Fort Collins Trip

Last night I was sitting at the bar talking to Andy, who over the last few years has become a valued good friend, about the challenges I've been facing with riding. If I try to go any distance there are neck and back muscles that will spasm so painfully that for moments I go blind. The muscles will lock but I won't notice until I try to move my head at which point I'm greeted with a searing 10 out of 10 unbearable lightning strike of pain that interrupts my vision and overwhelms my being and makes being on the bike dangerous.

"Pain is not much a of deterrent for you, is it?" she had once asked. I thought it was a compliment at the time but have grown to understand that it was not. Pain is a signal. It informs. However, most of us who know pain for too long adapt and our baseline changes and we no longer notice pain in the same way. When it is not severe enough, it no longer informs. It gets lost in the noise. As a result, we do not take it into account. We don't pay attention to the signal. We do not adjust especially in those cases where a simple adjustment or change in behavior could make the signal stop. "Pain is weakness leaving the body." is one of those military slogans one hears. 

But there is pain that comes from weakness, weak muscles straining under a load, and a different pain that informs of structural problems that can lead to malfunction and disability. The problem with those who have become too comfortable with pain is they are no longer able to differentiate between the two. 

"I hurt. Pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled." to paraphrase Spock. 

A guy at the bar who had been listening in on the conversation chimed in, "Getting old sucks."

This has been a frequent refrain of late. More than one person has mentioned to me that maybe I am too old to be doing the things that I do. "You are no longer a young man." they will say. 

For quite a while now I've had a hypothesis. Maybe it is not being old that's the problem. Maybe because of having lived for longer and having developed certain habits over a longer period, the cumulative effect of those habits is the actual problem, not the "being old". Time since last movement in a particular way, not time being alive.

In a "state of nature" we would move much more than we do in this modern world. We would use the full range of  our musculature on a daily basis. But now, especially for us knowledge workers, we spend our days sitting hunched over machines or phones, our necks bent forward, slouching, and otherwise not using the full range of our joints and muscles. Slowly muscles get weak, other muscles get tight, the skeleton gets pulled out of alignment, and when it gets bad enough nerves start getting pushed against and Bad Things Happen(tm).

So maybe it's not being "old". Maybe it's just "time since last mobility". 

And then I realize it's been a couple of years since Duncan and I rode. We used to ride almost every weekend. At our height we would click off nearly 500 miles on a day ride, on a few occasions doing nearly 1000 miles in a weekend. But as his cancer became more a problem, he was no longer able to ride as far and then for the last two years not at all. Breaks my heart. Out of guilt and missing my friend, I wouldn't ride either. The bikes sat. We focused on doing things we could do together which turned out to be the sailboat, physical in its own right but not nearly the frequency.  I only got him out on the boat maybe 6 times if that. Guts me. I tell non-riders that motorcycling is strangely physical. After a long ride I'll often be sore. Not riding is not good for me. 

I was in the North Atlantic on a sailboat in a squall where, freezing and tight, I fell down some stairs while the boat was pitching. My arm got stuck on the handrail as the rest of my body went down. My right shoulder was not ok for some years afterwards. After it didn't improve for longer than I should have waited, I went to physical therapy and they worked on me a bit,  and gave me some exercises but I didn't gain any deeper understanding as to why they were prescribing the given exercises or what they suspected was the underlying problem.. The thing that struck me the most and that I had to adapt to was that the exercises were too easy. 1 pound weights. "If it hurts even the slightest bit, stop."  Wait, what?

Putting my ego aside is fairly easy for me so I did as I was told and I found myself amazed at how much even smallest effort could improve things. Also, it became clear to me that I was ignoring little signals, twinges of pain, that could have informed me of bigger problems to come. 

So did these exercises, but of course, once the pain wasn't there any more, I stopped. It's what humans do. 

And as one can predict, the problems recurred. I went on a 2000 mile earlier this year and things were sort of ok until they were not. It got so bad it took me most of a week to go 500 miles. 

So out of curiosity and with a desire to learn more about the reasons behind given recommendations, I've been following a few doctors of physical therapy on Instagram and that has provided me, over time, with a much better understanding. 

Did I do anything with this understanding? Did I actually put in the effort? 

No, of course not. 

