Empire Colorado and Denver

So the 40 mile ride to empire was pretty tough, but exciting. The first half of the ride we had a steep climb up to love land pass which is actually 12000 feet in elevation. I tried to call my mom to tell her that I was on top of the world, but no cell phone service. The view was simply amazing. I'll post the pics on my facebook. The downhill was pretty steep with a lot of twists and turns and was a lot of fun as well. Our lodging was pretty nice and everyone got a bed. We had a friendship visit at the summer camp for people with disabilities, which actually brought me back to bad memories of summer camp from my childhood. I couldn't believe the amount of camp songs the counselors knew. It was endless.

The next day was a ride into Denver. It was one of the more beautiful rides I have been on this summer. My pace line and I also got to ride with the man the myth the legend Bruce Rogers. For those of you who don't know Bruce started the Journey of Hope in 1987. The last part of the ride was a downhill with so many dangerous twists and turns, but we all made it down safely. The road looked like one of the roads in those Mazda zoom zoom commercials.

In Denver we got to meet up with the Transamerica route, so I got to see my fellow Virginia Tech brothers. It was a lot of fun catching up with them. Both routes even got a tour of Mile High stadium, which is where the broncos play. When we entered the Jumbo-tron read "Welcome Journey of Hope" it was pretty neat.

The arrival in Denver was probably one of the more important arrivals in the trip. We got escorted to the State Capital by the local law enforcement, where a mass group of people and local television stations were waiting to meet us. Denver is a really awesome city. I feel like I would want to live here after college.

That night we did our "Peddle for Pennies" event where we rode around the local city park lake on our bikes with a person who had a disability to raise funds for special Olympics activities.