Denver, CO – 50 Miles

July 6, 2010

This morning was a race to get to Denver in time to meet up with the Trans America team. We rode into Invesco field, and took a quick look around it before grabbing lunch and preparing for a big arrival at the capitol. Governor Ritter came out to recognize our achievements, and to tell us what he was doing to making biking, and better opportunities for people with disabilities a priority in Colorado. After the arrival, we headed downtown to our lodging, which turned out to be the Marriot City Center hotel. This was a sponsored location, and I have no idea what they paid for each room, but a sign on the door in our room said the going rate was $679 per night! We felt pretty lucky to get such a place, not one, but two nights!

Once we got showered and changed, we were off again, this time to an event called pedal for pennies. The purpose of this event was to raise money for the Special Olympics by having participants with and without disabilities cycle laps around a large lake. Some of our guys had the chance to ride, but most of us were still worn out from the morning ride! Following the ride, we had a nice dinner and awards ceremony followed by a dance. This is where I finally started to feel like the old guy on the trip. A song by Miley Cyrus came on, and believe it or not, almost everyone in the room knew the lyrics. I didn’t even know who Miley Cyrus was until a few days ago! After a long day, it’s finally time to take a little break, and it’s now late enough that I could be getting ready for bed.