A couple weeks ago, after a short 200 mile ride where I was in serious pain again I realized if I can't address this I'm not going to make it on my upcoming Colorado trip. I pondered not riding out. Facing that level of pain made me dread it and I wondered if maybe my days of long distance motorcycling were over. 

Then I remember this is not the first time that I've faced something like this. Back in the late 90's at the height of my illness, my joints hurt so much, I just didn't ride. There were several years there where I hardly rode at all. My mom would try to get me to give up motorcycling completely. Then I discovered The Diet to address my auto-immune disorder and I found I was able to ride again. Not too many years after that I went on my longest trip, 15,600 miles to Deadhorse, Alaska and back. 

So as a harbinger of doom, my back locked up on me during my day to day life. I was sitting at the bar talking to Andy about it realizing that if I was hurting that much just in my day to day life sitting there talking to Any, things on the road were not going to go well. 

So I decided to "just do". I had a list of physical therapy exercises designed to address my issues, at least as far as I understood them, but I knew that I had not given them the full attention they required in previous attempts. So each morning now I go through the list. But it's not just enough to do a given exercise or stretch, I find I have to be curious about it and probe the muscle and joint. For example there's a scalene stretch where while sitting on a chair you grab the seat with one hand and stretch your neck in the opposite direction. So I've tried this many times and have found it useless.

However, approaching it differently, clearly the developers of this stretch have some reason for it, or so I imagine, maybe there's some small detail that I am not getting. So as I tilt my head to the side for the stretch I tried adjusting the angle forward and back just a few degrees and noted a difference in pain. I'd stop at a given pain point making certain I wasn't pulling too hard and wait. And interestingly, over days, I've noticed every so slight increases in range of motion. 

After four days of going through various neck, shoulder, and arm exercises, I was no longer in day to day pain. 

"I guess this is just what you're going to have to do for the rest of your life." Andy said. 

"I suppose so." I replied. 

The other day, he messaged me, "Have you done your exercises?". 

A good friend.

Sleep had been elusive for the last few days. My departure was delayed by 24 hours as I tried to get the bike and everything else ready for this trip. 

But at the crack of 14:30 I left. 

 

I needed to stop at Bob's BMW (now Bob's Motorcycles because they are now a Ducati dealership as well) for an oil filter. I figure I'll change the oil when I'm in New Mexico. It'll be due. 

I stood at the empty counter for a while when Drew walked up. It had been ages since I've seen him. I didn't recognize him at first since it has been so long. He offered his condolences about Duncan and we got to talking about bikes, injuries, lost friends. I felt the pull of the road but decided, no, these are the moments that matter. I hadn't known it but Drew had been in a horrible deer collision accident. A deer ran out in front of his bike as he was doing about 80 ... ouch. He told me that he had contacts across the country and if I needed anything to contact him. 

He talked about his best friend, Paul, who coincidentally sold me my bike back in 1992. 

I walked out to my bike when a guy walked up, Todd, who I did not know. I think he works in the service department. He asked if I had had the bike painted so I told him the story of the engine-ectomy and how Duncan was the driving for behind getting this bike back on the road. We talked for a bit about my trip and he suggested that I try tandem base jumping in Moab. "Ummm. No. That's like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane." Apparently, that's something he's done 1300 times. Damn. 

I told him that I was planning to ride South to Arizona and then New Mexico.

"A real adventurer!" he said. 

After much longer than I had intended, I hit the road. My plan to manage pain is to stop every 60 minutes, which is surprisingly challenging. The desire is to always go. Over the next hill. Through the next pass. Stopping always always always feels wrong. 

But honestly, it's in the stopping where the memories are made. 

I stopped at a rest stop on I70 and as if it couldn't get hit home more clearly, I was surrounded by half a dozen people morbidly overweight and so mobility constrained they were having trouble stepping up from the pavement to the sidewalk. The curb was higher than they could manage. I saw one guy spend a good five minutes trying to get back into his truck clearly in so much pain hardly able to walk. 

I pondered helping but I did not know how. 

There are an endless array of conditions people can have over which they can have precious little influence. And maybe these people were suffering from some of those. Without knowing their back stories there's no way of knowing, but there are probably a wider set of conditions that we do have at least some influence over. 

"Motion is medicine." they say. 

I decided to take a detour once I reached Breezewood and headed North instead of Northwest.

