Yeah Baby Durango!

This is a totally different world up here. Today at one point on the ride I felt like it was Battle Star Galactica. Durango is another old town built in a valley much like Tucson. Mountains surround the whole downtown and college area, that is small, it's only for 15,000 people, but these mountains are different than ours. They are huge and right on the door step of town. Oh and green and filled with huge rocks.

We got here last night and went straight to dinner so the team was in good spirits from the get go. This after a 6 hour drive and breakfast and dinner at Nickles house.

Thanks Nick. While in Flagstaff we ended up all crashing on Nick's floor. Sardines probably have it better, but since we are not fish it worked out great. We spent the night with Nick watching movies and made bean burritos. Breakfast was egg and potato burros and we were out the door by 9am.

Monday night was just a meet and greet with the coaches up here. Matt Shriver and Dave Hagan. They kind of told us what to expect and not to go outside alone because of the bears. That's right bears on campus. So you know just like home.

Tuesday 9am was the start of our first ride. 9am hello. We usually have to be back at 9am in the desert. WOW 9am. When they told us we were going to have to start early most of the kids just laughed. 9am that's like winter time stuff.

So today's ride was roughly 12-13 miles, of terrian like nothing we had ever seen. The team rode super well and were incredibly polite. I hope that the coaches up where impressed because I was pretty happy. I mean only Lizzy fell into a ditch. She was not hurt at all, heck I was able to take a picture of her once we realized that all was ok.

We rode to the top of Telegraph mountain today around and back. Hard for me to really tell the trails because most of the time I was just smiling too big. This place is just so fun.

After the ride was lunch and a great presentation on Training plans by Matt Shriver. Dude is smart. We were in an auditorium room and the kids all thought the little desks off the arms of the stadium chairs were really cool. I learned a ton and was really happy to ask a lot of questions that I have had for a while.

We are having a great time and really just can't wait to ride some more.