Craig Across America

Last Post.

2008-10-10T12:39:00.001-04:00

Leaving Vancouver, it seemed that everyone had left rather quickly, a desire to be rid of the bike and get on with normal things I’m sure. I visited a friend in Seattle and another in Denver where their families coddled me and spoiled me with a private room, a big bed and indulged my need to watch hours of US Open tennis. The transition from a Bike and Build life back to normal life wasn’t quick or seamless. My leg muscles were anxious by mid-morning and expecting to power me the 70 odd miles to my next destination. I wondered why all white, Ford Econoline vans didn’t have black handlebars and angel wings on the front grille. Dinners were unfamiliar, small and intimate, with only a few people around and meals served by the plate, not by the aluminum casserole pan. Passing by churches, I immediately sized them up, wondering if they’d be a good place to spend the night for 30 people. And shoulders. I had to constantly comment on the shoulder and whether they’d be good or bad to ride on. My brain was wired to pick up on the things that signaled comfort, safety and familiarity from the summer.

So by the time I arrived home, two weeks after we ended in Vancouver, I had adjusted and now just needed to adjust back to home. There was plenty to keep me busy: unpacking a room from school and a room from home, unpacking the bike and giving it a tune-up, reconnecting with friends and family, seeking meaningful employment ideally in a museum, and making up for lost couch and TV time.

Before I knew it, three weeks passed. The tan lines were fading. And I was slowly regaining feeling back in my big toes. The physical reminders of a summer spent hunched over two wheels were recovering. That meant it was time to get back on the bike.

Part of the reason for my delay in riding again is that road biking, this activity I picked up over the summer, seemed mutually exclusive from what I am familiar with at home. They are separate lives and conditions to me. And frankly, I was kind of lost without a que sheet telling me where to go and needing to find decent roads on my own. And I was very disconcerted that I would be returning back to the same spot that I had left from.

But, I put on the chamois, donned the Bike and Build jersey and headed off. I biked 13 miles out, then 13 miles back, a total of 26 miles. Immediately, it was clear that I had taken the past five weeks off, since it did seem a bit more strained than I remembered. The roads were uneven and the cars scary, but it was good to get back on the bike. And something I’ll keep doing. In fact, I rode again yesterday for the second time, 18 miles. Even better, I’ve been using my bike to get around for short distances, either to the library or to visit friends.

I still haven’t found the right combination of words to briefly summarize the summer and experience to people. I end up stumbling over singular adjectives like awesome and great, but they don’t do descriptive justice (and I refuse to stoop to hyperbole “best summer ever”). We covered the entire country, passing through 15 states and ending in Canada. Each day was different from the next, each requiring its own full-length story. Where do I even begin?

As much as I can’t find the words to describe the summer, I do love how I can reduce my experience with an entire state down to one impression. Washington and Wisconsin were my favorite; Ohio needs to spend more money on roads; North Dakota needs statewide Febreze; and Montana is wide. I now have the credibility for that.

In fact, the singular thing that struck me from the whole experience is how kind people are. Throughout the summer, I was constantly amazed at how warm and open everyone was to us along the way. To have churches and their congregation welcome us, provide a meal and lodging and all the numerous thoughtful bits, I was not prepared for. Everyone was so generous. Thinking about it all, it makes you melt.

And then there was the building part. Among all seven routes this summer, Bike and Build directly donated nearly half a million dollars to affordable housing groups across the country. In addition, countless hours on build sites as there were over 200 of us out there this summer. No small feat. And not just the direct money and man-hours part, but also awareness through our own fundraising and with the people along the way. I always found humor in our t-shirts that say “Pedaling to end poverty housing” since there’s no way to even consider doing that in a single summer, it’s a much greater issue, but it does have a significant impact. I’m impressed and really believe in the mission and goals of Bike and Build. It’s diabolical really, luring people with “bike across the country” and then tossing in good along the way, the equivalent of mashing up pill and mixing it with chocolate pudding.

I’m so glad that I did Bike and Build and I would recommend it to everyone who has the chance. In fact, I’m sure I’d do it again except for that draining fundraising part (which is much more difficult than expected). It’s a great way to spend the summer and doing something productive in so many different ways. Yes, I did complain and whine about the cold and wet, a lot, but when it comes down to it, I was only ever really just uncomfortable, never legitimately worried for my well-being (well, maybe while huddling in the bathroom for warmth that one time). I was fortunate to spend the majority of my days outside and active. I was with of 29 upbeat people that kept the trip fun and days fresh. I helped and built along the way. I can say biked across the country. I have a whole range of memories and moments to reflect back on. I met kind people along the way. I have a new skill/hobby including equipment. I had the time to think about myself, who I am and what I want to do. And for all that, I’m grateful.

So, thanks to fundraisers for making it possible. Thanks to supporters sending the mail. Thanks to you, reader, for following along. And fellow riders, thanks for making for making it all worthwhile.

Second to last post.

2008-09-16T01:36:00.001-04:00

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.

Kangaroo Court #3 - Glasgow, MT

2008-09-05T01:00:00.002-04:00

The last and final K-Court.

To: Finnfest
From: Everyone who went to Finnfest
Re: Where are all the Finns?

To: Bobby
Fine: 50 cents
Re: For not getting a townie

To: Derek
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For eating cereal with chopsticks

To: US-23
Fine: 2 billion barrels of oil
Re; For taking aesthetic cues from the Persian Gulf

To: The van
From: Everyone
Fine: 50 cents
Re: For sucking

To: The wind
From: Everyone
Fine: 50 cents
Re: You suck

To: Oversive Loads
From: Craig Lee
Fine: 25 cents
Re: Two parts 1) Courtesy flush and 2) Giant windmill blades on the road

To: J-Muffin
From: J-Nasty
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For J-Muffin’ the wind out of me

Props: Katrina
From: Jessie
Re: For riding your bike after breaking your hand

Props: Jessie
From: Craig, Kate, Kathy and Erik
Re: Being a badass and pulling us up all the hills into Pepin

Props: Sean
From: Joy
Re: For finishing the largest pancake I’ve ever seen

To: Derek
From: Anson
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For creeping me out by napping with your eyes open

To: Isaiah
From: Kathy
Fine: 5 cents
Re: One word: Grayba

To: Trailer door
From: Joy
Fine: 50 cents
Re: For hitting me in the head!

Props: Joy
From: Everyone
Re: Thanks for the que sheets

To: Mosquitos
From: Craig
Fine: 1 tube of cortisone
Re: Look what you did to my neck

To: Dae
From: Jessie
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For saying within earshot of Isaiah’s mother, “Oh wow, Isaiah was a fatty!”

To: Christopher
From: The general bingo public
Fine: One bingo card
Re: For getting competitive at Bingo. As if there is any skill involved. Quote, “Screw these old people. They’ve lived their lives.”

To: Dan/GPS
From: The Pepin peloton
Fine: 5 miles and 5 pieces of chalk
For: Leading us into a wildlife refuge with dirt roads

To: Bobby
From: Jessie
Fine: 25 cents
Re: For saying, “When we finish moving the dirt off the tarp there’s just gonna be mud. We should get the girls over here so they can wrestle.”

To: Ian
From: Craig, Kate, Kathy and Jessie
Fine: 5 miles of my life back
Re: For chalking, “I pity the fool” and thinking that others would interpret it as “right turn.”

To: Zack
From: Jessie (his date)
Fine: Formal apology
Re: For calling me “babe”

To: Katrina
From: Kate, Jessie, Isaiah and Bobby
Re: For drinking out of your retainer container. Use a cup! Al Gore wouldn’t drink out of his retainer container.

To: Administration
From: The riders
Fine: Your jobs
Re: For leaving us up shit creek without a paddle. Reference to the van and tents.

To: Prom
From: Kim
Fine: 50 cents (one admissions ticket)
Re: For existing

To: Weather.com
Re: Your job is to predict the weather and you suck at it.

To: Kathy
From: Kangaroo Court
Re: Leave me alone!

To: Dead cat on road
From: Joy
Fine: 43 cents
Re: For giving me nightmares

To: Maki
From: Joy
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For laughing insanely for at least 45 minutes after seeing dead cat

To: Maki
From: Jessie
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For thinking a dead cat with its eyes and guts popping out is the funniest thing to ever hit the planet.

To: Dead Cat
From: Laura
Fine: 27 cents (1 cent per mile laughed)
For having bulgy eyes and making me laugh all day because of the ugliness.

To: Hinckley
From: Craig
Fine: 1 night back
Re: I hate you.

To: Reed
From: Kathy
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For sagging your chamois so it looks like you’re carrying a load in your pants.

To: Whoever thought it was a good idea to bring a huge glass bottle of hot sauce on the trip
From: Kate
Fine: One bottle of hot sauce, preferably plastic
Re: Yours fell out of the trailer.
Props to Isaiah for helping me scrape it off the ground.

To: Bike and Build
From: Kangaroo Court
Re: Do not lose me again

Props: Anson
From: Kate
Re: For being the bike god and saving most of our group from days of squeaky bikes and dysfunctional deraileurs. We owe you.

To: Christopher, Joy, Isaiah, and Dan
From: Kathy
Fine: Van clean-up for the rest of the trip
Re: That shithole is so dirty and I clean it yet I don’t leave my taco bell wrappers or apple cores or condoms in it. Then I wind up throwing away important documents and you get mad. Stop the insanity please.

Dear MIT John,
Yes, I saw you sneak your breakfast before your stuff was out to the trailer the day after I called you out for it in Minot. The next time you want to sneak under the radar, maybe you should change into your jersey first.
With sincere and unending love,
Kathy

To: Michelle
Fine: 50 cents
Re: When she tried to proposition other Bike and Builders in downtown Duluth by suggesting that we “pool our money together and get a room at the Comfort Suites for the night.”

To: Sharon
From: Kathy and Erik
Fine: No rest for your weary soul (I will wake you every nap I see you taking.)
Re: For waking up an hour early at Isaiah’s farm (after a 116-mile day) and, unable to open the door to the camper, proceeded to spend 15 of the loudest minutes tearing off the door to get out, waking us up in the process.

Props: Kathy
From: Everyone who wanted everything moved outside this morning
Re: You motivate us all with your “Let’s do it to it” attitude. But maybe the next time you want to scream, “”Let’s get this shit outside” try not to do it in the pastor’s ear.

Props: Jessie and Kate
From: Joy
Re: For attempting to hold tent up while sleeping during Hurricane Theodore

To: Teddy Roosevelt
Re: You sir, are a douche

To: Murphy of Murphy’s Law (Anything that can go wrong, will)
From: Everyone
Fine: 50 cents
Re: Thanks for everything, asshole

Props: Sharon, Sean Lindsey and Anson
From: Everyone especially our bikes, bags and gear
Re: For making our exciting night WAY less traumatic

To: The National Park Service
From: Everyone
Fine: $150 and one night of decent sleep
Re: For overcharging us to stay at your shoddy park, for warning us about buffalo and then refusing to come out when we were stranded in the road and for coming out to our campsite to check on the RV Trailer in the morning. Because I’m sure the RV trailer had a really rough night, you assholes.

