Lost and Found. The Fun in Traveling

Hello World. How are you?
It's August now, and it's hard to believe how fast the trip is flying by. We've finished our last day of riding south, and from Colorado Springs we're heading eastward towards Kansas City, where the Kass parents reside. We should be arriving around the 7th or 8th, and if anyone has any desire to send us anything in the snail mail, this would be an opportune time to do so. Before I forget the address is:

(Insert one of our names here)
C/O Dave and Terri Kass
4202 W 53rd Terr
Roeland Park, KS 66205

If you have any questions about anything, you can give them a call at 913-432-5333, they're super nice folks.

So it's been a week since Laramie, we've been taking it really easy as far as biking has gone. It's been bizarre being so close to so many populated cities in one area. We definitely miss the solitude of the mountains and forests, but it's been fun meeting so many people and seeing the sights of Colorado. A quick day-to-day, then hopefully we can convince Kelvin or Nate to do a post.

Day 35 Thursday July 24: Kicking it in Laramie 0 miles
A really low key day. I mean REALLY. I hang out at the library and the guys bum around town, play some soccer in the park, and hang out back at Pete's. Kelvin's good friend Lindsay, with whom he went to high school and many of us know and love from the U of O, showed up to Pete's house to hang with her beau and the three of us. It was a splendid time, and we had a barbecue and good times. Thanks again to Peter for letting us crash at his place. After the food, the gang went out to a few bars for Peter's friend's birthday. I crashed early and didn't go out, so I apologize that I cannot relate any shenanigans or little quips from the night.

Day 36 Friday July 25: Laramie to Fort Collins, Colorado 70.59 miles
Hello Colorado! Fort Collins is super cool, I'm ashamed to say that I surprised to say this, as I'd never heard anything about it before. But we had a fantastic time there. We arrived in town around 4 in the afternoon and, after concocting a plan with our couchsurfer to meet up later, went directly to the New Belgium Brewery. A really chill place with an electric atmosphere and hilarious staff, we each sampled four of their brews, entirely free. They dug our bicycles and were super friendly about letting us know the ins and outs of the goings on. After working there for 5 years, the owners set up every employee with an all expenses paid tour of the breweries in Belgium. Woa. You cannot purchase any beer at the brewery, aside from growlers to go, so we took the party favors (bottle opener, sticker, tattoo) and headed out for the other local brewery about which we have heard many good things. O'Dell's is a decidedly smaller operation, but stands up well as far as atmosphere and quality. The espresso stout is delicious and gives you a great kick in the pants. Also, the waitress was super nice and gave us the sampler tray for free, our first freebie for being cross-country bikers. Way cool. After a burrito downtown we met up with Katy, a student at Colorado State who was to put us up for the night. We climbed a huge tree and watched lightning go nuts over the Rockies as the sun set on the horizon, and then proceeded to hit the streets of Fort Collins. We found ourselves at the birthday party of a 6'3 Haitian named Andre Paul, who was down to throw out phat rhymes all night along with our very own Nathan Andre Roter as Kelvin laid down the beat. It's been too long since I've heard Nate flow, it's really an experience to behold. Kelvin rocked out so hard, he still has a sore on his lip from beat-boxing all night.

Day 37 Saturday July 26: Rest day in Fort Collins 0 miles
Another day heavy on the relaxing, but there's a method to our chilled out madness. Back in Lander I spoke to my good friend Anne Groundwater, who informed me that she was turning 21 on August 1st in Colorado Springs, and had none of her friends around to share in the fun. Wait a minute, we're in Colorado, and it's late July! WE could come to Colorado Springs and share in the fun! So instead of going at our normal pace and spending a week in the Springs, we decided to mosey through the state, stopping in Fort Collins, Boulder, and Denver for a day each to check out what's going on. But I digress. After bumming around the town and taking the tour at O'Dell's, we headed up north a ways with a car full of inner tubes. En route to float the Poudre (pronounced poo-der, seriously) river. It was fairly late in the day when we arrived, and the rest of the floaters were heading home. But we were not deterred, and Katy, Nate, Kelvin, Christina, and I hitched a ride upstream. We had met Christina the night before, she went to school in the same area as I had in Kansas, and it turned out we had a number of mutual acquantances. Weird. Anyways, she's an avid floater of rivers and so met up with us on Saturday to come along. After the float, which is incredibly fun and I highly recommend it to anyone with the means, we found ourselves back in the parking lot, with a locked car and an empty pocket in which Katy had previously kept the key. Hmmm. This could turn into a long story, but I'm not going to let it. The short of it is, we slept in the car in the parking lot and hitched a ride into town in the morning. It was okay, we had playing cards and good spirits.

