The last two days are probably going down as the best days
thus far on the trip as far as overall occurrences. There was one exception. When I woke up yesterday, naturally I could barely move. Cycling 45 miles after not being on a
bike for five years can make you just a little bit sore. And by a little I mean so sore you look
funny when you walk because it hurts so badly. It honestly felt like someone was taking a knife to my
calves. But other than that, the
days were great! We had a relatively easy ride from Boulder into Denver yesterday,
and it was cool to see the skyline the entire time we were on the road. I had heard a lot of great things about
the city, so I was pretty excited about visiting. Our stage up spot was at the
Broncos stadium. Once our entire
team was there, we got to walk across the parking lot and enter the stadium
where a staff worker met us. He
took us onto the field where we were able to look around the stadium, touch the
grass, take pictures, and have fun.
It is amazing to me how big these stadiums can be. After many photos were taken of
schoolmates, tebowing, and acting out a football play, we made our way back to
our bikes on the other side of the parking lot. Waiting for us at stage up was the North Route team. They had a little longer ride that day
from their starting point, so they arrived later than us and were waiting to
greet us. I immediately found my
two chapter brothers and two of my best friends, Jimmy and Jonathan, and hugged
them both and started talking as if no time had passed without seeing each
other. I was really excited to see
them and see how their summers had been going.
We ate lunch
and talked up a storm, and then it was time for our police escort into downtown
Denver. Our arrival was set to go
to the steps of the State Capitol building in downtown. Both the Trans Route and North Route
rode behind the police cars, so watching double the amount of cyclists I am
used to seeing go through downtown was really cool. We felt powerful and important. We got to the steps and had some people give speeches about
what we are doing and thanking everyone who came out to see us. We were then able to visit with family,
friends, and anyone else who was there because there happened to be a lot of
people come out. Denver is a
pretty big arrival because Bruce Rogers, the creator of Journey of Hope who I
have talked about before now, works and lives in Denver, so everything we do is
pretty special. Once everyone was
satisfied with the pictures and visits that occurred, it was time to head to
THE HOTEL! Yes, we finally get to stay in a hotel with real air conditioning
and a real bed. I can honestly say
that a bed is the most underappreciated luxury in the world. We had a couple hours to kill, so some
people walked around downtown, some took a nap, and others just hung out in
rooms and spent time with North guys.
Last night was probably the best friendship visit we have
had because, not only did we get to do it with the North team, but it was an
absolute blast and was nothing like any friendship visit we had done so
far. We took part in an event
called “Pedals for Pennies.” We
met up with a organization that puts on this event every year that helps them
raise money. What happened was a
Journey of Hope cyclist was paired up with every special Olympic athlete taking
part in the event. The team of two
would ride around a little lake in the park where we were and each lap
completed raised a certain amount of money. Those who were not partnered up
with a client kept track of laps completed and cheered the teams on each time
they came around the starting point.
It was awesome to see the glow on the faces of each client when they
came around the bend and saw the crowd waiting for them to cheer them on. Once the clients were finished with
their laps, it was time for dinner.
There was a catered barbeque dinner that was absolutely delicious. It was incredible how much food they
provided because they had no choice since there were well over 100 people in
attendance. After dinner, yet
another blast of an event took place: a dance party. We have had dance parties before and it seemed like those
friendship visits were the most fun.
To have a dance party cap off this friendship visit clarified even more
that this visit was the best so far.
Again, having the North guys with us there to dance with us and have fun
made it that much better. That
night, some guys that rode last year that live in Denver or guys that go to CU
Boulder with some of the guys on my team took us out to show us what Denver was
like at night. It was actually a
lot cooler than what I had expected.
There is an area similar to Wrigleyville in Chicago next to the Cubs’
stadium. We were right next to
Coors Field (the Rockies’ stadium) which resembled somewhat of a college
town. Overall, it was an amazing
day.
Today was pretty relaxed, but it was still fun like all
other days. This morning we had a
sponsored breakfast at Bruce Rogers office building. He works in the private equity business and his office was
unreal. Everything was top of the
line and extravagant. The meal was
amazing and I was introduced to a new kind of breakfast food: French Toast
Casserole (Mom take note). After
visiting even more with the North guys and talking to some of the employees
that work with Bruce, they talked a little about what their company did and
showed us a couple videos. One of
the videos they showed us talked about all of the charity work the company did,
and a lot of the movie was devoted to Push America and the Journey of
Hope. It had clips of all of the
ride-alongs Bruce has done, even the one into D.C. This was the first taste of
what the arrival of D.C. would be like, so a lot of guys were looking around
with huge smiles on their faces.
We said our goodbyes and prepared for the rest of the day, which I might
add was completely free to our liking.
After talking with my chapter brother, Jimmy, a lot of us decided we wanted to go to the Rockies and National’s game that afternoon. It had been forever since I had seen a baseball game in person. We paid a grand total of $4 for our tickets. Yes you read right. Single digit. $4. If you are familiar with the Rockie’s stadium, we were in the section that is right above the garden and rocks in center field, so they were great seats. It was a great game too. Not only did we pay $4 for the tickets, but we got free baseball on top of that (extra innings). The rest of the day was devoted to hanging out, eating, and saying goodbye to North. Tomorrow we leave Denver, which seemed to fly by. It was great to see Jimmy and Jonathan and I cannot wait to seem them, as well as Louis and Dylan from the South Route, when we get to D.C.
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