To: Jessie
From: Kate and Joy
Re: For this morning at 3AM—“Tornado!”

To: Bison
From: Everyone
Fine: 25 cents
Re: Stop being such a fatty and move your lazy butt off the road

To: Dae
Fine: 50 cents
Re: For fleeing the scene of the crime. After leaving a South Korea XXXL sized dump in the men’s bathroom, the residents of the aforementioned restroom had “Hot Burrito Night” in the TRNP. The fear of overflow and the choice between a floor covered in Dae-poo and the perfect storm prevented any attempt at a flush. After the dirty deed, Dae retreated to the van where he accepted the penance of the reclining, warm driver’s seat as his comfy bed. Mad props to Sean for getting up close and personal to the you know what.

Props: The “Good Samaritan”
Re: To the old man who said, “Ya’ll missing a tarp?” Isaiah in response, “I don’t think so…” Old Man, “Cause I found this blue tarp about a mile away in a tree and I figured it might be yours.

Quote: “This is the most we have spent on accommodations thus far and Sean is sleeping face down next to a urinal . . . this is the quiet room.” – Unknown

Pictures-Our ride in passes

2008-09-03T17:16:00.016-04:00

Don't mess.

Our first pass since VT. It was a rude awakening. And what a stupid name. Much too upbeat.

A beautiful sight.

Even prettier and well earned. The sign just after Sherman Pass, which is the highest pass in the state of Washington, the entire state. What did you do today?

For this ride, I absolutely crushed the climb. There was no stopping me. One of the better days for me.

Doesn't even deserve the name of a pass. While it was a climb and tough, on the whole everyone thought it was on the easier side. If you can't see, the elevation is 4310'.

As we approached this pass, the weather made it look like we were riding straight into Mt. Doom.

A monstrous switchback. I didn't even realize it was a switchback until I looked behind to take a picture. This was on the way up to Washington Pass on our ridiculous terrible day.

Look how happy I look. Sure I might be a bit cold and a bit wet, but still accomplished. I had no idea of the downhill to come. Or the bathroom I'd be hiding in trying to warm up for the next hour and a half.

After warming up, we pressed on to tackle Rainy Pass at 4855'. I'm am no longer accomplished and very wet and very cold. Notice the tights that are now on my legs and the expression on my face. Our last pass and hurdle of our trip. God forbid we get off easy.

Pictures-Last Ride

2008-09-03T16:27:00.011-04:00

The last place I laid claim to. Well, there was still sleeping at the Salvation Army in Vancouver, but for all intensive purposes, this church was the last place we'd all be sleeping.

The morning of our last ride. Wasting away time and getting our bikes ready for one last 13 mile trek. It might's been our last day's ride, but if anything, it was more ceremonial.

A group meeting to go over the route to the beach. A big reminder to make sure we all stop at the hotel about half a mile away from the beach so we can ride in together.

A bit surreal. The front of our trailer has "Vancouver or Bust" painted on it. How in the heck did we get to this point?

A shot taken while riding holding my camera behind my back and hoping it turns out. And look, it's Laura all smiles.

Bridge crossing over into Vancouver city proper. Though I left in a group of 6 from the church, but this time I think we're a group a 12.

Gathering the troops together at the Sylvia Hotel.

Now riding in a group of 30. I was in the back of the pack with Sharon and there was a car behind us. There was absolutely no chance it was going to pass us.

Again the mass of bikers. Our last little bit before the beach.

The beach! The ocean! The finish! The relief!

The standard bike and build pose that you've all seen so many times.

All 30 of us and the champagne bottles we picked up along the way.

Stupidly still heading west.

Between the two of us, I think Kathy and I accounted for lots of the heavy laughing on the trip.

A group meeting to talk about the details for showers, the salvation army, dinner that night and other boring nitty gritty stuff.

What a well traveled duck.

And the other duck tied to my front wheel hub. With a little piece of seaweed on him. Everytime my wheel spun, he'd be spinning too.

My final mileage at the beach.

Our last bike and build trace before we headed off in the van down to Seattle (where I got dropped off) and on their way west to Philadelphia to leave the van and trailer at Bike and Build offices.

Hurricane Theodore

2008-08-31T18:12:00.003-04:00

I've finally posted about Theodore Roosevelt National Park and our camping experiences there. Click the link or head back to August 4th. It's needlessly lengthy, but take a look. While a miserable night, it's one of the most memorable.

I'm currently in Seattle visiting a friend and seeing the city and taking a well earned break. Still more posts ahead, you'll know when I'm done.

Vancouver, BC, CA - Wheel Dip

2008-08-29T20:31:00.004-04:00

Somehow Dan didn't get the message that we only had 12 miles of riding, so we all woke up at the planned 8am wake-up time to "The Final Countdown." It was the song we woke up to on our first day of riding, only appropriate to hear it on our last day.

We still had three hours before we needed to leave, so some went back to sleep, some worked on their bikes and some ate a leisurely, leisurely breakfast. I headed over to Starbucks riding with Kate and Kathy and meeting up with Kevin, Bobby and Dae who walked there. Since it was our last day, we reminisced about the trip talking about our best and worst days of the summer.

Returning back to the church, the standard clean-up process moved rather slowly, but we were in no rush and this was our last time we'd be going through it all. There was a definite excitement floating around, but it was still hard grasp that today was our last group ride, reaching our final destination, and moving on and past Bike and Build.

Music blared from the van while we were getting ready and Christopher, supported by all the guys, did a rap asking Kathy to be sweep with him on the ride. It was a circus.

Again, a short ride from Richmond to Vancouver, mostly on the Cypress Trail bike path. I was amazed at the amoung of bike paths that criss crosssed in, out and through Vancouver; it's extremely bike friendly. We crossed the Arthur Laing bridge which had a dedicated bike lane/path, but was basically a spacious shoulder on a major highway. It was easy and felt safe, something like that wouldn't happen in the states, I mean, bikes are illegal to ride on major highways.

After lots of residential and back roads, we moved closer to the waterfront and met up at the Sylvia Hotel on Beach Avenue, not more than half a mile from our final destination. Once all 30 of us arrived, we moved en masse to finish the last bit of riding and jump into the Pacific.

Once we reached the beach, everyone went straight for the water and we celebrated. This was our moment. It was great to see the parents, friends, and family that had come to celebrate with us. Champagne bottles opened, bikes thrown into the water (well, just Sean's) and pictures taken. Lindsey's parents provided some food for lunch and we had our own spread too and a cake appeared as well. Isaiah had a water cooler dumped on him and Kathy had a cooler filled with red gatorade dumped on her.

And that was that. Formally, our cross-country biking trip to raise money and awareness for affordable housing that started on the complete opposite side of the country in Portsmouth, NH on June 21st ended.

From the beach, we rode over to a community center to take showers. Then we rode to the Harbor Light Salvation Army that we'd be staying at for our stay in Vancouver.

That caps the last ride for us. More posts with thoughts and pictures will be up soon. Stay tuned.

Richmond, BC, CA

2008-08-25T04:05:00.008-04:00

We left the church in Lynden, WA this morning to rain and a large que sheet. In fact, I think it was the largest que sheet since our ride from Edwardsburg, MI to Chicago, IL. No matter though, because today was our second to last day of riding and nothing could bring our spirits down, we were finally entering crossing the border into Canada!

It was only 6 miles to the border and we all had to meet up there to wait for everyone to cross at the same time. It was quite the odd affair, passing through customs and crossing into another country on our bike. The border was basically a toll booth and there was one lane open for cars and a separate lane opened to process the 30 of us. We approached in groups of three and a border patrol officer asked us a few obligatory questions, looked at our passport and that was it, Canada. Right beyond we took a group picture with the Welcome to Canada sign and then we headed on our merry way to get to Richmond. Only, it wasn't so merry.

The entire day it rained, meaning road were slick and visibility was low. We've ridden through rain before and it was a short 52 mile day, but it still quickly turned into a stressful one, full of lost riders, perilous roads, constructions, spills and general discomfort.

Immediately at the border, we had about 20 miles through rural, farm roads. Just a two lane road with a minimal shoulder, but there wasn't much traffic. What it lacked in traffic though, it sure made up in steep hills. Actually, they can more be described as walls. Looking ahead, you were approaching a vertical wall that you'd have to climb. It was by far steeper than any of the passes in the Rockies or Cascades and even steeper than going through VT and NY. Granted they weren't long and we managed, but we've had enough climbing of late, our quads and calves hurt.

From the rural roads, we entered the outlying cities of Vancouver, full of strip malls and suburban developments. Whereas the similar terrain in Ohio that I hated wasn't made for bikes, these roads did have bicycle lanes. The problem though is that while we wanted to go straight in the bike lanes, cars would be crossing over to make a right turn, quite the dangerous proposition. Add in the rain and it was a mess. There were lots of close calls. Through this I caught up with the front half of riders (they made a wrong turn) and rode with Jessie, Kathy, Dan and Kim. Lunch was at mile 38, but Kathy and I decided to press on and get the day and rain over with.

The two of us continued on into the most confusing and dangerous part, the bridges. There were two bridge we had to cross and we had been warned about it at our pre-ride meeting earlier at the church. They are busy six-lane roads and there's no way around them. We came up to the first bridge and used the sidewalk on the left side to ride on, which was the smart thing to do. But in order to get over to the left side, we had to get off our bikes and run across six lanes of traffic. As we were riding up on the sidewalk, we see the front group of guys pass us to the right. They were riding on the roadway, over the bridge, taking up a lane since there was not shoulder, no good.

And after the bridge is where most nearly everyone got lost. We were supposed to make a left on Columbia St., but it never seemed to appear despite road signs with arrows pointing to it. Kathy and I continued on and realized we were off track and decided to ask some locals where to go. We asked a total of 4 people. The best one was the first guy who gave us directions, then decided to completely negate the first set with a shortcut in the opposite direction and finally invalidated all of his comments telling us, "It's my first time in the area."

We found out way back on track to cross the Queensborough Bridge. At this time, we were on an on-ramp to merge with the main roadway and up comes Jessie cruising along in the complete next lane over. So now, we meet up with her and note far behind are the front group of guys who had passed us on the previous bridge but had gotten lost themselves. After this last bridge, we all traveled as a big group (Ian, Anson, Isaiah, John P., Bobby, Jessie, Kathy, myself) and made it easily to the church. I made a point to move fast and keep pedaling since I had lost feeling in my toes many miles ago.

Since it's Sunday, our arrival just before 1:30 meant services were still in session, so we all headed over to a nice bistro for lunch. A place to warm up and spend some time and relive and go over the mess that was the ride. Now, it's no fault of the que sheet, there's no route to get from Lynden to Richmond that isn't confusing. This trip has been going on for 7 years and there still hasn't been a successful route figured out. And, even if it weren't raining for the entirety of the day, it still would've been a very unsafe ride.

