Day 33
July 4th, 2007

The Man.
For today's ride we had an extra special ride along, Bruce Rodgers. Bruce is the man who started it all. In 1987 Bruce Rodgers decided that he wanted to ride his bike across the country to help raise funds and awareness for people with disabilities on behalf of Pi Kappa Phi's Push America. In the summer of 1987 Bruce rode solo across the country spreading the word of Push America. And now in 2007 Bruce rode with us from Denver to Colorado Springs. Bruce rode in a group with Jake and I. It was great to get a chance to talk with Bruce about his trip in 1987 about his life since then. Bruce is a top contender for one of the most humble men I have ever met. Upon getting into Colorado Springs we met up with members of the US paralympic cycling team. We then joined them for a formal arrival with media into the Olympic Training Center. The Center is used to train Olympic athletes for summer and winter Olympics. The paraolympic athletes train there as well. We ate lunch at the training center's cafeteria. The food was great because it was all specially prepared for the athletes in training. After lunch we went to our lodging. We are staying at Colorado College for the next two days. Specifically we are being lodged at the school's Russian house humorously called “Mullet House.” The house is set up as student housing so it was great to have a bed again. For dinner we ate at the house of friends of a member of our team from Texas Christian University. It was a great family cooked meal. After dinner we were scheduled to go back to Denver to watch a Colorado Rockies game with some fireworks but it didnt work out. We were not able to drive back up to Denver due to a bad downpour. Instead a group of us went out to watch the movie Transformers.