Here in DENVER!

I arrived yesterday afternoon in Denver. I had purposely picked a window seat when I bought my ticket, so I could see the mountains when we landed, but yesterday's haze hid the view.

I could see just the thinnest trace of the legendary peaks.

After a slight baggage guffaw(please note: gate checked baggage doesn't always appear miraculously where you expect it to post flight), I was on my way to Tracy's car, already packed with gear for the upcoming trip. Canoeing and Connection- 17 single cancer survivors venturing over 3 days on the Colorado River- is finally about to happen.

Lots to do before then. Today was a doozy. Tracy, Kat (one of the guides) and I just got back from a huge restaurant supply superstore. This place is only for the SUPER serious. Normally you can only get into this place if you own a restaurant---but Kat had a connection.

Let me tell you- this place makes Sam's Club look like a roadside stand. We are talking orange jackets that they supply you with so you can roll your industrial cart through the giant meat freezer. Here Kat and Tracy pose with only some of the stuff we then carted off and packed into Tracy's SUV. The final bill was probably about half what we would have paid in a typical grocery store.

Tracy and I just finished stuffing everything into every inch of freezer and fridge space she had and threw the rest in coolers filled with ice. Pheewww!

I guess it hit me that the trip, a plan that's been in the works for months, has finally arrived. Tracy is a total wonderwoman---I'm just trying to keep up with her. She dreamed up this program on a wing and a prayer and gathered all of us together to help her achieve it. We've got such a fun adventure ahead. Tomorrow we will put our canoes in a town called Loma. Our final destination is Westwater Utah. Below is a map of our basic route.

This is going to be it for a while...pretty hard to blog on the river, folks... but I will surely update when I'm back home safe and dry. Hope everyone is enjoying their own last "summer hurrahs."