When we finished, we got back to the church around 3:30 with the majority of people having managed to make their way. There were a few stragglers that came in late, with Michelle and Quang arriving at 5:15, well after the sweeps (who are supposed to be the last two people) had come in.

Once people started trickling in and over dinner, the various stories of the day circulated around:

Reed and Dae made a wrong turn after the first bridge looking for Columbia St., but instead found Koreatown and many miles out of their way. Zack and Arianna followed Route 99 instead of Route 99A. They went well out of their way and instead of crossing the river at the second bridge, came upon a tunnel. Now, biking through tunnels is very dangerous and backtracking was not an option, so how'd they get through? They took a bus. Kristen, Derek and Laura got lost enroute and somehow bypassed Richmond altogether and prematurely entered Vancouver. Laura also managed to ride entire second half of the day without brakes. Christopher too, he used Flinstones method of braking, with his feet, "Yabba Dabba Doo!" Lindsey, off route by 10 miles, got a flat with no pump, tube or patches to replace it. It was a long time before the van got there. Sean took a spill since a car cut him off. Oh, he also had a flat. From there, he screamed and threw his bike into a bush. Michelle rode through a seemingly innocuous puddle only to fall over since it was a massive hole. We all had cars honk at us, not in the good way. John P. had a car pass within inches of him. Joy stopped on one of the bridges to collect herself after a car came a bit too close. Christopher's bike decided to flat twice today. Add Erik's bike to that list too.

Somehow, as with every other day on this trip, we all managed to make it to the day's destination safely. For a last ride, it was quite the doozy. We were naive to think that we'd get off easy.

For tomorrow's "ride" we only have 12 miles before we dip our wheels together in the Pacific. Our wake up time is a leisurely 10am.

Lynden, WA - Build Day

2008-08-23T23:18:00.001-04:00

The Habitat build site was located in Sumas, WA, a short van ride away. It turns out that they've been moving faster on the duplex they've been working on, so the jobs that they reserved for the 30 of us to work on were already finished. That's a good thing since it means the family can move in that much sooner, but it also meant that the site only needed 12 of us for four hours of work. The group that went to the build site put the finishing touches on the house, which meant moving dirt, our favorite.

I stuck back at the church with the rest of the gang to do end of trip clean-up on the trailer and the van. Nothing much to note, just finally giving everything a good once over. The most frustrating part was finding items that would've been much more useful had we known we had them. There were two rolls of duct tape which would've been perfect for all the broken tent poles we'd bee dealing with. I found a rubber mallet which meant we could've used that to pound in the tent stakes instead of using large rocks and looking like cavemen. Highlights from the clean-up in pictures.

We emptied everything out of the trailer. For all of us, it was the first time we had seen the back of the trailer, since there's normally a row of plastic bins with our food in the back. It looks like a lot of space, but gear and food for 30 people quickly fills it up.

Arianna, Quang, Kathy, and Isaiah cleaning and degreasing our bike tools. They've gotten lots of use over the course of the trip, most often by our resident mechanic, Anson. Without him, our bikes would be in a lot shabbier shape.

The infamous tents. The task was to inventory the tents and see which were a complete set and able to be reused for next year and which needed parts or just plain needed to be dumped. It was quite the production to match all the pieces together, but somehow managed to put a majority of them together, but it wasn't pretty. That's Dae, Kevin and Pen attempting to make one work.

Laura coming out from the kitchen with a clean camping stove in hand. Her and Kristen took a toothbrush and a bucket of soap to it.

Since both groups had half days, we all had the afternoon off. Most people spent it at the library to catch up on internet. A good majority of people spent the time making phone calls to finally make calls at a decent hour (for those on the east coast) and to talk before we incurred roaming charges when we entered Canada. I went to get a haircut since it's been overheating underneath my helmet as of late.

The church hosted a potluck dinner for us. Afterwards I gave our Bike and Build presentation and then we also had a presentation from the local Habitat chapter. It was nice to learn more about it and see a slideshow of the building process of the home that half the people went to work on earlier.

For the evening, it was same old same old. Some people went off to watch Braveheart. Others watched Arrested Development. I went to go satisfy a pop craving (Thanks to Derek's mom for the chicken pad thai leftovers which was the cause of the pop craving). Others journaled and read. But my favorite was watching people show each other different ab exercises. It really was just a regular evening, you wouldn't even think that we were at the end of the trip with only two days of riding left.

Canada, here we come.

Lynden, WA

2008-08-23T20:27:00.002-04:00

The ride from the campground in Rockport, WA to Lynden, WA brought clear skies and sun. On the whole, it was a beautiful ride. I stopped in the town of Concrete (guess what their industry is?) for breakfast with about 8 other people. While my corned beef and hash was good, it was not worth the hour wait. From that, Kate and I left together and then moved at a good pace to get through the day since we felt behind.

Just lots of nice road and in the not too far distance we could see the mountains we climbed over and even some bigger ones with snow capped peaks. Kate and I took a quick lunch then finished the rest of the way picking up Quang and Erik to finish the day. In the last half, a small, fat floppy-eared doxen came out and barked at me. I flipped out yelling at it, "No, you will not bite me or make me crash with only two days left of riding after 3800 miles. Not today dog."

We were all quite grateful to be back in a church and even a town. The main street of Lynden places big emphasis on their Dutch heritage with a giant windmill building/inn at the end of it.

In this last week and the dwindling days left, it's been quite the realization thinking about the trip, the summer and the adventure ending so soon. Before we'd say that we started riding on June 21 and reaching Vancouver on August 25th. Now, when I talk to people, August 25th is replaced with Monday.

Camping-Early Winters; Rockport, WA

2008-08-23T19:39:00.003-04:00

Early Winters Campground:

It wasn't as primitive as I was anticipating; there was a building with male and female outhouse facilities and running water, so it wasn't terrible. But, for the evening it drizzled on and off while we were putting up our tents and making dinner. Nothing that made us unbearably wet, just miserably uncomfortable. While dinner crew cooked up vegetable curry and rice, I hid in the van taking a nap and chatting with other people. Since it was raining while cooking, they propped up a large tarp to cover the cooking area and picnic table, pretty impressive stuff. Jessie made a fire, showing off her skills she learned from the bedouin while she was in Egypt. After that, I went back to my tent and read for a little then went to bed. I was plenty warm and dry throughout the night.

Rockport, WA-Howard Miller Steelhead Park

Weather just couldn't let us finish the trip off easy, but had to throw one last wrench into our spokes.

Wake up at 6:15 to rain, which meant that I personally slept for a bit more until the rain subsided. I finally left the tent to eat breakfast and they we somehow managed to pack up all of our tents and gear into the trailer, not the easiest thing to do when everything is wet, it's slightly drizzling and you're cold. Either way, we all headed out for our last day of climbing and therefore, last tough day of riding.

We had all built up the ride since we knew that we had two passes to climb over: Washington Pass and Rainy Pass. We left the campground with overcast clouds and light drizzle. The light drizzle went in and out throughout the ride up to the pass. The scenery and climb was beautiful, it's a shame that it wasn't clear or sunny to see any of it.

The climb was tough physically, but what we all made it through. What made it painful was the wet and cold. When I reached the top of Washington Pass, the temperature (a thermometer posted on the side of the pass sign) was 40 degrees and the light drizzle turned into light flurries. It was cold but we were managing, then came the downhill. Now, we've been through cold downhills before (Glacier) but this one was wet which made it pretty dangerous to ride down on and meant no sign of recovery of warmth since all your clothing is soaked through.

At the base of the descent from Washington Pass, there was a trailhead with a parking lot and bathroom, I headed straight for the bathroom for shelter and hopes to warm up. In there I found Pen and Kevin and we were immediately joined by many others. I think at one point there were 10 of us huddled in the men's bathroom, as we had condensed the men's and women's bathroom to get more body heat in one room.

Christopher came into the bathroom unable to take off his helmet, camelbak, anything; he couldn't move his hands, on the way down he was braking with his elbows. After he warmed up a bit, he and Pen hitched with an RV to find Dan and the van to come back and warm us all up. We waited probably an hour huddled in the bathroom before we heard two beeps from the van and then rushed out for refuge. While waiting, we drove back to look for the sweeps, but didn't find them so we assumed they had hitched to lunch at mile 35 (and beyond both passes and the worst of the downhill).

Once warm, Dan dropped us off back to the bathroom where our bikes were scattered in various places around the entrance and parking lot and we toughed it out to Rainy Pass. Turns out it was only a mile away and the climb wasn't even that bad. For the first time, we were not looking forward to the downhill, especially one ten miles long. Thankfully, I have rather short arms so I covered my hands in the sleeves of my rainjacket and made my way down, making sure I was always in control and with the occasional expletive thrown in there.

Somehow I made it to lunch, wet and cold, but managing. I ate a PB&J and then hopped into the van once it arrived to warm back up. Isaiah and Sharon were in the van, two people who were well ahead of me but (l learned later that night) had what were most likely mild cases of hypothermia. When they reached the top of Rainy Pass it wasn't just flurrying, it was snowing.

From lunch at mile 35, the next major point was a general store at mile 59. The ride was beautiful, we passed by Ross Lake, Diablo Lake, all with unreal blue-green waters. We were on a downhill through mountains and constantly speeding past waterfalls on the side. If it weren't so cold and we weren't so wet, I'm sure we all would've stopped to take more pictures. It also woudl've been only second to riding through Glacier National Park.

At the general store I caught up with a lot of other riders who were taking a break. I drank a hot chocolate to warm myself and attacked a block of medium cheddar cheese for food.

Now, the next major point was the town of Marblemount at mile 72 and it came just in time for me. The road out from the general store was great, smooth and a wide shoulder. Though I knew we were at a campsite, I booked it on the road. The last 8 miles before Marblemount were probably my fastest, mostly because I could barely hold myself up on my handlebars. My legs were strong, but my arms were weak and I could feel myself on the edge of collapsing. Right at the beginning of Marblemount there's a diner where I stopped to take a break, recover, and double check the distance to the campground, 8 miles. Turns out their soup of the day was cream of asparagus, so I ordered a bowl and sat myself down. Everyone there was friendly, Zack and Lindsey dropped by, and I talked to the chef about the White Sox.

The last 8 miles to the campsite I just bared through. There was a bunny farm, blueberry fields and homemade ice cream along the way to stop, but I zoomed past it all, I just needed to get to the campground. Though I was tired and exhausted at the end of the day, on the whole I just felt weak.

The Howard Miller Steelhead Park is a nice campground, leaps and bounds better than the night before. There was a large picnic shelter with 8 picnic benches underneath, large bathroom facilities with warm showers (50 cents for 4 minutes), plenty of flat grass to lay your tent on, lots of spigots for water, and even wi-fi throughout the grounds. But what takes the cake and absolutely made our last night of camping was Anson's grandmother and family who decided to provide dinner for us.