Day 38 Sunday July 27: Fort Collins to Boulder 58.4 miles
I'm just going to be straight about this right now. I don't like Boulder. Hands down my least favorite place we've been to on this trip. That being said, I'm not going to spend a lot of text on our time there. Mountain Sun Brewery was quite possibly the best brewery we've been to, it's old school ale was unbelievable and the waiters were super generous, but even that couldn't save the entire perception I have of Boulder. I don't want to talk about it.

Day 39 Monday July 28: Hanging out in Boulder 0 miles
Our friend Claire, aka Gordy, from the U of O put us up on Monday at her friend's house. They were all really nice and we barbecued and had a fun time floating the river there. Thanks a bunch to all of our wonderfull hosts in Boulder. Kelvin can't find his wallet. Credit card, bank card, ID, social security card - gone. He checks every possible place. Twice.

Day 40 Tuesday July 29: Boulder to Denver 51.31 miles
Kelvin still can't find it. We decide to head to Denver and deal with it there. The hills in Colorado are steep! We've apparently been spoiled with our 7% grade 10 mile climbs, because the shorter, steeper climbs to Denver were really rough. After arriving in Denver we call up Max Roesch, the older brother of Nate's good friend Jaco. No answer. No worries, we have a backup plan for a place to stay in Denver. Our good friend Teri Lyshorn's brother Jesse. We call him up. Wrong number. We call Teri, she's in Connecticut. With her brother, Jesse. Huh. This all goes down at a small cafe on the outskirts of Denver, where a very nice young woman named Alexa comes over to chat with us. She has braces and is getting ready to go into 8th grade. She asks us about our trip and then excuses herself, only to return minutes later to sit down and chat again. She doesn't know much about Denver, nor where any bowling alleys are, she doesn't know about the bar scene, and likes every type of music but nothing really stands out and she doesn't know where to go to see any good shows. Very informative girl, but keeps looking over to her friends' table and giggling. Weird. Well, at this point we decide our best chance is to go to the library and check out some other options for a place to stay. After asking directions to the nearest branch from a guy on the street, he proceeds to give us $40. It was kind of awkward, but he was really excited about our trip and insisted. Denver has some nice folks. At the library I send out an SOS on couchsurfing.com to the Denver group, which has about 500 people on it. Within minutes a guy named Steve calls us up and invites us to stay. We ride over and he turns out to be a super nice guy, with an absurdly nice apartment. We get pizza and beer with part of the $40, and go bowling on Steve's Nintendo Wii, as there aren't really any bowling alleys nearby. Kelvin reaches in his bag for his toothbrush or something and finds his wallet. The world is a weird place I swear.

Day 41 Wednesday July 30: Hanging out in Denver 0 miles
Strolling, ice cream, vegetarian wings with Steve, swimming in the apartment pool, and hanging out on the apartment roof. Kelvin and Nate went to the art museum, while I failed to write letters and instead chatted with Steve and enjoyed the happy hour at a local vegetarian restaurant. That about sums up the day. It was a good day.

Day 42 Thursday July 31: Denver to Colorado Springs 69.07 miles
Denver is cool, but having to ride 30 miles before escaping the sprawl isn't quite as much fun as it might sound. Regardless, the ride turned out to be a beautiful one, and we're all excited for the great plains. We ride into town and meet up with Anne Groundwater, who takes us back to her parent's home, where they feed us amazing tacos and beer and are about the best hosts anyone could ever ask for. We play "Sorry" and watch the Talking Head's concert "Stop Making Sense." A really fun evening. But wait? What time is it? It's almost midnight, and Anne's little brother John is nice enough to drive us downtown so that we may celebrate in style. We play some pool and do some celebrating in the less than two hour window that we have for our night on the town in "The Springs," as the hip kids call it. We rock out a huge dance party in the car on the way home as John drives home cool as a cucumber. Anne gets heated at this really large guy on the street and starts talking smack to him in a big way. He swings at her and she ducks out of the way, then gives him an open handed judo chop to his chops. He's laid out, but Anne's knee is scraped up from when she fell on the follow through. It was either that or Anne tripped off of a large curb while trying to text a frenchman, it could have been either scenario, really.

Day 43 Friday August 1: Livin' large in Colorado Springs 0 miles
Kelvin and I wake up and have a nice chat with Anne's father, "You gentleman, and I use the word loosely, took my daughter out last night for her birthday, and now this morning she's gone to the hospital with a broken hand." Here is the part where jaws drop and faces of disbelief contort into apologetic ramblings. Her dad is actually really good-natured about it, and it turns out that she didn't in fact break her hand, but will be wearing a brace for about a week. All is relatively well and I hope Anne's parents don't hate us. They've been and are continuing to be super nice. Now I've gotta go, because there's sandwich fixings in the kitchen. They're taking us up to Keystone for a bluegrass and brewfest. Some guys get all the breaks, huh?


This is that for now. We're clean and well-fed and happy, and incredibly sorry about Anne's hand. I hope you all are well. I'm going to try and convince one of the other guys to typ now.