Colorado shooting: The long road to Theater 9

Barton snapped pictures of the people they met along the way, old and young, boisterous and easy-going. He also posted photo after photo on his Twitter feed of sights they encountered — the sparkling Chesapeake Bay, a golden sunset over the Natchez Trace Parkway in Tennessee, William Faulkner’s home in Mississippi, the endless prairies of Texas, the distant peaks of the Colorado Rockies.

Mile after mile, they saw the best of America. They reveled in its diversity. They welcomed the serendipity of the road. Most of all, they marveled at the generosity that seemed to follow them wherever they went: The man in Dale­ville, Va., who offered a warm shower and the shelter of his back porch. The woman in Glasgow, Ky., who brought them hot chocolate at a campground. The old rancher near Tupelo, Miss., who shook their hands and slipped them $20. The middle-aged diner in Denton, Tex., who spontaneously paid for their dinner at Rooster’s Roadhouse. The man they met at a rural gas station who offered to throw a salsa party in their honor when they made it to Denver.

A cross-country bicycle journey
ends in tragedy in Colorado

View a selection of Stephen Barton's tweets and Instagram photos documenting the pair's trip.

Video

Cross-country cyclist survives Aurora shooting

Recent college graduate Stephen Barton, who stopped in Aurora, Colo., as he was cycling across the U.S., was wounded in the shooting.

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Before the trip, family members and friends had warned them to keep up their guard, to watch for thieves and madmen, to not rely too wholeheartedly on the benevolence of strangers. “People said to be careful,” Barton recalled. “ ‘The world is a crazy place. There are a lot of crazy people out there.’ ”

Out on the road, in the America they were beginning to know better, crazy seemed far outweighed by kindness. Goodness trumped evil.

* * *

The pair pulled into Aurora on the afternoon of Thursday, July 19, after an 80-mile ride.

Rodriguez-Torrent had a friend named Petra Anderson, an accomplished 22-year-old violinist who had grown up in Aurora and recently graduated from the University of the Pacific in California with a degree in music composition. She had been accepted into a graduate program at the University of Maryland’s music school but was home in Colorado with her mother, who was fighting cancer. She had offered to put the wanderers up at her family’s home for the night.

It was supposed to be a brief pit stop. After all, the majesty of the Rocky Mountains lay ahead, followed by a visit to the Great Salt Lake in Utah, on through the deserts of Nevada, past the neon lights of Reno, across the expanse of the Golden Gate Bridge and on to the finish line of the Pacific.

Rodriguez-Torrent and Barton offered to treat Anderson to the premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises,” a small thanks for her family’s hospitality, and she agreed. As they milled around a Starbucks early that evening, Barton tried to buy tickets on his iPhone without luck. They finally went to the theater and tried to purchase tickets for the 12:01 a.m. showing. It was sold out, so they opted for the 12:05 a.m. show instead.

A buzz already was building at the theater. Hardcore Batman fans had begun to show up hours earlier. It was shaping up as a night of fun, a welcome respite from the road.

On his Twitter feed, Barton posted one last update: ­“#cycletrip goes to the movies @ Century Aurora 16.”