Day 50, July 7th 2008, beginning in Steamboat Springs, Colorado

When Paul woke up, we headed to the best breakfast spot in town, which was right across the street. As the offer was on the table to stay another day, we thought we should. It would be a nice reward after two of our toughest days back to back. On top of that, we had a schedule to meet Meghan's father Mark in Montana the following week. We figured we would be able to do it easily enough, as we would speed through Wyoming. Chris also mentioned he could get work off and show us around if we wanted.

We came back after breakfast and called Chris who had gone to work that we were going to stick around. He thought he might not be able to get off until 5. We figured we'd show ourselves around for a bit, and maybe one of his roommates, or random stragglers like us would be around at some point.

Rusty, the dinner comic, told us to stop by BAP, a local shop down the road that sold all sorts of gear for camping, and biking. He said they might hook us up with some free stuff if we mentioned his name. They carried Big Agnes stuff, which is the brand of our tent, so we had another in. We walked over to BAP, and began chatting with the guy who was working at the time as we perused the store. He found our trip quite interesting, and there was tons of cool stuff, but we were not successful in getting any free stuff.

I received a call from Chris that he would be able to get out of work at noon… score. He had put in his three week notice that he was going to go back to school for his masters at Fort Fun! Good for him. We headed back to their place empty handed, but happy Chris could show us around. We hung around until Chris showed up.

Chris took us frisbee golfing, which started up near one of the lifts at the ski resort. For those of you who don't know, you throw frisbees towards a "hole" which is a basket with chains on the side with the object of getting it into the basket. Same as golf, pretty simple, and in that vein, can be nearly as frustrating as real golf. Paul and I, the rookies, lost our frisbees a few times. We spent most of our time looking for the damn things. It really is a fun game otherwise, however, probably a lot more fun when you're good.

After that, Chris took us to Fish Creek waterfall. The ride there was nice as it was pretty scenic, and there were tons of ridiculously wealthy people's homes along the way and they weren't even living in them at the time. We took a quick walk down to the waterfall, which was nice, and then headed back to his place.

I had to go to the library to get online, and so did Chris. When I got there, I spoke with Mark to confirm his plans for meeting us in Montana. Plans had changed a bit, and he would be meeting us in a little over a week, before Glacier National Park. We were excited to have him, and Glacier would be a great time. I took care of a few other things while online there, and we headed back.

Chris and Noah then took us up to Strawberry Park, where the natural hot springs were. We drove up this windy dirt road with their bikes in the bike as there was a good mountain biking path on the way back to their house. Chris, who I had met less than 24 hours ago, left us with the keys, and showed us how to sneak in and avoid paying the fee. Sorry mom and dad, but we have to conserve, and we couldn't miss this.

We whacked our way through the bushes in sandals, and earned every bit of that $10 entry fee. The springs were absolutely amazing. I would guess the source water was 130 degrees or more. There were a few pools that the water ran through, each getting a bit cooler than the previous. Even the first pool had to be mixed with a snow melt river running along side to make it cool enough to get in. Paul and I submerged ourselves in the cold river first to get the full effect. We hung out there for a while soaking our travel weary muscles. We were again so glad that we had not sped through this town, and had stayed the extra day.

We returned to some of the same crew as the day prior. Noah was balancing on a slack rope they had out in front of the house tied to two trees. Impressive, that stuff's tough. We got a frisbee toss going in the street near their house. Then, a guy Pauly rolled by on his bike. Noah had worked with Pauly at a restaurant, and they flagged him down. Pauly had done some touring doing freestyle frisbee in the 80's. He could do the most amazing things I have ever seen with a frisbee. Throws, spins, rolls, you name it. Ridiculous.

Chris and Cole (another roommate) had a volleyball game which they skateboarded over to. A few minutes later we followed suit. The fields were across the way, down another underground bike path, a few minutes from there place. It was a cool spot where a bunch of people were hanging out doing outdoorsy stuff on a Monday night. We juggled around the volleyball soccer style for a while, as I simultaneously tried to cheer obnoxiously again for Chris's team.

I wanted to get Pauly on video, so after the game was over we went onto the tennis courts which were lit. Pauly put on a show for us for about 20 minutes again doing the most insane stuff you could imagine with a frisbee. I got a lot of footage [YOUTUBE LINK], and he had quite the crowd. We hung out for a bit more, and headed back to Chris's place.

We snacked on some of the leftover food from the night before which was still delectable. We shot the poop for a while. Cole, whose father rode his motorcycle through Wyoming frequently offered us some help on our path into Wyoming. He had to bring his girlfriend to the airport the next morning quite early, and said he would call his father to ask him for some advice and leave us a not in the morning. Great. After talking about where we had planned on going, Noah mentioned that he would be running a hotel in central Cali at Sequoia National Park in August. I had just talked about how we would have to find a way to get to the park to Paul earlier that day. He offered us a place to stay if we were in the area. Double great.

With all the good news, we called it a night. We would have great memories of Colorado, all of the great people we had met, great sights we had seen, and great challenges we had overcome. Sadly we would be riding into Wyoming the following day. We were excited to live new adventures, but it would be tough to leave Colorado. A comfortable place to sleep, and a list of new friends made it easier.

Life was good.