We had four relatives of Anson's there, grandmother, uncle, aunt and cousin. They live outside of Seattle and made the 2 hour drive with coolers packed ready to throw us a cookout. And throw us a cookout they did. They grilled up burgers, made caeser salad, potato salad, three bean salad, and a whole mess of snacks for us to munch on before dinner. They even had vitaminwater for us to drink. I reached straight for the "revive" since I figured that's what I needed most after the day's ride.

And the pie. Loganberry and marionberry pie. Both delicious with an awesome crust. I think I had three slices with loganberries taking the edge.

Their visit was wonderful and came at exactly the right day for us. We were in no mood to cook for ourselves and I'm afraid to think about everyone's tension levels if we had to fend for ourselves. They even left us s'mores materials for the late evening.

Our last day of camping. And I did enjoy this last day and Arianna did go at length to turn me into a camping convert, I say good riddance.

Winthrop, WA

2008-08-20T17:33:00.002-04:00

The weather here in Washington through the Cascades is fickle. One way or another it seems that I'm going to get wet. Because if I put on my rain jacket, it's bound not to rain and I just end up sweating underneath. Or, if I don't put on my rain jacket, it's bound to rain heavily.

We climbed another pass today, Loup Loup Pass with an elevation of 4,020ft.

I'm 15 miles from our campground tonight, Early Winters, in the cute town of Winthrop, WA. The main street just popped up along WA-20 and it's filled with shops and restaurants, including two bike shops. It's quite the unexpected, high-end hiking/outdoor town.

At the bike shop here, I was finally able to find myself a Topeak Roadmorph fram pump; I've been looking for the past 3 weeks. Now this means I most likely won't be needing it, but I was going to get one anyways for all that biking that I'll be doing after the trip. And if you're in the market for a frame pump for your bike, there's no better pump on the market. None.

Not much news to report so far today. I had a spaghetti sandwich for lunch, which was a change of pace from the more normal lasagna sandwiches.

Off to go enjoy the outdoors. Our que sheet describes our camping grounds tonight as "primitive."

Omak, WA

2008-08-19T19:23:00.000-04:00

Another day, another pass.

We left Republic and reached our third pass in as many days, Wauconda Pass reaching an elevation of 4310ft. It wasn’t as bad as we anticipated and we were treated to a downhill longer than we climbed.

After the 40 miles on WA-20, we made a left onto Route 97 only to confront a wall of wind. For the first time, the riding began to feel like a chore and I was a bit bored with it; I only had small cacti on the side of the road and the occasional tumbleweed to look at. I’m anxious for the end and ready for a break from my bike.

For my ride, the weather wavered between sunny skies and on the verge of rain. I managed to get in early enough to miss the storms that caught some other riders.

I sat out the rain at a small café in town. Sharon, Kathy and I played a game of scrabble while we had our smoothie, coffee and tea respectively. It was a surreal experience, since the whole place seemed unqualified to have an open eatery. For instance, Kathy ordered her cappuccino with two shots of espresso, which the older waitress confused with as two separated drinks, a cappuccino and an espresso. And for my tea, they gave me a tea pot filled with hot water, a tea bag, then proceeded to hand me a tea cup filled hot water too. It doesn’t make any sense, where is the tea bag supposed to go? The tea pot or the tea cup? They opened in May. I bet they’ll be closed by the end of the year.

One hand. That’s how many days of riding left, just 5. To go back, our fifth day of riding into the trip brought us from Rochester, VT to Silver Bay, NY. We’re in the same mountainous terrain, just on the other coast.

Our hosts surprised us with a spaghetti dinner. And another church generously donated breakfast for tomorrow. All completely unexpected and greatly appreciated.

We’re camping for the next two days, so we went to Wal-Mart to stock up on food since we’ll be cooking. Actually, I went more along for the ride since I’m not on dinner crew this week and picked up some chocolate éclairs that I split with Laura.

For our evening activity, Katrina led a wrapping up program that a fair amount of us took part in. Details are personal, but it allowed us to say things to each other that most likely otherwise would’ve gone unsaid, unappreciated, or unrecognized without. For a moment, we opened up and shared the thoughts and reflections that can only come from a common bond forged on 3600 miles (and counting) of biking.

Off to the wilderness.

Republic, WA

2008-08-19T00:13:00.003-04:00

It's so hot here at the "Youth Dynamics" center we're staying at tonight. An oven.

The entire day was a scorcher. It's been record setting heat here in Washington.

After arriving to town, I searched looking to get my haircut; I was that hot. Well, of the three places, two were closed on Monday and the third one was "booked" even though it had one chair and absolutely no one was in the shop. I just took a shower and got over it.

We biked Sherman Pass today, elevation 5,575ft.

All the big names, Thor, Viggo, Hugh and Craig were in sync and we rocked the rode.

The pass had a 26 mile uphill.

It sucked.

Related to that, I ate a pint of Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ben and Jerry's after dinner.

And at the grocery store we bought breakfast cereal and went all out for the brand name, allowing us to have "Fruity Pebbles" instead of the generic option "Colored Rocks."

Local youth came and pestered us outside the church. Kathy and Anson challenged them to a bike race. That shut them up. They left with their heads down in shame.

It's been a rough, rough day.

There's a front coming in and it should be a bit cooler the next few days.

The kind folks from Chewelah gave us 40lbs of peaches. They are the most delicious peaches I have ever eaten. Every single one is juicy, sweet and ripe. You need to eat them hunched over while standing because there's so much peach juice seeping out of it.

We have a special guest coming tomorrow to join us for the rest of the trip, an administrator, Brendan Newman. No comment.

Chewelah, WA

2008-08-18T19:37:00.001-04:00

By now, it’s clear that we all have our own motivations that get us through the ride and to the church. For instance, John P. needs to be the first one there. Ian rides fast to be the to get a fan and set it up near his thermarest so he can sleep soundly at night. Pen is motivated because the sooner he gets there, the sooner he can go back to sleep. Kate has a sixth sense for finding Dairy Queens. Reed’s guided by his stomach looking for the next snack or meal. And Sean just wants to get off the damn road (he doesn’t take well to the stresses of the road like passing cars, heavy traffic or rough road).

Today, it was obvious that we wanted to get out of the sun as quickly as we possibly could. We left Sandpoint around 6:45am and made like mad for Chewelah. I rode with Jessie for most of the day and we made a good team, before I knew it, we had already gone 25 miles.

The Washington state sign was a dud. It was placed high and therefore not possible for any fun picture opportunities; we’re hoping that the sign on the way out of the state/country is better. Fortunately, there was a McDonald’s right at the border for a quick restroom break and to fill up my camelbak with ice.

Dan set lunch at mile 35 and decided it’d be a good idea to pull off into the forest for lunch. I’m not sure why he choose to pull so far in, but I do know that it was tough to see and Jessie and I nearly missed it, Kate and Lindsey missed it later in the day.

We caught up with Kathy and together we attacked the last 20 miles climbing through a mountain. Chewelah is a small ski town and we passed right by the entrance to the ski mountain. The uphills on Flowery Trail (elevation 4,046ft) were tough but we all managed and finally caught a sight for sore legs: the diamond, yellow traffic sign with a truck on a downgrade and another sign with 8 miles on it. Amazing.

The church in Chewelah has been hosting us since the beginning and over the years they’ve picked up on what makes for a good stay. Since we had to wait for the trailer to get to the church, a bunch of people played volleyball in the yard. I choose to stand in the cold creek on the edge of the yard for a good 20 minutes relieve any leg soreness. They even arranged for the local pool to open solely for us to take showers and swim. There were plenty of funoodles for all.

And then there was the food. Since the first group arrived after morning service and the congregation was finishing lunch, they let us eat their leftovers. In addition to that, they had a snack table filled with fruit, cookies and drinks. Dinner was set for 6:00, but since we arrived early, they decided to hold “pre-dinner” at 3:30. They cooked up trays upon trays of hot dogs to tide us over until dinner. One person even brought a gallon bag of huckleberries to munch on, quite the generous move since a gallon of huckleberries goes for $40.

After a filling dinner, as usual we gave a presentation about Bike and Build. Today was special though, since it was the world premiere of Bike and Build NUS 2008’s video. B&B has a standard video that we show but it’s been played year after year and getting a bit dated and well, it doesn’t have any of us in it. So, Anson and Kevin have been working diligently throughout the trip, gathering and taking pictures and videos and editing it into a 6:00 minute video. It’s leaps and bounds better, especially since it has a picture of each of us and our roadnames. I believe they are planning to make a more general video for next year’s route to use. Oh man, it’s so good, I’ll try to get my hands on a copy and post it.

We have 7 days of riding left and as Joy informed us, it’s going to be a tough week. We still have plenty of mountains and passes to go over; it’s not downhill from here in the least bit.

Sandpoint, ID - Build Day

2008-08-17T01:13:00.002-04:00

I just sustained my worst injury on bike and build so far, I accidentally sprayed myself in the face with my sunblock. The cap was a bit off and I was jiggling it to get it back on tight and pushed down, sending a spritz of Coppertone Sportblock SPF 70+ all over my face. I did have my glasses on, but it still stung. Even better, I was in the kitchen and everyone in the eating area saw it all in its entirety.

A build day today in Sandpoint. The site wasn't that far and there was a single job that we needed to accomplish, put siding up on the house. We all split up on one of the four side and I managed to pick a side with shade on it. Manage isn't the right word, I deliberately placed myself on a side with shade on it. There were only 17 hammers, so there were a fair amount of people that were left without work. The site manager sent a few people to fill a hole with dirt, of course. At least this time though, they were able to use a dirt compressor, heavy machinery always makes the most mundane tasks fun.

Even better, the affiliate in Sandpoint only works half-days, that's how they've always done it. From what I gathered, when they first started and still, churches and others would bring such large lunches that afterwards they wouldn't have much time to work and were all tired from eating. We had finished the front and the back of the house with siding and most of the sides. The sides didn't get finished because there was a lot of cutting and trim for triangular gable part of the roof that was time consuming.

After our subs for lunch, we all headed back to the church to enjoy the rest of our day, a bonus half-day off. The first thing all of us did was immediately head to our sleeping bags and crash. From the work in the morning, waking up early the past few days to beat the sun and heat, and actually riding in the sun and heat, it all finally caught up with us. For about two hours, the room that I'm sleeping in had everyone (Katrina, Ian, Jessie, Kate, and Erik) soundly sleeping.

Several others went to the rope swing along the river and near downtown for the rest of the afternoon. I met up with them once I got my act together, but just to watch. I headed over to Mick Duffs, a brewery on main street, and firmly planted myself in a booth fit for at least 6 people with my computer and a beer. A nice afternoon.

