Day21

(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!

PHOTOS OF THE DAY
Skip's first load of laundry. Is that even possible??!!	If you look close, you can see that John & James are trying out what it would be like to sit in the cockpit.
The boys thought it was really cool that the Academy had a number of falcons that cadets trained/worked with through out the year.	Now had we been standing in front of a submarine; that would have been really COOL!!
Thanks for coming out and being part of our cross country bike trip Granny Carole and Grandpa Bob. We'll miss you.	Even as a Navy guy I have to admit the AF really has a great location for their Military Academy. What a back drop!!

Day 21 (Sat 7/18/09)

Rest day & Air Force Academy

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