Colorado!

Location: Fort Collins, CO

Whew! Finally out of Wyoming. Not that we all didn't enjoy it -- it just got a bit...bland...after a while. As the national parks faded into the distance behind us, we entered a very flat, very windy, not-very populated stretch of the state. (Basically most of it.)

And it's HOT. I'm from Seattle, and I don't do hot well. We've only hit a couple days of iffy weather -- mostly thunder/lightning storms here in the past couple days -- so that's nice. It rains differently here than in Seattle, too. Back in good ol' WA, you get the gray mist, then a drizzle, then rain. But here, it's lightning and thunder, downpour of huge raindrops for five minutes, then everything passes over. It's weird.

I haven't been in the weather that much though; I've been off the bike for a couple days (if you've been checking out the photos on the Push America website, you may have noticed). But I should be back in top condition and ready to hit the road again here in the next day or so. In the meantime, I've been helping the crew do all their duties. And for the most part...it's boring as hell.

But! I've gotten a lot of time to read and have finished five novels so far in the three weeks or so that we've been riding. They are as follows: The Art of Racing in the Rain, A Clockwork Orange, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Of Mice and Men, and State of Fear.

Yesterday, we had a friendship visit with the Arc of Laramie County. It was really fun, and for a while I was speaking with a gentleman named Jeff. Jeff has Down syndrome, and was hearing but also liked to sign. So we spent some time learning how to sign some stuff. That reminded me that I'm going to be taking American Sign Language this coming year in school, so afterwards I headed to Barnes and Noble in Cheyenne, WY to find an ASL book to get an early start. I got one, but also ended up walking by one of the random tables they have and saw George Orwell's 1984. It's on my imaginary list of books I want to read before I die, so I snatched it right up and started it today. Yay for reading! (I used to read a lot in middle/high school, but with college comes a drastic increase in other obligatory readings...i.e. textbooks. So now I'm taking advantage of this downtime!)

So we're in Colorado. And it's the Fourth of July! Happy birthday, America. I don't know if we have anything planned as far as celebrations go, but I'm sure we do. I'm kind of along for the ride so we'll see. My grandparents used to live in Colorado, and I faintly remember visiting a handful of times, and I'm excited to be back.

I hope I've been posting regularly enough for all of you! Enjoy your Fourth, read all warning labels on your pyrotechnics, and I'll catch you later.