For dinner, the church left us four boxes of frozen Stouffer's lasagna, nothing I was too excited for. Instead, Kate, Erik and Kathy and myself went to Jalapenos, a mexican restaurant for dinner. It was nice to get out and be in a smaller group. Since they didn't have sangria, I had myself a huckleberry margarita. Dinner consisted of switching between good conversation and watching the women's Olympic marathon.

In these weeks/days winding down to the end, I've noticed that I've been spending significantly more money than at the beginning of the trip. I've been acting more upon the food cravings that I've build up over the weeks, getting a coke here, a Big Mac there, a smoothie now, a vitaminwater for later, and a good meal to get away. Just a natural sign that we've been on the road for a while and it's something easy for me to control. And, not that I've ever really concerned myself with it, but it's nice to know that I can eat whatever I want and as much of it as I want and not have it matter in the slightest bit.

75 miles tomorrow. High of 104. Last 28 miles are over a mountainous terrain. Wake up at 5:15. Almost there.

Sandpoint, ID

2008-08-16T21:20:00.003-04:00

Note: I posted about the day off in Whitefish, MT. Please sift back through to find it.

The ride from Libby, MT to Sandpoint, ID was more of the same. For the beginning of the day we rode along the Kootenai River. About 11 miles into the ride, a fair amount of us stopped to take a look at the Kootenai Falls and a Swinging Bridge. It involved a little bit of an easy hike, but it was well worth it, especially to see the falls, the swinging bridge seemed kind of a gimmick to me.

I rode the rest of the day by myself mostly. I learned from the day before that if I wanted to take in the scenery around, I'd have to ride by myself. We finally crossed the state line and entered Idaho. Just as exciting, we entered the Pacific time zone. I never fully understood before, but I now sympathize with my friends from school who spent their four years trying to time their phone calls with friends and family back home, the three-hour time difference is quite the pain.

Since it was an 85 mile day, we had two lunches. At lunch 1, mile 40, we ran out of peanut butter, never a good thing, but we had bananas so it kind of evened out. The second lunch was set at mile 65, but at mile 55 we passed through Booner's Ferry, where I stopped off at a cafe to get an iced chai and fill my camelbak with ice. It was a hot day and I was starting to feel the sun. Also, I planned to fill up on water there (the main purpose of lunch 2 is more for water/break than food) and just skip lunch 2 since I was feeling good and would rather keep moving to get myself as quickly out of the heat as possible.

Booner's Ferry is right along a river, so we had an amazing 6% grade downhill for 2 miles to get to town, but that means we had a tough climb on the way out. Totally worth it though. From Booner's Ferry to Sandpoint, I just moved, averaging about 19/20.

Since I gained an hour and was in the middle of the group that day, I decided to spend a fair amount of time at the library. Well, that's a lie, I missed the last turn to get to the church and accidentally found the library. Whatever the case, the library is nice, with at least 30 public computers and 4 racks filled with magazines.

While at the library, I did some research on Sandpoint, since I hadn't seen their downtown yet. I was relieved to find out that Sandpoint is the headquarters of Coldwater Creek and their flagship store is on the main street. While upscale women's apparel geared toward the working crowd doesn't directly concern me, it does indirectly mean that there's probably a lot of other stuff going on for it. For instance, during our stay here, there's a music festival going on and a rodeo.

For dinner, the church left us burritos. They tasted like mush on the inside, not a good mush, but an average mush. For the evening, a bunch of people headed over for the music festival along the lake. Ziggy Marley was the headlining act. I decided to go to the movies with Lindsey and Joy to see Tropic Thunder. The movie itself didn't matter so much, but we wanted to get away for a bit and just laugh. In my thoughts, Tropic Thunder is the same as Balls of Fury, just with a different plot driving the story that leads to a remote outpost in the Southeast Asian jungle where people are held captive and need to be rescued. But, Robert Downey Jr. is amazing in his role.

The movie theater is a two-mile ride away, not a big deal. Well, at least with daylight. On the way back, it was dark and though we had our rear red flashing tailights, we only had my headlamp to lead the way. So, I wore it around my helmet and led the way back, being sure to be very careful with voice signals since we couldn't see much. Good thing no one ran over the roadkill deer on the side of the road.

Lots of thing to be excited for, a new state, a new timezone, a build day and most importantly, two nights sleeping in the same spot.

Prom and Mail Drop

2008-08-15T01:27:00.001-04:00

PROM: I’ve finally posted pictures from it, way back when we were in Rugby, ND. It’s posted on August 2nd, so go back to find it.

Mail Drop: Thank you to everyone who sent letters and cards of encouragement and congratulations on nearing the end and making it so far already. On this last mail drop, I was inundated with mail, to the point that everyone else took notice. Actually, it was hard not to take notice; there were 21 pieces in all (for disclosure, I didn’t count it, someone else did and told me). It was touching to read through the notes and words. One of the funny pieces of mail sent was an envelope (no return address written) filled with a folded sheet of white paper, blank with no writing. I’m assuming that it was a decoy mail sent because I enjoy receiving mail so much, too funny. Also, my friend Dan sent issues of TIME and Entertainment Weekly, both of which have already been read: TIME before dinner and EW after dinner over dinner #2, a Big Mac meal at McDonald’s. The fun mail is too numerous to go over it all, but again, thank you for sending it along. It’s reassuring to know that’s a whole slew of people across the country supporting me as I’ve made my way through it.

Pictures-Glacier National Park

2008-08-14T22:39:00.006-04:00

The first part of our ride through Glacier along St. Mary Lake. That curve just ahead in the distance, well once we made the turn there was a wall of wind that stopped us in our tracks.

Fun shadows. Because the sun was rising.

On our ascent, John P. attacking the hill. You can't tell from the picture, but the guy has a freakishly high cadence.

They're a bit hard to see, but there are mountain goats!

We were at this sign for all of 20 seconds; it was too cold and windy and we needed to start our descent to warmer and and less windier conditions. Also, please note the gray long johns I'm wearing over my biking shorts and the horrendous nature of the whole get-up, which is part of the fun.

Birdwoman falls I believe. We also biked past Weeping Falls, which basically spills onto the road. Pretty when you're in a car and cute when the water splashes on your windshield, terrifying as you see a slick road ahead while moving at over 30mph on two narrow tires.

On the way down, we had to pull over to warm up our hands. At least it was scenic.

While at the Montana Vortex of a tourist trap, there was another giant chair. An appropriate bookend to the giant adirondack chair back in Vermont.

Libby, MT

2008-08-14T17:06:00.003-04:00

A 6:45 wake up this morning and pancakes and sausage provided by the church for breakfast. I opted to skip breakfast as I already knew I was going to start the ride alte and instead go into town and head back to Cafe Jax for breakfast.

Kate and Kathy joined me for breakfast getting their cappuccino fix and for myself, a skillet fix. Sadly milkshakes only come in one size, large, and I couldn't order one since I can't imagine it would sit well with the next 70 miles and heat.

Bobby and John P. were sweeps and they stayed back at the church waiting for us while we finished breakfast. They watched Olympic coverage, so they weren't complaining about getting on the road late. Last night actually, most of us were in the TV room just watching the Olympics, lots of fun.

We had been hearing from everyone that the ride today was beautiful and they weren't kidding. There were lots of downhills and even better, the majority of the ride was along Lake Koocanusa. It's a man-made lake/reservoir of Libby Dam. Basically, the entire time we were looking at the water and the mountains across covered in trees. If yesterday was a good day because of the people I was riding with, today was a good day because of the scenery.

The first half of the morning I spent riding with Kate and Kathy and we were moving at a good clip. The sweeps caught up with us (both of them are fast) and we were chatting for a bit. They decided to have a contest who could go the longest without sitting on their saddle. Not sure how that turned out. We caught up with a group of people at the lunch stop and afterwards I headed out on my own to finish the day. It's tough to pay attention to the scenery around when you're riding with others, so I just wanted some alone time to take it all in. I stopped by the dam for a little bit, but frankly, I don't find dams too interesting. It's just a a mass of concrete with someonthing that goes inside to create electricty.

I actually haven't even made it to our host location tonight, I made a point to explore the town a bit and currently at the library. We're staying at a school tonight . . . my favorite. It's our last mail drop today, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's goodies. I also ordered a new pump, so I won't be useless anymore if I do happen to get a flat.

Eureka, MT

2008-08-13T18:16:00.000-04:00

This morning for breakfast, we were treated to sourdough pancakes. THe man who came in to cook them didn't mess around, he had a pancake dispenser machine to use on the griddle. Also, since it's sourdough, you need to prepare the batter at least a day before to let the starter work. Most of breakfast I asked people around me about starters and yeast and such. From each batch, they save about a cup to use as a starter for the next batch of pancakes. When I asked the chef about where his starter came from, he said it went back to 1850.

Only 52 miles today and it was a great day for a ride. We weren't on Route 2 for any of it and on the whole, we were moving downhill. I spent the day riding in a fun paceline with Kate, Kathy, Erik and Jessie, with Derek joining in the morning, but he set forth on his own after lunch. As a group, we were riding really well together and things just felt right.

Lots of trees around and mountains to look at when there were openings. Also, plenty of lakes that we passed by with a pretty vibrant blue-green color. A stress-free and easy day's ride.

Only two things rather bothered me during the ride, two cars that honked at us as they passed by. I'm not sure if they were honking in support or if we were taking nup too much road (we weren't, we were square in the middle of the wide shoulder), but whatever the case, it surprised us all a bit. Don't honk at cyclists, it scares the crap out of me. And if you're letting me know that you're coming up behind me to pass, well, I've already heard your car coming up long before you honked.

The saga of the van and its troubles continued today. During our ride to Whitefish, the van gave up with about 25 miles to drive still and needed to be towed. All the electrical just went out. The mechanic worked on it on our day off, but this morning the brakelights and turn signals didn't work, so it's back at the mechanics in Whitefish. Which means, all of the riders made it to Eureka with plenty of time and we still won't see the van for about another hour or two. We're walking around town in our jerseys and bike shorts; it's quite the sight since it's such a small town.

I spent a good part of the afternoon at Cafe Jax where they have amazing milkshakes and massive root beer floats. I noticed that they serve asparagus in their veggie omelete, so I ordered a side of asparagus to go with my huckleberry shake.

Since we're come into Western Montana, huckleberries are everywhere. I never realized that they are an actual berry, I thought they were only a Finn. It's quite the local food and it's incorporated and used in everything. Hucklberries look like blueberries, but a bit smaller and more tart, like a combination of a blueberry and pomegranate. So, I've been loading up on my huckleberry ice cream since I'm not sure when I might see it next.

Last night, most everyone was out at bars along main street in Whitefish with the sole purpose of watching the Olympics. One of our new priorities on arrival at each day's host location is to see if we can get TV at the church and if not, where in town is a good place to watch it. Our commentary for the women's gymnastics was provided by Jessie, since she is a gymnast. And, we went wild while watching the American men smash the WR record in the 4X200 meter freestyle relay. Upon arriving, most of the other patrons thought we were crazy for our energy and excitement, by the end of the night, we had the whole bar cheering for the Olympics too.

