denver

broken tooth?! yep, it appears that after a mid-afternoon snack on reduced fat wheat thins halfway between the utah/colorado stateline and Denver I discovered something funky going on in my mouth. I'm not sure if the jagged edge is actually hurting my tongue or if my tongue is just so alarmed at the change of events that it can't leave it alone.

when we were finally allowed off the train (they had to turn it around and perfectly align it with the track, blah blah) and the checked baggage was finally delivered, the baggage claim fool was SO rude! I asked him to hold my bike box until I get back on the train on sunday and he told me I'd have to pay the $3/day for storage fees!! for a box?!

it was a nice 4 mile ride to suji's from downtown. It was an adventure in and of itself to stabilize my bags and get them to stay put while riding - just as I'd experienced in Portland and as I'm sure I'll experience in Chicago and beyond. I'm almost to the point of shipping some things back home.

eventually made it to suji's place and met her precious cat, Major Tom. then we were out for a drink and a couple of rounds of free pool.

slept through suji's morning - I guess I have to super sleep off my big train rides and car drives, I can't imagine what I'm going to do after my 25 hour train ride from Chicago to New York...

finally got myself moving and dug most of the ride to Denver Spoke, a bike shop just outside of campus. got some air in my tires and then got a free Denver bike map! free! met suji on campus, made a plan for grocery shopping and homework. see, as payment for letting me stay with her and mooch for five days I've agreed to help her do her homework this week. so I make sure she gets it done early so that we can have the evening to do as we please. so far so good!

the best part of the day for sure was when suji rented a bike from one of those electronic stations. apparently she hadn't ridden a bike since she was 8, but I thought she did well considering. she was definitely swearing on my name a mere three blocks down the road. but we safely, and eventually!, made it to the grocery store. she couldn't have ran that bike any faster to it's electronic rental station thingy.

had another cool ride back to her place from the grocery store - arriving shortly after she did in her cab. after we rebooted we scoped the scene at the bar down the street where I got to catch the last 60 miles or so of *some* recent stage of the tour de france.

now I think it's finally bedtime. there's a few bike routes on this map I'd like to check out tomorrow before suji gets out of class.