Blake's Journey: Day 22: Thin Air

Course: Breckenridge, CO to Empire, CO

Distance: 45 miles

Terrain: One big climb, one big descent.

Max Elevation: 11,990 ft.

Conditions: Cold

Usually you can just pound out anything that’s about 50 miles or less on the bikes. Today was still a big day for JOH North, though. A lot of KRG Capital employees rode along with us. I was originally assigned to be with a ride along, but he ended up wanting to ride with another ride along that did JOH Trans route with him in ’06. Thus, I rode with David and Beau. The first twenty miles of the trip were all uphill. We took our time and just conversed the whole way, so it really wasn’t a big deal. We made it to the summit of Loveland Pass, America’s highest highway, to find the Build America team waiting for us and cheering us on. Everyone took pictures at the top and we had a blast getting creative with them.

The descent was the more fun part. It was about a 10-mile descent, and we got some good speed. We eventually hit a really scenic bike path that had the smoothest road we’ve ridden on so far. I challenged myself to see how far I could take the path without pedaling, and I was able to make it three miles. The rest of the ride was very pretty, and we came to a timely finish at Easter Seal’s Camp. Easter Seal’s Camp is a summer camp for people with disabilities. They come a week at a time and have an awesome facility. The theme for this week is “Around the World,” and tomorrow they’re visiting Zombieville, so they’re going to have all of us cyclists dress up like zombies and chase the campers around. They only way they can prevent themselves from getting bitten is by dancing. Sounds like my kind of game.

When we arrived at the camp, we got to hang out with the Build America team some more before we all dug into the costume room and headed to the camp’s opening ceremony. Once at the ceremony, all of the cabins introduced themselves, and so did JOH and Build America. However, instead of just giving a cheer, we performed a dance that we have been practicing for a couple of weeks now. It’s an easy dance to “Every Time We Touch” by Cascada. People usually get a pretty big kick out of seeing us do it, and we’ve done it multiple times now, so we’re pretty much pros at performing. We loved running around in our costumes and getting to know the campers. They all love being there and seeing us.

I’m excited to be a zombie tomorrow, but we’ve been told that some of the campers might actually attack back. Bearing that in mind, I’m going to need to sleep early in order to prepare.