Oh man, only one more day of Montana. Two more build days. One more mail drop. I can't believe that Vancouver is actually within reach, unthinkable at the beginning when we started in Portsmouth.

Whitefish, MT - Build Day, Day Off

2008-08-13T04:00:00.002-04:00

Whitefish, MT – Day Off

Yesterday, after we left Glacier National Park, we stopped in West Glacier and treated ourselves to lunch since we had lots of time to get to Whitefish and deserved something special for just climbing over the Rockies. It was an odd lunch place, the waitress and hostess were two older woman that were nice in a creepy, I’m going to poison your food, kind of way. Well, throughout the meal we kept swapping cameras and looking at pictures and making a riot of noise and laughter. The table next to us, just happened to notice our jerseys and came over to ask about what we’re doing. It turns out that the gentleman, Dave Newell, is also the president of the Habitat chapter that includes Whitefish, MT, how fortuitous. We got to talking and Christopher, one of the four leaders, traded phone numbers and would follow up later that day for the potential for a build site tomorrow, on our day off. It was a great interaction and Dave and his friend were generous enough to pick up our meal for us, score. I know it’s not right, but I was waiting for that meal to be picked up by a complete stranger after hearing about what we’re doing.

Now, I mention this incident since it was the catalyst for events later that day and the next day. While the 9 of us spent our time in Whitefish, cleaning up and lounging around, the rest of the group was making their way through Glacier biking to Whitefish, trying to beat the sun. Well, once everyone had arrived and dinner leftovers had been eaten, the rest of the group learned about the impromptu build day for tomorrow. This was not well received. They were still in their bike clothes, tired from tough ride and long day, dirty with no hope of a shower (the health club had closed), and just learning that they would be spending their day off at a build site. The aftermath was not pretty and the topic of discussion for the rest of the night, even trailing for a few days afterwards. Oh man, it was tense. Everyone was hanging on by a thread. It was all resolved and the build day became a half-day and on a volunteer basis. While working on the affordable housing cause is the reason for our trek, many people had been looking forward to a day off, with no obligations of biking or building, since we had just spent the past 11 days riding; our bodies needed the break.

For the build day, the next day, about half the group volunteered their day-off to help out. The site was in a neighboring town, Kalispell. It’s a much larger town than Whitefish, which I gleaned since on a map of Montana, the font is bolder and darker. The site included two homes, on adjacent lots, with plenty of work for us to do. We were divided working on either roofing, caulking the exterior, painting the exterior window trim, or helping with sheetrock. It was the most organized build site that we’ve been to; all their tools clearly had their place and they had a refrigerator plugged in outside for their lunch.

I was on the caulking crew, filling the gaps created between the roofline and the soffit. I was only allowed to use the white caulk, since brown caulking supposedly takes more skill. Well, at least that’s what Dottie told me. Who is Dottie? A character and on my back the entire morning.

Dottie is part of a group called the Care-A-Vanners. Basically, it’s retired people that drive in groups to Habitat sites across the country to help out. They set up shop, help out during the week and have the weekends to explore the area. It’s a cool idea and the geriatric version of Bike and Build. Dottie was joking that in 50 years, we’d be ideal candidates to be a Care-A-Vanner. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves Dottie; I hate RVs, but that’s for a different post.

The main reason Dottie is so memorable is because she kept hounding Isaiah and myself (the two white caulkers) about “feathering” the caulk. When just placed, the caulk is often to bit and needs to be “feathered” with your finger to spread and smooth it outh, so that when it’s painted over, it’s not unsightly. Well, our feathering technique just wasn’t up to snuff, so much so that Dottie even questioned Isaiah whether he had ever seen a bird’s feather before, interlocking her fingers as an example. Thankfully, it was only a half day.

Regardless of all that, it was a great build day and we were all doing productive tasks, which means not filling in a hole with dirt. I was back at the church by 12:30 to get my day-off started.

Whitefish is a ski town and has plenty of fun shops and restaurants on it’s main street. Our church was just at the end of main street, an ideal location. The leaders/trip have been very good about having our host locations be near all the action. I spent my afternoon at the Red Caboose Diner with a bowl of chili, plate of fries and my computer and wireless internet. It was some needed time off from the rest of the group. From there, I headed over to an outdoor shop to get a new bite valve for my camelbak (there’s a hole in it and frequently drips onto my shorts, making me think that I temporarily lost control of my bladder while riding). Attached was a coffee shop where I met up with Kate, Anson and Dae for some coffee/tea/ The coffee place had two separate stations, one for ordering and one for the barista, to send the order from one to the other, there was a metal wire hanging from the ceiling between the two where they’d shoot back the orders clipped to carabiners, how outdoorsy and relevant. Kate mentioned that there’s a farmer’s market in the evening, so we walked over there and browsed the stalls. I split a huckleberry, lemon and powder sugar crepe with Erik then wandered the stalls admiring various woodwork and longingly eyeing the baked goods.

Keep in mind that the town is rather small and you can’t help but run into other fellow riders. The half, day-off was perfect. When I arrived back at the church for a dinner of burgers and such, Kathy noticed how content I looked walking in: a clean polo on, flip flops, computer bag over one shoulder, cardigan tied onto the computer bag, sunglasses, and to-go cup of tea in one hand.

After dinner, we headed to a bar to watch Olympics. A good end to the day, though I headed back to the church early since I needed to pack up my bag in preparation for the next day. You should see our bags when we arrive at a church, they tend to just explode open with items spilling everywhere.

Glacier National Park

2008-08-13T03:14:00.005-04:00

The ride through Glacier National Park was breathtaking. The road brought us through spectacular views and overlooks, absolutely unreal. Granted it’s the narrow northern part, but we rode the 50 miles through the park and up and over the Rockies in one day (and then 25 more miles to get to Whitefish, our final destination).

We took the Going-to-the-Sun road, which goes through the park and brings you up to Logan’s Pass, the highest point with an elevation of 6,646ft. Most everyone takes their car through the park because of the steep and lengthy inclines/declines; we were on our bikes and hardcore. The pass also marks the Continental Divide. As Christopher so eloquently put it, “Depending on which side you peed on, it marks whether it’d travel towards the Atlantic or the Pacific.”

There’s a seven-mile stretch that is closed to bikes from 10am-4pm on the western side of the park near Lake Macdonald. There’s a lodge and visitor center there since it marks the beginning of the ascent or descent from the top. This led to two options: (1) ride the 45 miles from the campground, including up and over Logan’s Pass (about 2500ft vertical climb) to the Lake Macdonald Lodge by 10am or (2) leave Lake Macdonald Lodge at 4pm, if you left right on time, and then still have 30 miles to get to Whitefish.

Obviously, either option means very different realities for your day: (1) you can either wake up really early (5:15), make the 10am cut-off, and then take your time to Whitefish and still get there in the early afternoon or (2) you can wake up a bit later (6:45), spend lots of time in the morning and leisurely making your way through the park then once you get to Lake Macdonald Lodge, book it to Whitefish to beat the setting sun/dusk and arrive in the evening.

Pros and cons for either side. I opted to go with choice (1). Yes, I had to wake-up early, stress myself to make the mileage, and limit the amount of stopping time for pictures in Glacier (one of the premier national parks), but at the end was Whitefish, the site of our day-off and I wanted to get to that day-off as soon as I could. We’ve been riding for 11 straight days and that was that, I wasn’t going to let some nature stop me from that. I wasn’t planning on going hiking in my biking shoes and though I wouldn’t be taking as many pictures, I could just take other people’s pictures and I’d still have the same experience of riding through the park. Also, I wouldn’t be stuck in St. Mary or the park just wasting away time in the morning lollygagging around, I’d be “stuck” in Whitefish with a roof, shower and civilization, that much sooner off my bike and for that much longer. For me and my interests, the choice was clear.

Props to the early group that I was riding with to make the 10am deadline: Bobby, Dae, Ian, Anson, Christopher, John P, Jessie and Kathy.

My alarm was set for 5:15 with departure at 6:00am. Christopher, also leaving early and in my tent, was my riding buddy for the day. It was howling wind throughout the night and continued when we woke up. I thought that we wouldn’t be able to ride at 5:15, so I went back to sleep but then heard others getting ready to head out. We’ve faced wind before, I was just looking for a reason not to ride it. I was out of my sleeping bag at 5:37, then packed up, changed, put in contacts, chowed down a Clif bar and out by 6:00, the fastest I’ve gotten ready the entire trip.

Christopher and I were the first to head out and we chalked the few turns for the other behind, including a message at the entrance booth to “Just Go” and not worry about the $12 admission charge. It was so early that there was no one working yet, so we just cruised on through.

As we began, the sun was rising and through the clouds it’d just warm the rock face with an orange glow. The entire park is a postcard. We needed to make it the 20 miles from the entrance to the top of Logan’s Pass at a decent time, since we’d still have 25 miles to ride on the other half, even though it’s downhill. The two of us just kept chugging along, pulling each other for the flats and slight inclines and then riding side by side for the uphills to keep each other motivated and in check. We weren’t moving that fast, maybe about 8mph. And there were gusts of wind, but since we weren’t going at any real speed, it couldn’t slow us down, just lots of noise.

Well, it was cold to begin with when we woke up and as we climbed, it only got colder. That combined with the gusts of wind didn’t make things any easier or more comfortable. On the bottom, I wore my bike shorts with long underwear over them on the outside and a long-sleeve base layer, bike and build jersey, and armwarmers on top. I had skull cap for sweat covering my head, just one pair of socks and my fingerless riding gloves. It’s quite the atrocious get-up.

The climb wasn’t too steep, just long. We kept at a steady pace and were passed by the other, faster riders on the hill, but we all made it to the visitor’s center at the top of the pass, too bad it wasn’t open. We sought shelter in the bathroom to warm ourselves up and prepare ourselves for the even colder descent.

The way up was cold, but tolerable since we were working pretty hard to keep moving, down is a different story, you’re just sitting stationary on your bike moving fast with lots of wind making it even colder, not the ideal conditions. We staggered our departures from the top to be safe. From the beginning, I was fine, my fingers and hands were not. They were colder than they’ve ever been and I even questioned whether they were starting to freeze. All this time, I had to clutch my brake handle to manage my speed down since there were lots of sharp turns and road construction. Yes, we were fortunate enough to deal with one mile reduced to one-lane and a several miles that were rocky, wet, dirt roads. Again, not ideal. I wasn’t braking with my hands or fingers, by this time, they were more like claws.

Christopher managed to get a flat on the way down and had to change his tube in the cold with the stumps that used to be his fingers. It took much longer than normal. Kathy and Jessie caught up with Christopher and I, which was good since we were the back half and now everyone was accounted for.

