Day 47, July 4th 2008, beginning and ending in Fort Collins, Colorado

Sarah had to work at the emergency vet hospital for most of the day, so we didn't have much for plans. That's okay once in a while my father tells me, and we wouldn't head to A.J.'s party until later in the evening so we just hung around for most of the day. Matt and Lori were putting a bamboo floor in the kitchen, so Paul decided to help out. I was working on something else while super guest had to steal the show.

Matt fired some stuff up on the grill for lunch and we all dug in. I spent a bit more time doing some work, and then we headed down to A.J.'s party. A.J.'s brother Justin happened to work for New Belgium, and is often able to procure some frothy beverages for said occasions. He equipped Paul and me upon arrival. We played Polish horseshoes with Justin and his girlfriend. The game uses a frisbee, two beer bottles, and two PVC pipes. The pipes go in the ground and the beer bottles rest on top and the object of the game is to knock the bottles off the pipes. I don't mean to gloat, but even after switching up teams, my team remained victorious. Clearly I was the x factor.

Our biking stomachs started to take over after a while, so we headed to City Park, where the fireworks were that night. They had some booths set up and we got regular food and some extremely melted ice cream, which was still good.

We stuck around for the firework show which was pretty impressive, and decided against going back to the party as we had the most challenging day of our tour ahead of us. We were going to tackle Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park topping out at 12,183 feet. Fort Collins is at about 4,900… do the math. That's right, we were going to have to climb 50,000 feet to the top, not too shabby.

When we made it back to Sarah's we all chatted for a bit, and we tried to get the best rest we possibly could for the challenge that layeth ahead. Without struggle, there is no progress.

Life was good.