As I left the Sheetz parking lot the sun was perfectly aligned on the hill I approaching. It was blinding.

I'm in Altoona now. Weird town. 

The skies on the way up here were dramatic.

 

I rode 181 miles this afternoon, the majority of it interstate, a.k.a. SuperSlab. I haven't  been able to ride slab for that long in years now. My back, neck, shoulders hurt but they didn't lock up. 

From here I only have 431 miles to go to meet Jay in Michigan. I may have challenged him to a game of pool that I am sure to lose. 

"Why are you going to Michigan?"

"Pool"

"Makes sense". 

 

Many many years ago, by human standards, my sister had a friend who had an Alaskan Timber Wolf, which was explained to me was illegal. Her friend had claimed on paperwork it was something like 2% Husky and as a result was allowed to keep it as a pet. I don't know the circumstances under which she came to "own" this wolf but I think she had it from when it was very little. 

She visited my sister in Maryland. I forget the year but I got to meet the wolf who she had brought with her to my parents house, apparently because it could not be left alone. This is all a very long time ago and my memory of these events and the stories behind them are imperfect. I remember how struck I was upon meeting the wolf how tall and lean it was with nasty nasty teeth. It was honestly scary looking and I was quite concerned about the safety of all involved, but to my surprise it was so very very timid. My sister's Basset hound, Faust, would dominate it repeatedly which amused my sister to no end. 

I remembered thinking, "This is not ok." to have this wild animal in this context. I thought it seemed afraid. I was fascinated by how it did not behave like a dog at all. When it smelled something it would raise its nose up not down to the ground. Unlike a dog, it did not seem to understand hand motions or facial expressions at all. I felt it was endlessly confused and out of sorts. I wish I could remember her name, but she showed us that any smell the wolf encountered that was unfamiliar would prompt it to become one with the smell. It was in the living room with us and she sprayed some Lysol on the carpet and the wolf immediately started rolling around in it. 

This animal was wild. Despite its timid demeanor one could feel this animal was not in a context that was anything like it had evolved in. I remember my sister telling me how much work it took to keep this wolf and how it would howl so much that it became a problem for her friend. One could just feel that this animal had not evolved to be around humans. I felt for the critter but knew so much less back then than I do now. There was a part of me that thought it was really cool to have met a wolf as I had, as a little kid, pondered that an old wolf was my "spirit animal", after having been introduced to that concept. 

In contrast I remember a dog that a friend of mine, Megan, had encountered in the woods on one of her hikes, a hound that had apparently been abandoned some while ago. It approached her and as I remember her describing it it was clear the hound was in bad shape and looking for help. The hound saw her and approached the human clearly looking for for help.

Interesting.

She tried her best to find the owner, most likely a hunter, but to no avail so after quite a bit of effort she adopted the dog. If I remember correctly she named her Maybe. In contrast to the wolf, Maybe was a socialized animal who knew how to be around humans and had clearly grown up around them, and for some reason that is true of "domesticated" dogs and not wild animals, knew how to fit in. Maybe was a wonderful dog that I met a few times.  

I ponder the behavior of the wolf in contrast to the abandoned dog. Dogs have been around humans long enough that one can argue they have evolved traits that cause them to be able to live comfortably, as far as we can tell, with humans and humans have also developed an affinity for dogs as evidenced by research that says that losing a dog evokes many of the same brain circuitry as losing an offspring. 

There is, however, an in-between class of canine. There are canines that have all the physical evolved characteristics of domesticated dogs but have not grown up in that context, but instead have grown up in the wild, more in the context of the wolf. 

Feral dogs. Unsocialized but evolved to be with humans. Well, at least that is a story we tell ourselves. 

There is a story of a particular feral dog that has occupied my mind for some years now. A good Facebook friend who I have never met in person, Samantha, took in a feral dog, and for years has been telling this captivating story of slowly, not taming, but befriending this feral dog meeting her where she was, with the patience and compassion of a saint or Zen master, accepting that this was dangerous and managing the danger. 

And even though this feral dog developed in the context of the wolf, I can tell from the stories, that wolf behavior is not learned. There are vestiges, echoes, hints of a life with humans the dog would have been better suited to. Yes, it adapted as many critters can adapt, but the infrastructure for something different, maybe better, was built in. And with Samantha's work befriending this dog and showing her nervous system a safety she has never known, more doglike behaviors have started to show, sometimes dramatically.

