Dustin and off we were. Right off the bat, we had to climb Rabbit Ears Pass which was a steep and brutal climb, without the steep downhill on the backside to reward you for your efforts. Still, we kept moving, battling rolling hills as the elevation continued to increase as we moved towards Breckenridge. We reached lunch well ahead of any of the other pacelines. We ate lunch by Green Mountain Reservoir, an amazing backdrop for an upgraded lunch to our two meat, one cheese sandwiches thanks to KRG, and then we were off again.

By the end of the day, Travis and I were starting to fade from attempting to keep up with Dustin’s pace all day, but we finally made it to Silverthorne, a town outside of Keystone mountain along I-70. Dustin peeled off to go to his hotel and Travis and I finished the last 20 miles ourselves in the pouring rain. A dramatic finish to a dramatic day. When we got off our bikes we checked the stats for the day. 8,000 ft of climbing, 105 miles traveled, 17.7 average miles per hour. To put that into perspective, during our century day into Delta, Utah, which had sub-1000 ft of climbing, I averaged 18 mph. The fact I only dropped 0.3 mph from that day to the second hardest day of the trip means I was cycling harder than I ever had before. Pardon my French, but we hauled ass.

The following day, we had a 50 mile ride to Empire, CO. This is a special day because we climbed Loveland Pass, the highest elevation of the trip, and cross the continental divide. My teammate Michael and I were given the task of riding with Bruce and his son Layton that day, which we took as a great honor. We started the day by back tracking to Silverthorne from Breckenridge, got on the road to Loveland Pass and began to climb. Just talking to Bruce while we were riding was pretty awesome; he rode across the country by himself, started his own company, and has traveled extensively. Needless to say he had a good amount of wisdom to expend and cool experiences to talk about. As we climbed further, the talking slowed as everyone began to struggle with the elevation. Soon, the top was in view and we could see a big group of people waiting for us. We kicked our pace into high gear and sprinted up the last half mile. It was an incredible feeling when we got to the top, everyone cheering us on. All of the riders were hugging each other, and we ran up the stairs above the Loveland Pass sign in order to reach 12,000 ft of elevation, the highest we would reach during the whole trip.

After we took a ton of pictures by the sign (I have gotten really good at smiling for pictures through this trip) we decended the pass and moved on to Empire, CO. We stayed at a really cool summer camp called Rocky Mountain Village, run by the Easter Seals Organization. The camp was geared towards giving people with mental and physical disabilities of all ages a true summer camp experience.

We had the next day off in order to help out around the camp and entertain the campers. In the morning I got assigned to go down to the pond where I went fishing for rainbow trout with some of the campers. Wile down there, I ran into Annie, who I knew from my work with Push in Boulder. Every Friday, I organize visits to the local Fairview high school where we would hang out and participate in various activities with the kids in the school’s disabilities program. Annie is a student there and over the past two years, I have come to know her quite well, so it was really nice to see a familiar face. She helped my friends and I catch fish by tossing in bait to the swarming mass of stocked fish, while we picked them off with hooks and nets. The fish never stood a chance. By lunch time, Annie had caught 30 fish between the four of us down there.

The theme at the camp for the week was Zombieland, so after lunch we all put on goofy costumes and makeup and dragged ourselves around camp grunting and scaring campers. The catch was, we were supposed to be afraid of dancing, so as soon as the campers figured that out, we zombies never stood a chance at feasting on brains. After rest time, we ate dinner and then participated in more zombie-themed games and activities, only to be interrupted by a torrential downpour. However, the rain did not put a damper on our spirit and we just moved the festivities inside. Soon it was time for bed, as we had an early morning the next morning in order to make it into Denver on time.

The next morning our route as joined by a number of ride-a-longs, including a Boulder Pi Alpha from 2012 named Colin Rhinehart, a good buddy of mine. It was an easy ride that day, which was made even easier as Colin and I spent the day swapping JOH stories and catching up on life in Boulder. We had our last major decent of the trip over Lookout Mountain, so Colin I took to it with gusto, flying down the straightaways and gripping the hairpin turns. We coasted through Golden, past the Coors factory, and into Sports Authority Field in Denver. We went on the field and took some pictures with a “Welcome Journey of Hope 2013” banner on the big screen behind us and then went back out to have a Chipotle lunch before heading off to the arrival. After we had chowed down, we hopped in double paceline formation and were escorted through the city by the Denver police until we arrived at the Capitol building where a number of my friends from scool we’re waiting there to greet us. It was great to see my friends again and it felt sort of like I was arriving home.

Later that night we went and saw the Rockies get stomped by the Dodgers 7-0 and then all went out to have a night on the town. The following morning we met up with the other JOH route in Denver (Trans route, they start out of Seattle) for breakfast at the KRG office. Their office was located at the top floor of one of the top of the tallest skyscrapers in Denver, giving us a perfect view over the city if Denver and the Front Range. I could even see the Flatirons looming over the city of Boulder. So close, yet so far away. After breakfast, we got free time, and I used that to write, do laundry, and catch up with some friends working in Denver for the summer.

Around 4:00 we headed to City Park in order to participate in an event called Pedals For Pennies. We rode laps around the parks with participants who raised money for the Colorado Special Olympics. I discovered through a speech from one of the participants just how important this organization is. It gives people with mental and physical the opportunities to participate in activities they normally could not, such as skiing, as well as organized sports leagues and competitions. More importantly, it gives these people a a friendly and accepting community that is difficult for them to find in the hostile environment that is high school. After dinner, we had a huge dance party, everyone with big smiles on their face and not a care in the world. On the whole, it was one of my favorite friendship visits of the trip, a great way to cap off our time in Denver.

Tomorrow we head out of the mountains into Fort Morgan, CO, a 95 mile that is the start of a brutal stretch. Thankfully, I have my 21st birthday close on the horizon to look forward to, so that should help me get through the long, hot days on the road ahead. I’ll check back in after the big day during my day off in Grand Island, Nebraska!