Day 30 (7/1): Boulder, CO; 50 miles

Needless to say wake-up this morning was a little rough. But we were all psyched to head to Boulder so after some crew chief breakfast we were on the road cruising. Rode with Mr. John Caldwell 3000 himself…a VT boy and Trans-am alumni from ’06…as well as Tony Macias and a couple other CSU guys.

Pretty easy ride all in all (extremely easy if on a good night’s sleep)…so before long we were pullin into Boulder. What a beautiful, fun looking city tucked under the majestic Flat Iron Mountains. John pointed out some sites, including LASP (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics) – a nerdilicious connection to my past interning at Orbital Sciences back home. Finally reached the University of Colorado…nice campus with its own signature reddish “flagstone” (not as cool as Hokie Stone, of course). Pulled up to the CU chapter house…an impressive old style mansion that must hold over 50 guys.

Had some downtime for lunch…so most guys decided to forego the standard crew chief fare and head over to Q’doba right down the street…mmmm. Showered up at the house and looked around before heading over to our lodging at a church down the street.

Around two we headed out for one of our coolest visits yet….playing “Quad Rugby” with the Denver Harlequins team. Ever seen the movie Murder Ball?? These guys actually just got back from winning the national championship of the sport…needless to say the team was a little nervous about playing. The game is pretty simple…all players have no use of their legs and a range of abilities with their arms and hands (rated on a 0 – 3 scale.,..each team must have an equal number of “points”). Players sit in specially designed chairs (designed for smashing into each other!!) and the object is to get the ball into the other team’s “end zone”. When the ball is put into play at one end of the court, players jockey for position…the defense maneuvering their chairs to block the offense from advancing the ball. One of their players, Chance, was definitely the hammer head of the team….slamming into you before you even knew what happened. We all got to play some exhibition matches with a couple members of the Harlequins….then a team of four of our guys actually took their best players on…needless to say they got annihilated. Such a fun game…these guys (and girls…go Joy!) are some serious athletes.

Had the rest of the day off, so a few guys went to get us all some steaks from the store (can never get enough steak) and some brews and we had an awesome cookout on the back deck of the CU chapter house. Played some “Snappa” and enjoyed the sunshine till it was time to head out on the town. Headed over to “The Pit,” a nice little dive and enjoyed some drinks to the entertainment of Grant and Ezra jumping in the pool and Rodney treating us to a truffle shuffle. Sunshine came back out for a bit which is always a good time.