I moved slowed on the downhill as I normally do. I was not comfortable with the dirt road. But after going through a tunnel, seeing pavement, looking at my watch and realizing I needed to race to the lodge, I started to pick things up. I was last and caught up with Christopher and together we pushed to get there in time. When did we roll up? 9:58am.

Kathy, Jessie, John P, Christopher and I met together and had lunch just outside the park in West Glacier. The trailer was packed there and we stuffed out camelbaks with a change of clothing since the trailer wouldn’t get to Whitefish till late. We rode as a group to Whitefish and it was mostly downhill. Though, there was a fair stretch where there wasn’t a shoulder, just a two-lane road. That was quite intense and I was glad that we came across the Montana Vortex to stop at.

The Montana Vortex is this terrible tourist trap. Absolutely terrible. It’s a blatant tourist trap. I don’t even know what it is, but they charged $12 for it.

We stayed in a group until about two miles from the church; I had a flat. Looking at my tire, I had run square over a tack and it puncture the tire and tube. Ugh. Between the five of us, we didn’t have a spare tube to use; Christopher used the last new tube on his flat down the mountain. Our entire group is low on tubes since we haven’t had a bike shop to restock in a long time. We tried to patch it but to no avail. Since I was stranded but needed to finish out the day, I just started walking my bike. The four others continued on to the church and would then go to the church and bike back with an entire spare wheel for me to use. I walked maybe about half a mile before Christopher came back with a new tube at a sporting goods store along the way. The half-mile walk was humbling; I was moving slow. If biking across America takes a summer, how long would walking across America?

I finally made it to the church just before 4pm. Immediately headed over to shower then a bar to watch some Olympics coverage with the others who came in. Dinner was at 6pm and a potluck at the church here. Isaiah was the first to come in from the later group and popped in at the end of dinner. Then after dinner I headed to another bar to watch more Olympics. I finally left to head back to the church and see all the other riders.

I was excited to learn that all the riders had made it into the church from Glacier. The remaining 25 miles weren’t exactly a breeze and the last rider did end up racing the sun to make it in. It was quite the accomplishment for all of us individually to make it through the day and as a group.

Whitefish is a ski town of about 6,000. The church is right on the main street and it’s filled with all sorts of shops and restaurants. The pastor here is a blast and totally gets what we need. For instance, our showers were at a swank healthclub. A perfect place for a day off. I’ve been waiting 11 days for this.

St. Mary, MT

2008-08-12T17:29:00.008-04:00

It was supposed to be an easy day, just 65 miles but the wind decided to show up at mile 2 and stay with us the entire day. I was lucky if I broke 9 mph. The headwind was pretty atrocious. At one of the many breaks I took, I found a Montana license plate on the side of the road, which I immediately grabbed and placed in my camelbak. I rode with the back group today and I'm surprised nobody in front picked it up; it's an authentic license plate, probably still active.

Joy was driving and had surprised us with two lunch stops, so needed. We were originally supposed to have one at mile 35, but with the wind she had them at mile 25 and 50. At lunch 1 I noticed that one of my arm warmers had fallen out of my camelbak, most likely when I picked up the license plate. I called back to the sweeps, Michelle and Laura, and miraculously they found it, just lying on the side of the road.

The biggest highlight in the town of Browning was a coffee shop in the shape of a teepee. Oh, lots of gift shops filled with all sorts of junk. My favorite was one souvenir called "Ghost Poop" for 75 cents. It consisted of a small bag filled with 4 pieces of packing peanuts.

Actually no, at lunch 1 I had a huge fried chicken craving, so I was hoping that there'd be a KFC in town, no luck. But turning left onto the last road, I stopped at the Conoco (gas station) to use the restroom and what was sitting in their hotbox? Fried chicken. Bought a leg. Best 99 cents I've ever spent.

From Browning though, we started to see the mountains/rockies/glacier in the near distance. We began to hit our first realy climbs since our east; it was a nice change of pace. Since there were trees around, there wasn't as much wind anymore, another reason why deforestation is bad. The clouds became a bit darker and I could see rain coming. I rode the fastest to get to the town of St. Mary because I had already dealt with two of my least favorite types of resistance (wind and hills) and I did not want to add rain to the list.

The downhill into St. Mary was a lot of fun and at the bottom there were a bunch of gift shops. I pulled over and met up with a few other riders to browse and get something warm in our stomachs; the day had been cool and windy. They charged me $2:00 for a cup of tea, which was just hot water and a bag of nestea. I made up the difference by basically filling it up with as much honey as my tastebuds could tolerate. On the way out, we saw an empty booth with two slices of pepperoni pizza sitting on it leftover. While Lindsey, Quang and I talked about whether it'd be wrong to take or not, Zack just swooped in and grabbed a piece and quickly headed outside, I repeated the same motion.

We stayed at the KOA Kampground in St. Mary. It was quite the nice place, it had a pool, three clean hot showers, and a hot tub. We also purchased two new tents and stakes since our last camping debacle so we all had shelter. Some of us, John, felt that a tent wasn't necessary and made a tarp shelter with the picnic bench. Also, props to dinner crew, especially Derek, for making veggie stir-fry for dinner.

Windy the entire night and the next day we'd be heading through Glacier National Park, one of the highlights of the trip.

Cut Bank, MT

2008-08-10T09:09:00.004-04:00

An uneventful day yesterday as sweep. Ian was my partner in crime but it didn't feel like a sweep day at all, mainly because there was a large group of us riding in the back so we didn't feel like we were in the absolute back.

Passed through Shelby along the way and stopped for more water and an ice cream break. Again, it was a hot day.

Today, we'll end the night just inside Glacier National Park and camping again. After our night outside, we'll be biking through the park, reaching an elevation of about 6,000 ft.

As of now, we're all looking forward to a change in the terrain and the Rockies. Who knows what we'll be saying during and after it.

Chester, MT

2008-08-08T17:13:00.002-04:00

Another long day on Route 2.

From mail drop, I spent the evening sprucing up Hugh. I replaced both the front and rear tires and replaced the chain. After so many miles, the chain itself stretches causing damage to the cassette. By the time I was done, Hugh was like a new bike.

Well, within the first few miles of the ride I immediately noticed how difficult it was to pedal. It felt like I was riding through tar. I thought my brakes were rubbing but after pulling over to check, it wasn't them. Since I did so much work on the bike last night, I couldn't tell if it was tires (logical), chain (adjusting to the new length) or myself (eggbake was served this morning). The shoulders were only a little rough and minimal headwind, so it couldn't of been that. Whatever the culprit, it stayed like that the entire day making it a tough and arduous ride. Imagine that you're used to running and then you are thrown in a pool to run; it felt kind of like that today.

It was also a scorcher. At mile 55 Hingham conveniently popped up since I needed to fill up my camelbak and waterbottle. The thermometer outside said it was 97. Most other riders stopped by too to refill and just chatting with others, it seemed that everyone was feeling sluggish. I'm hoping that the heat did it and it's nothing related to my bike.

Today's scenery was farms that went into the distance. It was fields of yellow that stretched to the horizon. At the end, you'd see shadow of mountains, which I'm sure are nothing compared to the Rockies we'll be facing soon. Now, most riders find it monotonous and boring to be riding so long with nothing to look at; I love it. I lose myself looking around. When you're riding alone and there aren't any vehicles around, an overwhelming sense of insignificance washes over you. It's rare to have that much space and openness to yourself, which is why I think I enjoy it.

Today especially, I noticed all the train traffic that passed through. With the space, you get to see the entirety of the loads that they're pulling. They're specks in the horizon moving slowly through the land (though not at all in reality)and kind of look like toys.

My memories of driving down through Illinois and other Midwest states you see flat and farms till the horizon as well, there are still patches of trees and greenery. Here, it's all yellow and feels like a desert. You don't get the feeling of flatness here, vastness is more like it. Though the terrain might look flat, it's deceiving because since you can see so far into the distance, it makes everything look flat despite having long hills or valleys.

I can't get over the heat; today has been our hottest day yet that we've ridden through. Through most of the morning there wasn't even any cloud coverage; we were completely exposed. Having all those acres of farms and vegetation, they are a massive heat trap. At times I felt like like a cyclist and more like a turkey roasting in an oven.

There are four people still left in assasins: Anson, Kathy, Jessie and Bobby. They're all taking it very seriously to the point that they aren't stopping for lunch. They packed their lunches and eating them on the road. Well, the last person that arrives can stop at lunch since they are safe, but that still leaves three others that aren't. I was worried about them hoping that they had enough water to make it through, what reckless game. I'm about to leave the library and go to the church and pin each of them down and pour a bottle of water in their mouth.

The Olympics start today and as a group we're all pumped for it. We don't have much free time, but I know that I'll be sneaking off to bars or any place with a TV to watch what I can.

Chinook, MT

2008-08-07T18:10:00.002-04:00

A new day. New rear tire. New tube.

I made sure I was among the first to leave the church; I was determined power my way through the 67 miles. Put down as much mileage before anything bad happened, flats mainly. I’d get to Chinook early and put on the new tires. Things looked good, I felt good and I was moving fast thanks to wonderful tailwind.

10 miles in, I hear that suspicious sound with each tire rotation, cachook, cachook, cachook, cachook. Flat. I curse a bit in my head and then pull over.

Kevin, Pen and Anson were nice enough to stop by and help me. Actually, I needed them since my pump is broken (the adapter valve fell off however many miles ago on Route 2) and I have no more tubes since I’ve had so many flat; today makes it 3 for 3. Clearly a little frustrated, the three of them picked up on it and basically changed my flat for me as I sat on the ground in disbelief. Big props to them.

Back in working order, I decide to rev up and catch the people that passed me. I catch up to Reed who just happens to be doing sprint intervals and myself moving at a steady 24. This is how the next 10-12 miles worked: I’d pass Reed on the left; a few seconds; Reed would pass me on the left and spring far ahead then slow down; I’d catch up and pass Reed on the left; and so on and so forth.

We both caught up to Erik who managed to ride 27 miles without his hands (!). Well, he rode the last mile on a front flat tire because he was too stubborn to end the streak. He stopped to change his tire and I waited with him, to repay for my morning flat kindness. Kate dropped by to wait and the three of us rode the rest of the day.

On the whole, an easy and fun ride. Good tailwind and few cars on the road. We all stopped at a gas station and chatted with someone from the Fort Belknap reservation about what we’re doing and he enlightened us about his people and tribe. Also, he actually spoke at Dartmouth at a Native American conference before. For a good chunk in the afternoon I took videos of Erik and Kate. Then we decided to see how fast we could go with the tailwind, flat roads, and a good sprint: Erik 38.9, Craig 36.4, Kate 32.6. My legs were burning the entire time, so I decided once was enough. Erik decided to try it three more times and Kate once more, crazies.

