First Three Days in Colorado

I know it's been a while since I updated this, so I'll try to get as much as I can and I'm going to lump a few days together because there have been a couple down days. (perhaps trying to do a blog all summer from my blackberry wasn't a brilliant idea - I'm on a borrowed laptop today).

On the first of the month we entered Colorado and stayed in Dinosaur. It was scheduled for a 90 mile ride but because of construction we actually had to rack the first 89 miles and only rode the last nine, but at least that included the border to Colorado from Utah. Dinosaur is a tiny little place, and we basically took over the only restaurant in town for lunch since our ride was so short. Two guys in our group ordered the one pound burger, Ryan Curran and Ryan Grumble, and raced to see who could finish first. Grumble finished the burger first, but only by a second or two and there was a little debate so they then ate the fries as well to determine the winner, which Curran finished off first. It was definitely the highlight of the day. (fyi, Dinosaur was named after a large cache of dinosaur bones that have been excavated nearby.)

After Dinosaur we rode about 90 miles to Craig, Colorado. The terrain was somewhere between mountainous and rolling hills and it was arid, though not as bad as Nevada. Rather uneventful to be perfectly honest. But the nice thing was that I rode 90 miles and felt great afterward. Once we arrived we hung out at the Boys & Girls Club; I and another guy taught the kids how to play 500 with the football. We also stayed at the Boys & Girls Club, which was sweet because they had a game room with bumper pool and a cool game called carpet ball, which just involved trying to knock your opponents balls off a ledge of a carpeted board. It's hard to explain, but fun.

After Craig we rode only 36 miles to Steamboat Springs. The ride was pretty easy because even though it was mostly uphill the grade was pretty flat. However it rained and I got really muddy, but that was actually cool. We left really early and as a result arrived in Steamboat by 8:10 in the morning, which was sweet because we had a chance to go swimming at the hot springs. I loved the hot springs because it's basically a swimming pool with bathtub temperature water. Awesome. And we got to relax in the hot tub. Later that night after a friendship visit we had a sponsored dinner at the Steamboat Smokehouse. Dinner was delicious because we had pork and turkey with two kinds of BBQ sauce with beans and mashed potatoes.