I hope to visit with Samantha and her husband Ron on this trip in Moab and meet the dog that has been the subject of so many stories I have read and has fueled my thinking. 

How is any of this in any way related to a cross country motorcycle trip? 

Many people talk about the reason "why they ride". They tell stories of freedom, individuality, etc. Some talk about "wind therapy". 

I have often pondered the question, "Why do I ride?" The original motivation for riding to Colorado was because Kaitlyn, Bruce's oldest, is getting married and I was told she wanted me there. I didn't even ponder for an instant flying out. I knew, as if it was a memory of a decision already made, that I was going to ride. 

It's a bad time of year to ride. Colorado is going to be cold. It's dangerous. Two wheels. Out in the elements. Heat. Cold. Dust. Bugs. Blinding Western setting sun. Traffic. Deer. Potholes. 

It would make so much more "sense" to fly out, go to the wedding and then fly back. 

But instead I ride despite the fact that I am in a great deal of pain. It costs ridiculously more in time, money, and effort than flying, but nevertheless I ride. 

Why?

When I was a little kid I was always drawn to wandering. As soon as I was allowed to, I would walk as far as I could. When I got my first bicycle I would explore every trail I could find. And then when I got my first motorcycle, at the ripe old age of 7, I would ponder going farther. As I was permitted to go a bit farther, I would explore. Occasionally I'd encounter other kids on their proper dirt bikes, I had been given a Harley X90 two stroke street bike which I rode on trails with. Other kids had the cool thin knobby tired proper dirt bike. But they always wanted to ride so fast and irresponsibly. I wanted to go slowly but far. 

And when I got my first real street bike, it was a foregone conclusion I was going to use it to go somewhere. 

And that's how it's always been. I see a vehicle and I think of going. I never understood this at the time but see it clearly now in retrospect. 

On the Great 2010 Alaska trip of 2010 I began to understand that being Out There (Out Here?) brought me a calm that I did not know in my day to day life. On many trips after that, I found the same calm and would ask myself time and time again, "Why can't I feel at home the way I do on the road?" 

No other thing I did brought the same feeling. So I would tell myself, "I ride because it brings me a peace I have not known anywhere else."  It makes no sense. A two wheeled contraption hurtling me through time and space at dangerous velocities death constantly milliseconds away. 

Why? 

I ponder the feral dog evolved to live in a different context. 

Humans, as evidenced by the fact that they are now all over the planet, are a traveling species. While there are those of us who feel compelled to live in one spot there are others who are compelled to wander. 

Why does a dog chase a stick? Why does a dog want to go for walks and never get tired of it? 

Why do humans like language and stories? 

Why do I ride? 

Maybe the answer is simply I have inherited some recessive traits handed down that evoke the traveler and that somehow riding evokes enough of whatever it is. Maybe that's all there is to it. 

Interestingly, the only other thing I have found the evokes the same sense of peace, is sailing far. 

So much has happened over the last few days. So many stories to tell. So little time to tell them.

Dana sent me a message, "Why are you in Michigan. I thought you were going to Colorado?"

"I am. But I challenged a friend of a game of pool. Priorities!"

I rode up to Michigan because I challenged Jay to a game of pool. Meeting his family and the impressions, insights, and conversations and what they evoked could occupy a tome. There are just some humans you meet where you think, "More of these, please." 

There is so much to say, but it has gotten quite late. 

So I leave you with a some photos:

 

On the 2010 Epic Deadhorse, Alaska ride, I knew who I was writing for. There were all these new moms who were very very concerned about my untimely demise when I told them that I was riding my street bike, the bike I am on now, up the haul road of Ice Road Truckers fame all the way to Deadhorse and, oh by the way, those 424 miles are mostly unpaved they universally responded with, "You're going to die! You have to send me a text message or email every day to let me know you're ok!" After it got to be about 20 of them, I confided in one of them that there was no way I was going to be able to do this so she suggested, "Why don't you write a blog? That way we can all stalk you and when the updates stop we'll know roughly where you bit it?" 

This made sense to me. The rest is history. 

