day 34

today we head up to denver from co springs. my step-mom, brigid, and my step-brother, brad, flew into denver early morning and picked us up from co springs and brought us up to denver. timing worked out well. we got to enjoy a nice brunch at cracker barrel where we all feasted on breakfast goodies. i drove up to denver so brigid could sleep since her and brad were going to be driving towards new mexico later that day. riding in a car is a luxury for evan and i and we enjoyed the speed, comfort, and ease of use compared to our bikes. we got dropped off on colfax and we said our goodbyes and snapped a quick group pic! so great that we got to spend some time with brigid and brad. we then setoff to try and meet up with our friends from Witness who were just traveling through denver for a quick couple of hours. at first we were all turned around and perplexed at the way they have their city laid out but after a handful of minutes we started walking down colfax (the right way this time). i was whistling the infamous five iron frenzy song mentioning colfax & broadway as i went. after some blocks we could see our group of friends coming towards us and our friend, phil running to us. so great to see familiar faces when you are somewhere where you don't know anyone. we gave hugs and hellos like it was nobodies business and chatted with them about our trip and about their camp. they were on a fixed schedule needing to leave real soon to drive back to idaho that evening so we started heading back towards their van at burger king. once we got there, we noticed that their van had been towed; so after numerous "oh my gosh's" and "what do we do's" a call was made to the towing company and the long walk to the containing area was underway. we came across a church where we convinced the pastor to drive us to the tow prison which was still a long ways away. so witness was literally only 10 minutes away from their van when it got towed. ouch! they finally retrieved their van after a hefty fee and we all piled in; they took us back downtown and we said our farewells to once again another set of familiar faces. just the two of us now and we were just meandering through city streets, soaking up the city life since we've been out in the country/mountain/desert life. we walked to their gigantic library where we filled up on water and grabbed a seat where evan read "the voice" (a publication about homelessness) and i took a quick nap (since when i was driving up to denver, everyone in the car was sleeping except me!). we decided to head towards coors field since we were going to hit up a baseball game that night; we went and checked out a cool brewery called the great divide where we hungout for a bit before trekking to the game. our friend, marte, was coming down from ft. collins to join us for the rockies game then take us up to her parents' place for a day. so we met up with her and got our tickets. we had pretty good seats for short notice and for a cheaper price just on the middle upper deck on the first base line facing the rocky mountains. we got to see the most beautiful sunset so far on our trip! we all caught up on eachothers' lives and enjoying the game. yes we did partake in the wave! the game was pretty good and the rockies won 2-0 versus the brewers. we hopped in marte's car and we made our way out to greely but along the way we got to watch a crazy lightning storm just go on and on. it was marvelous! i hope we get to see a few more along our journey but not close enough for us to get zapped. after a little bit of a drive north from denver we settled in to marte's home and we each retired to our own bedrooms.