Farewell Fruita

Well this week has been action packed to say the least - the camp ground has been invaded by several families from the CNP and we've been enjoying the company. Mainly, everyone does their own thing but a daily ride is usually coordinated by one of the more organized people and we go from there!

A definite highlite of the week was an epic climbing day for myself, Andrew & Jeff - we climbed the Independence Monument via a classic climb called Otto's Route on Thursday. The climb is a 5 pitch trad route that took us to the top of a desert tower - pretty amazing & such an accomplishment! We completed the climb with  loooong rappels in just the nick of time as a bad weather system was blowing in. So instead of getting to relish in our achievement, we instead tried to outrun a desert sandstorm - but we enjoyed a celebratory beer & pizza at a local restaraunt afterwards. The weather this week has been all over the place - melting hot some days and cool and windy on others.

Another highlight of the week has been taking in the 17th annual Fat Tire Festival here in Fruita - yesterday we enjoyed some live music, beer and a stroll through the demo tents and today the CNP represented in the annual Clunker Race. Andrew and I were one of 3 CNP teams to sign up for this race - basically an Amazing Race style of an event where we rode our bikes to various checkpoints and had to compete in different challenges as a team (no, we did not kill each other). Alas, we didn't podium but we did receive special mention and award for our costumes. The Whittens cleaned up in the Tandem division and the Woodmans (with Ella leading the pack) took home the ever so awesome last place trophies!

We are sad to be leaving Fruita behind but looking forward to a week in Moab - not sure how much energy we have left but we'll keep ya posted!