ROUTE: Colorado Springs CO |
DISTANCE:
None |
TOTAL CLIMBING:
None |
Click here for
Garmin daily ride data
Click
here for Summary Data sheet ***new***
(This is cool
if you like lots of data! It may take a few seconds to load but you can hit play
and time compress our ride. )
DAILY REPORT: A
beautiful sunny day in Colorado Springs. Temps in the low 80's. Some clouds.
Great day for running around doing errands.
Skip
got up early so he could go around and take some pictures of the static aircraft
displays
while the rest of us slept in till 0800. We had breakfast and then the kids
started laundry. Fortunately our TLF Unit had a washer/dryer; so we could knock
out laundry through out the day. And boy did John and James need to do
laundry. Even Skip did a load of wash. He said this was his first time in his
life ever
doing laundry - go figure a laundry virgin!!
The first order of business was to get John's bike
to a a bike shop for
repairs. A quick search on Google revealed a number of shops. This place is a
biking mecca based on the number of bike shops. After reading a few reviews and
some phone calls it was narrowed down to Ascent
Cycling. They were able to squeeze us in today for some repairs. I can't say
enough nice things about the owners Patrick Cross & Clay Allison. Patrick
was impressed with our trip and really took care of John's bike - fixing the
brakes and handle bars, truing front and back wheels, new handle bar tape,
changed out the chain and and a few other minor adjustments. In the end not only
did they put a rush on John's bike but they only charge for the handle bar
tape!! Wow!! They are relatively new in town and should you find yourself
needing a bike shop in Colorado Springs; they're the ones!! Thanks much Patrick
and Clay!! You guys rock!!
One
of our other errands for the morning was to stop by COSTCO and see if they would
be willing to resupply some of our consumable stock items - water, Gatorade,
jerky, bagels, etc. We met with the manager, John Wynns; explained the
Riding4Hope and he said he would be more than happy to comp our list. Now that
was really nice. This COSTCO in Colorado Springs is a new model and appeared to
be 1 1/2 times bigger that the Silverdale COSTCO. It was very nice and lots of
samples were being given out. You could have had lunch based on all the free
samples. A big Thank you to John. If any of our followers are in the Colorado
Springs area and you find yourself in COSTCO; please seek John out and say
thanks on our behalf!!
From there we were off to the Air Force Academy to
hook up with Granny Carole and Grandpa Bob. They had already been there waiting
for us. This was one of my other goals; to expose John & James to a number
of different academic environments so that they could make some solid decisions
on their college education as they enter their senior year in HS. Since it was
the weekend there were no counselors available to discuss the program; so I had
called ahead on Friday and asked them to send some application information for
review. It will be available for the boys when we get back home to Silverdale.
We spent several hours with the Grandparents
checking out the campus, visitor center, airfield, etc. Carole and Bob had an
early
morning flight out of Denver and back to Ft Myers. They had made lodging
reservations in Denver to accommodate their flight. We said our good byes; it
was really great that they were able to come out and spend a week following us
as we headed east on our cross country trip. We will be seeing them again next
month during Carole's retirement celebration. She will be officially retiring on
July 31 but will be having a party on 14 Aug. So while we are recuperating our
tired/worn legs in VA Bch; at the end of the week we will take a quick flight
down to Florida for the celebration and so John & James can see the rest of
their aunts and uncle. (Got a great deal on airfare!)
After our good byes, a few more errands and then
off to the Golden Coral for dinner. What a place for two growing young lads who
need to consume 6,000 calories daily. This is the place!!
Tomorrow we will drive down to Pueblo for our ride
to Lamar. We had adjusted our schedule to be able to support the Boys and Girls
Club in Colorado Springs and I didn't want to have to rearrange all our
lodging/stopping locations or change the bike the legs. This was the easiest
way. So for you purists out there yep we skipped 45 miles of riding across the
US.
Tomorrow we will be riding in the high plains of
Colorado to Lamar. Expect to really see the temp and humidity start to rise
significantly!
Thanks for joining
us.....ride safely and keep the wind to your back!!
The Riding4Hope Team
www.riding4hope.org
(David, John, James & Skip)
Signing out 7/19/09; 2315
YOU DON'T SAY:
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DID I REALLY DO THAT?:
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PHOTOS OF THE DAY |
Skip's first load of laundry. Is that even possible??!!
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If you look close, you can see that John & James are trying out
what it would be like to sit in the cockpit.
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The boys thought it was really cool that the Academy had a number of
falcons that cadets trained/worked with through out the year.
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Now had we been standing in front of a submarine; that would have been
really COOL!!
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Thanks for coming out and being part of our cross country bike trip
Granny Carole and Grandpa Bob. We'll miss you.
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Even as a Navy guy I have to admit the AF really has a great location
for their Military Academy. What a back drop!!
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More
photos on Facebook Album
Yesterday
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