Since then, however, I've tried to write. I tried on the 2016 Trans-America Trail trip. I've tried again sporadically but the problem now is that I don't know who I am writing for. I have those who have asked me to write, but with no particular concerns. I now have a friends list here that spans so many domains. There are so many professional motorcyclists, world travelers, journalists, real adventurers, and others ... The vast majority of the moms that used to be concerned about my untimely demise have moved on away from social media. The thing about the moms was that I could ask myself the question, "What is it about this experience of traveling by motorcycle across this vast expanse that they would not know?" And that led me to see things from a different perspective and see what I was doing at the time through beginner eyes. And I wrote from that perspective not knowing anything about writing. 

But now I find myself a bit adrift. There are so many thoughts, ideas, and views on these trips, even through the "boring" sections, that I don't know what to capture and what to let slip into oblivion. There's something about being on a motorcycle out in the air alone over so many miles that opens the mind and calms the soul. There is time to think in a way I just seem to be unable to in the limiting walls of that cage I call my house. 

I remember years ago, Yun tried to convince me to try a helmet communicator, a Sena. I was skeptical about having some voice in my helmet. He convinced me by saying,"It'd be great for training." Duncan had similar reservations. Interestingly, the communicators changed everything for the better. There were years where Duncan and I would ride almost every weekend, and while over the decades we had known each other we would have good conversations, /NOTHING/ compared the conversations we would have while on our separate bikes most often riding twisty mountain roads. 

At one point he said, "So much of my being is focused on simple survival right now that the loud cacophony of voices I usually hear are silent and there's just enough focus left to have this conversation."

Megan said, referencing Buddhist thought, "It quiets the monkey voices."

There's a quiet Out Here. 

This trip is different than any of the longer motorcycle trips I've ever taken. Usually, I leave with a general idea of what direction I would like to go and then let circumstances dictate what happens. Adventure begins where the plan ends and I love those moments where things are redirected because of some unexpected event .... like that moment at a dusty automated gas station out in the Big and Flat when I first met Robert and after some conversation and questions he invited me to a saloon in Dodge City .... and suddenly I found myself on the Cannonball Centennial Ride.

However, for this trip I am doing something very different. I have a number of planned stops. Michigan was the first stop where I got resoundingly beaten in a 40+ games of pool. (There will be a rematch!) Now I am moving onto Fort Collins, Colorado to attend a wedding but following Route 34 based on a number of suggestions which is turning out to be a much nicer alternative to the super slab.

From there I have a very carefully curated week of routes to ride and specific places to see on specific dates thanks to Samantha who used to run a motorcycle touring company. She has generously provided me with an itinerary of amazing roads, stops, and experiences along the way I would never have been able to even consider let alone have access to. To say I am grateful for this would be an understatement. After laying out the initial plan (which if you are interested in you can see if you click on the Plan tab above, click Open Interactive Map, and zoom into the blue part on the left side of the map) she suggested she could tweak it based on the kinds of things I like and whatever my preferences are. 

I responded, "I would like to see this land through your eyes, through a perspective that is not my own." 

To a large degree I ride to get away from myself. If I ride fast enough, it takes a while for my demons to catch up and I have a moments peace.

However travelling like this means I am on a schedule and  I have an aversion to schedules because, well, I am sick and I never know how I am going to feel tomorrow and how far I might be able to go although in the last many years that has become somewhat less of a problem. 

So far so good, however. Today I rode 340 miles and while yesterday was a bit painful and involved 30 minute stops every hour, for some reason today suddenly the pain was a fraction of what it has been and for the first time in years I rode 194 miles non-stop and was fine. I was riding slower that I usually do. I have discovered that the pressure from the wind at 75 to 80 mph (all the officers in my friends list .. my speedometer is clearly inaccurate) stressed my neck. If I putt along at 65 mph it's much more tolerable so I am able to go further. 

And, as a result, for the first time in my life, I am spending a lot of time in the right lane getting passed like I'm standing still ... by Harleys. 

How the mighty have fallen. But then again, what makes humans the dominate species on planet? Adaptability. 

So now I am that slow geezer puttin along in the left lane. But today I was /fine/ and could have easily done at least another hundred if not more. So the possibility is raised if I continue to do what I'm doing, maybe I can get back to the long days at higher speed. 

We'll see.

