Rabbit Ears named Berthoud

Segment 4: Where do I begin? (you get pictures this time)

Well Eastern Utah was pretty boring. After Salt Lake City we traveled over two 1500 ft mountain passes to get to the city of Heber which is a beautiful little place. Everyone got to swim in a crater hot springs. It was a delightful place. The city of Midway, nearby, is designed to imitate Switzerland. After Heber, we had 100 miles over a 2500 ft pass into the city of Roosevelt and then the next day we had 80 days into Dinosaur Colorado. pause. Did you say Dinosaur Colorado? yes, yes i did. A town of 300 people, 330 when we were there, where the main tourism attraction is Dinosaur National Monument. Other than that, the town is pretty boring. We got to celebrate a riveting 4th of July that night. (The lightning was a better show)

In Colorado, things began to look up (literally). We climbed gradually up to the city of Craig. We had a build day in Craig where we all seperated into 7 different groups and helped people with any thing they needed done to their houses. I picked "Scottie's" house for obvious reasons. Turned out Scottie is a grandma with a broken hip and leg. Wasnt expecting that one. We helped her oil her log cabin, mow her lawn, trim her tree, cut her firewood, weedwack, and various other small jobs. She was very thankful as she laughed it would have taken her twenty minutes to plug in the weedwacker. And I am officially a manly man now that I can axe wood. It's a pretty cool talent.



After Craig we started toward the Rockies where we climbed over Rabbit Ears pass at 9426 feet and then dropped back down to the city of Kremmling at 7000 ft. It was a very fun 94 mile day. During the day, we passed through Steamboat Springs where I grabbed a sweet little sticker at the tourist center. My bike is getting pretty covered. The next day we climbed even higher as we crossed over Berthoud Pass at 11,300 ft. If you want to visit sweet, awesome little towns, go to Winter Park. That place is the Beesnees. At the top of the pass, we were greeted with a torrential downpour of hail for 30 minutes, making us all scurry to the bathroom for shelter. Lets see, what else happened that day? OH, 6 miles away from Idaho Springs, I took a doozy of an accident where I dislocated my shoulder temporarily. After assessing the road rash, gashes, and getting my shoulder to move again, I carefully hopped on my bike and rolled the last 6 miles down hill to the church where I was taken to get 4 stitches in my left leg. That wasn't going to stop me from completing my last two rides though, so be sure in knowing that I rode the next day, 50 miles downhill into Downtown Denver, two blocks from the Capitol Building. Luckily, we had a day off in Denver which is a pretty cool city (Portland is still better though). And finally, yesterday, we biked to Colorado Springs in the wind, but it was well worth it as we descended toward Pikes Peak. This morning, I spent the sunrise at Garden of the Gods and got some sweet photos. Ill post those later so be looking forward to that.

Well, the trip is over. I traveled 1800 miles over 6 states, climbed at least 10 major mountain passes ranging from 1,000 to 4,000 ft elevation gains, struggled through wind, basked in the sun, persevered through painful crashes, lived up every city to the best of my potential, but most importantly, I had numerous spiritual conversations with people, and I helped families in need that desperately needed it, all to the glory of God. It's taught me a lot about myself! I will definitely write another post about all the things I've learned and experienced but that's for another time. Thanks so much to all of you helped pray, support, or read along the trip. I couldn't have done it without you! Thank you for helping taking part in this story in my life, and in the life of our Savior's work.


Until next time,. . .