Today we headed to the 'real' beginning of the West...Colorado!!! The ride quickly put us out into the desert and our first water stop was at the ranch of the cutest old rancher who brought us cold drinks and played us some real cowboy music! He warned us of the rattlesnakes now that we were out in desert country as well, which was good info to know but definitely a little scary and something that we'll have to look out for. We hit the Colorado sign pretty early in the day and took lots of pictures! It was a pretty emotional moment because we all knew how excited Jamie was to see Colorado, but we are so glad we were able to bring her bike there to the state line and have a little piece of her there with us.
As we were biking the last mile into our host in Yuma for the night, we biked past none other than the 4K running team! We cheered them on and squirted them with water as they finished up their miles for the day. We circled back around to cheer them in again also. They are doing a 40 day, relay-style running trip from west to east for the same cause as us! It was so cool to see them, and we got to have dinner and meet them tonight as well. Our host was amazing, serving all 50+ of us for dinner and providing our team with home-stays for the night. I was in a home stay with Joanna, Chelsea, Emily, Katie and Kelsey staying at a family's home who had hosted the 4K for 11 years! So they had it all down and were amazing - beds for all of us, doing our laundry, warm showers, washing our water bottles, the whole 9 yards - so so awesome. We also got to watch the beautiful sunset from our host's porch, and now I know why they call it colorful Colorado! Lastly, our host dad let us take his Pontiac Eclipse red convertible out for a spin. We truly got the royal treatment :). I wish we could spend a few more nights here, but there's so much more to see in Colorado! On we go tomorrow to Fort Morgan!