Today was different than yesterday. Getting out of Michigan involved a lot of slab. I had a number of Facebook users suggested I should avoid that section of slab South of Chicago because it's always a parking lot. I initially disregarded this until I was at a gas station when a woman asked a man within ear shot why so many cars were getting off the Interstate. I looked at Google and saw gridlock. I thanked her profusely and proceeded on back country roads around the blockage and promptly decided to head South to avoid further nastiness. 

Looking at the map there was what looked like one good East West road, Route 30, which if I had a working memory I would have remembered as the Lincoln Highway. 

I got off the interstate before yet another backup and was deceived by nice country roads when I turned onto Route 30 and found ...

Route 30 West from 421 should be avoided at all costs. The land has been overtaken by a cancer of consumerism that has metastasized that has engulfed the distinctiveness of the land and turned it into a monotony of strip malls, gas stations, vape shops, etc for longer than one can imagine possible. It feeds on the souls of the unwary who wander in, the husks of which can be seen ambling about under the oppressive sky. I barely managed to escape. At one point, there was a mirage of a Starbucks but I knew it was just trying to lure me in to my demise, like sirens on the rocks. 

Just avoid. Put skull and crossbones markers on it. 

"Just say no." 

In contrast today was so much better. 

A number of people  on Facebook suggested I ride route 34. One user laid out a route from Ottawa Southwest which turned out to be a much nicer alternative to the Interstate.

At one point I came across an Army Corp of Engineers Dam and Lock, "Starved Rock Lock and Dam". 

There was this huge tug boat behind these long barges filled with coal and benzene covered in explosion hazard signs. 

For some reason I have always been drawn to big industrial and architectural sites. 

One of the things I miss about cross country travel in the Before Times was that things were different. Each new area you went into had a different feel, a slightly different culture, and one got to see ever so slightly into the lives of the people that lived there.

However, these days things are so homogeneous that everything looks the same. The old places are dying off and slowly the consumerist cancer is turning us all the same bleaching away the distinctiveness of varied populations.

There are, however, remnants remaining if you wander far enough away from the common routes. 

I have never seen a gas station sign like this before. I would say it was false advertising. 

It was neither a bar, nor a grill, but they did have gas, 87 octane. The credit card slots on the pumps had long since failed. Inside, they had your basic convenience store wares with a shockingly large selection of liquor.  

 

The miles clicked by. Hours felt much less. This i.s a thing that happens to me on the motorcycle. I notice I experience time differently. In a car, a day feels like agony. On a motorcycle, the hours click by as if my relationship with the passing of time has changed. I wonder if this is how early man felt crossing long expanses ever so slowly. I swear motorcycling invokes some primordial genetic memory and long hidden features of the human critter.

There was a dramatic sky.

I had not noticed that the routing algorithm I use had routed me along a section of Interstate when I thought I had routed over Route 34. That's one of the time consuming details of curating a route. One has to really take the time to examine the route in detail which is so time consuming.  

 There was a train. These things are crazy long.

And it has been quite a long while, but I have found myself once again in the land of the Open Sky Above the Flatness. 

And today, I crossed the Mississippi River and entered Iowa. 

As one traverses this land, one encounters huge industrial infrastructure.  

But mostly it looks like this for hours on end. 

The clouds set in and at one point I noticed this dramatic demarcation line in the clouds in the distance. 

It had been quite hot all day. Mid to upper 80's. The sun was oppressive. Then more clouds moved in and it started to rain and the temperature plummeted 25 degrees. The thermometer on the bike always reads high because of the heat off the engine. 

I decided not to put on the electric vest. I wanted to see what my shoulders and back would do. For decades now once it gets under about 55 deg F my back and shoulders would lock up hoorribly. This has been happening since I was a teenager. What has been different over the last few years is that it now happens in the heat as well. 

To my surprise, while the pain increased a bit, I did not lose any range of motion and at no point did the muscles spasm uncontrollably locking up my neck. We'll see if this a durable change but my intention is to continue what I doing. 

At one point the sun tried to break through the clouds, but failed. 

After much flatness I was surprised to see hills.  

I am now near Osceola, Iowa. I do not recommend it. This was the 340 mile mark and when I looked at the beginning of the day there are a number of name brand motels and it looked like a good selection of restaurants.

The restaurants are all closed. and there's no way I'm doing fast food. 

So I found a bar and grill next to a hotel with vacancies not far away only to realize it's a casino. 

This place is weird. 

If I continue this pace I might be in Fort Collins a whole two days early.