Second to last post.

A compilation of various thoughts that crossed my mind at some point between the coasts. In no particular order, I just didn’t have the chance to integrate them into a normal post, so here they are:

Just before Rochester, NY I had shooting pains at the base of my neck. I adjusted my seat a bit, messed around with handlebar placement, but my neck just kept hurting. Christopher’s mom, a masseuse, met us all in Rochester and she helped relieve the pain. But even better, she recommended that I sleep without a pillow; she hasn’t slept with a pillow for years. So from then on out, I ditched the self-inflating camping pillow that I bought especially for the trip and plopped straight down on my thermarest. And you know what? It worked.

All that time biking really does change your perspective at how you look, think and act. There are just different realities from a car, like not have a steel cage protecting you. Or airbags. Or seatbelts for that matter. But one of the biggest things I needed to change was my mentality towards approaching stoplights. Now, I was raised to minimize the amount of braking before approaching a stoplight, to better conserve my momentum, not put extra wear and tear on my brakes and just to have a fun little game to play. And it’s the same mentality of a bike, only increased, because any wasted speed/momentum is something my legs will have to make up later. In the spirit of maintaining this, when approaching a red light, I would stop pedaling and just coast, hoping that by the time I reached the light it would be green and I could just go on my merry way. Turns out there’s a big speed difference between coasting in a car and on a bike. Most of the time, I found that in the time I was coasting, the light would turn red, then back to green, and by the time I coasted there, it turned back to red and I’d have to pull on the brake and stop. Good thing for most of the 2000 miles on Route 2 there wasn’t a stoplight in sight. Because even once I became self-aware of my problem, I still didn’t get the hang of it.

After eating breakfast, cleaning the church was the most important part of our morning routine. It’s a big production, requiring all hands to help out. Making sure the carpet vacuumed, floors swept, kitchen tided and bathrooms unclogged. Especially in the beginning we were very intense about it. To the point that if we were outside, we’d take off our shoes to head back inside, so not to track dirt in. On two occasions, I remember seeing the following play out. Do I want to take off my shoes to go inside and use the bathroom? Or leave the shoes on and just pee somewhere outside. On both occasions laziness won and a bush was found.

The amount of days that we didn’t have showers fits on one hand. Props to our leaders, that’s quite impressive. And a big part of why I think there was not much drama among us. We were clean and comfortable.

Somewhere near Duluth, I noticed that the sunblock I slathered on every morning was no longer absorbing. It just stayed on my skin as a thinly spread white layer. And that’s how it stayed for the rest of the trip. Every morning, I’d cover my chamois with chamois butter and then go about putting on my sunblock leaving white traces on anything that I accidentally brushed into.

Bike and Build. We’re good at biking. We’re good at building. And we’re great at being redundant. It’s bound to happen when there are 30 people around. You chat with a few people and tell them about your day. And then go about your business, then find yourself telling the same story to a different set of people. Or, we give presentation about our program to the churches that host us and we’ve been telling the same stories over and over again. While, it’s new for all the members there, for us it, “Ugh, the Theodore Roosevelt story again? We’ve already told that.” Or even just saying the same instructions or directions in the morning, those get repeated a lot. Things, stories and questions just get repeated a lot. We’ve become very good with selective hearing. There have been many occasions where you’ll be asking a general question to a group of people and not a single person will respond back.

Our bike ride into Chewelah, WA, I had a realization about Bike and Build. What we’re doing, this is our job for the summer. We bike from 8am to 4pm everyday. And on build days we set aside 9-5 to work at the site. Sure, you can view it as some joyride that we’re taking across the country, but it’s just as structured as other friends that are doing the daily grind. I’m doing the daily grind to. I’m just grinding gears, pavement and muscle.

It’s funny the habits you pick up along the way to adapt. Most places have limited bathrooms, so to beat the rush in the morning and sometimes in the evening, I’ve taken to heading to the kitchen to brush my teeth and wash my face. And somewhere along the line, I forget where, it just became normal. To the point where it felt weird to not be using the kitchen sink.

Going through North Dakota and Montana, we crossed paths with lots of motorcycles on their way to and back from Sturgis, South Dakota for the annual rally there. As with most moving vehicles, you can hear them well before you see them. I quickly picked up on the distinct grumble of the motorcycles that would be passing by. And I quickly realized that motorcycles always traveled in packs. So when I heard a motorcycle coming from behind, I knew to brace myself for more than just one. Often, they’d honk as they passed by, which is tolerable if we are crossing paths, but just annoying and scary if they are coming from behind. I never really knew what they were honking for, it seemed like in solidarity. Solidarity for two-wheeled transportation. Bonding over the excess of cars and their four wheels. Well motorcycles, I don’t feel any kinship with you. Though we both have two wheels, you have an engine that’s fueled by gasoline, I have my body that’s fueled by whatever I can get my hands on to eat. Stop honking.