Mail drop today! Thanks to the McCarthy’s for sending along the chocolate covered sunflower seeds among other goodies. Louisa for the hilarious card. My parents for the continued ethnic snacks. Alyssa and Cheryl for the trail mix and brownies (kudos for the convenient and practical individual packaging). And Probikekit.com for the tires.

A big shout-out to Anson’s family for sending the massive package of assorted magazines. It was perfect timing and much needed, we immediately grabbed one and started flipping through. We’ll get good use of them in the next few days. And to everyone else who sent baked goods, mmmm.

The mail drop especially put me back in a good mood. Not just for the packages I received, but just seeing everyone’s letters and boxes that they received. It’s an amazing sight and an important reminder of the support from family and friends for what we’re doing.

Distasteful, I’m aware, and with blatant, selfish purpose, a reminder that there’s only more mail drop left.

The internet is slow here and not letting me post pictures, but hopefully I can get some up soon. Also, I'm still composing the posts about our night in Theodore National State Park and Prom in Rugby, ND.

Malta, MT

2008-08-06T22:55:00.003-04:00

4 miles out of Glasgow we passed by numerous dinosaur sculptures scattered all over the hills on the right. Taken by the sight, I knew I needed a picture. I left early and was near the front, but pulled over and went to knock on the home's door to ask to go on his land. No one answered and when I turned around, only Quang was there. Supposedly lots of people had passed by in the process (I had to walk my bike down a gravel path and deal with a wolf-dog outside the front door) and so began the confusion.

I don't know why, but I like to know where everybody is on the road. I like to know what order people are in. I like to know who's in front of me and who's behind me. I don't want to be surprised if someone passes me; I want to be prepared. The entire day I had no idea where anyone else was. I could only see specks in the distance and only Quang following at a good distance behind me. The whole confusion left me in a disoriented mental state.

The miles flew by and lunch was at mile 35. Now, Malta has the distinction of having the highest density of mosquitos according to some Guinness Book of World Records thing. I couldn't find it by searching online, but I believe it. Malta itself isn't the worst, but the roads coming in are. It's situated between a nature preserve on one side, a man-made lake from a dam, and flooded farm fields; a perfect breeding ground. Pulling into lunch I was immediately swarmed. I made myself a quick PB&J and headed back on the road. Oh, I also died in the process; Quang killed me which explains why he was following me all day. Whatever, to not stop at lunch to refuel and rest a bit because of a silly game is dumb.

The next 35 miles. I eyed a vending machine passing through Saco and took a quick break to drink a cold Coke. The beginning of random cravings for the rest of the day. Though I will say, I did make a good advertisement: Straddling my bike next to the vending machine, sun beating down, beads of sweat on the can, the slight head tilt to drink. The last half of the day, again, I didn't run across anyone and was by myself. The "myself" part didn't bother me at all, I lose myself just looking at the terrain, it's just I didn't know where the heck anyone else was.

2 miles out of Malta, flat tire. Of course, this makes 2 days and 2 flat tires. The mail drop tomorrow with new tires needs to get here, I just need to make it 67 miles tomorrow with no flat. Sharon passes by 5 minutes later but her pump doesn't work so she moves on. I call the van to see where Joy is, but she just left lunch 35 miles back. Surely some other rider would come by before the van made it. Nope. I waited 45 minutes on the side of the road until Joy arrived and used the floor pumps we have. I called a friend to pass the time, but I could've walked my bike and made it before the pump arrived. Even better, there was a DQ about a mile up.

We stayed at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Malta. They left us use their religious education building. It was creepy. I remember odd yellow brick and small rooms. The creepiest part was writing in the bathroom like "God wants you to flush the toilet" written on the toilet tank lid.

There's an Alberston's in town and I walked over and fulfilled more random cravings: blueberries, salt and vinegar chips, and blueberry yogurt, essential (orange) vitaminwater. All very weird and I think partly to fill the frustrated and tired mood I was in. The flat 2 miles out really did a number on me. Ditto the disorientation of not knowing where anyone else was. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure I was a little dehydrated, the entire day I couldn't seem to keep my throat moist. I drank the 2L of my camelbak and nearly 30 oz of water during the ride.

It was also laundry day so we went to the laundromat and did our thing. Nothing to note, but it was hot inside, so I waited outside chatting on the phone. Though, while we were waiting for the washers to finish, we took a trip to the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum. We arrived 7 minutes after closing, but Sue opened the doors and let us in free of charge. It's a small museum but it serves as a base for field digs and they have Leonardo, their prized fossil. He's a mummified dinosaur with 90% of his skin tissue preserved. Something like that. The museum just opened in June and Leonardo is being prepped for his debut in Houston and a Discovery Channel Special that will be airing in August.

Dinner crew made quesdillas. Still, a bunch of us headed over to DQ to get various ice and cream goods. What did I get? A turkey club. For some reason I was just craving it.

In the evening, we had our weekly affordable housing meeting and a preliminary discussion about our competitive grant process. I was having none of it. I was tired, ornery and ready for bed. Before that though, I needed to deal with my flat rear tire. I decided the best move would be to get a new tube and use a stock tire for the day. All I need to do is make it the 67 miles tomorrow.

So, this was a down day for me. This seems to me to be a particularly tough stretch, since there's not much to look forward to. We're well beyond the half-way point but not close enough to be in the home stretch. We're just grinding through it. You tend to waiver back and forth between wanting the trip to be over and wanting to keep going. Glacier should help though. We've talked to a few people about it and heard nothing but raves.

Glasgow, MT

2008-08-05T23:48:00.007-04:00

The wind got the drift today and was nowhere to be found. That, coupled with a short 49 miles and few hills, made for an easy day for us; a much needed easy day.

Most people took it easy since there was no need to rush. But after cleaning Hugh last night, he just wanted to cruise, so that we did. I left the church a bit behind but caught up with most people and finally caught Isaiah at the front. I only caught up because there were some slight hills but then the flats came and he pulled away. Then, my rear tire decided to give out and deflate 9 miles before the lunch stop. A quick change and I was back on the road. Looking at my tires though, they have lots of small pock marks in the them. Thursday's mail drop I'll be getting a new set of tires for my bike, perfect timing.

The only highlight of today's trip was our lunch stop in the town of Nashua. We stopped at Bergies, a cafe and ice cream parlor. We didn't really need all the eating, but all of us took a long lunch and feasted. I attacked a banana split.

The church in Wolf Point made blueberry pancakes for breakfast and they were possibly the best blueberry pancakes I've had. Fluffy. Tender. Fresh blueberries. Brown. Mmmm. Sean didn't like the pancakes at the church and skipped breakfast, so he ordered a regular pancake at the lunch stop. He had no idea what he was in for. It was served on this frisbee-like plate. The scary thing? There's also a large on the menu. That's served on a pizza pan.

Our spot for the night was the Bethel Evangelical Church in Glasgow. It's quite the nice church and even a bit hip. Seth, the pastor, is young and totally tricked out the place for his congregation. The sanctuary had high-tech A/V equipment which we used to have our presentation in. They were in the process building a basketball court/multipurpose rec room. And, their eating area had a large screen with projector that was hooked up to a WII. It was quite the odd sight to see us playing Medal of Honor on the big screen, shooting up Nazis.

We all arrived at the church rather early and had plenty of down time. There was a flat panel TV in their library and a collection of videos to watch, church videos though. We settled on a video that documented how Harry Potter is reviving witchcraft, especially among children. It was quite ridiculous and laughs were had all around.

After the presentation, we read this week's K-Court. But the more important thing, we set forth the rules for Assassins. It's a game that begins tomorrow and basically, we're all trying to kill each other. We all have names and need to kill that person, once you kill your person, you receive their name and keep killing. To kill someone you need to throw a balled up, clean sock at them and make contact. You can only kill during the lunch stop, leisure breaks during the ride or before dinner, and outside of the church after dinner/presentation. I don't even want to think about how much we'd be all over the road if we were throwing socks at each other during the ride. So, that'll occupy us for the next day or so. We'll see how long I last.

Wolf Point, MT

2008-08-05T00:50:00.000-04:00

Today's my day for the group journal. Here's the entry I wrote for today:

An open letter:

Dear Wind,

We have to call it quits. Frankly, you’re smothering me and I can’t take it anymore. Sure we’ve had our ups and downs (Bowling Green, OH), but it’s just gotten to be too much. Since North Dakota, you’ve been around me all the time and after today’s ride I decided that we need to end it.

It was a short day, only 54 miles from Culbertson to Wolf Point. It should’ve been a piece of cake, but you were in my face the whole day. The first 20 miles out of Culbertson were rolling hills. I’d call them rolling mountains, but you know that I don’t like to be dramatic. Whatever they were, it wasn’t too bad; I wasn’t going that fast in the first place. But then you messed with my downhill. It’s a problem when the fastest you’ll let go is 18mph on a downhill. You crossed the line.

The last 30 miles of the day were flat terrain and you were there for every inch of it. With you around, I can’t hear myself think. You’re physically and mentally draining. I need my space. You seem to be everywhere, but behind me. You’re outbursts have gotten so bad that the only thing I can do is stick my head down and hope to make to make it through—my back hurts, stop.

You know I’ve never gotten along with your best friend rain, but you keep hanging out with her. Theodore Roosevelt National Park was the last straw. I had to hide in the bathroom while you had a girl’s night out.

I can’t deal with your temperament. You’re fine in the morning and at night, but the tantrums during the day are too much. I’ve begun to wake up earlier to get my day started so we can spend more time getting along and less time fighting.

We’re just not moving in the same direction anymore. You’re headed east and I want to go west.

You blow,

Craig Lee

Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP), ND

2008-08-04T18:11:00.001-04:00

It’s official: I am allergic to cats. We’re here in Culbertson and with each new Sunday, the chore groups change; I’m now on laundry crew. There’s a whole lot of laundry to go through since the majority of our gear and bags are drenched from camping last night (more detail later). The laundromat here was already closed when we arrived and there is no laundromat in our next town. The church members were generous enough to open up their homes for us to do our laundry; six different homes/families helped out. Well, I’m doing one bag of laundry and Charley and Chole have four cats. Way back when, I could make it through a sleepover and only have mild wheezing, coughing and itchy eyes by the morning. I’ve been here all of 20 minutes and my nose has started running and breathing is a bit more difficult. I’ve sequestered myself in their spare bedroom as the cats aren’t allowed in here that often. A bit antisocial and rude not to talk to the hosts, I know, but I’ve got to keep riding and clear breathing passageways are an important part of making that happen.

Cat allergies are just the final topper to the past 24 hours. It’s been taxing. Why? Let me tell you.

Our ride from New Town brought us to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP). The scenery was gorgeous and a perfect day for a ride. Most of us rode by ourselves just so we could take a look around; it was that type of day. It was a combination of rolling hills, rocky mountains in the distance, farms and fields. Absolutely beautiful. During the ride, I realized that I had finally begun to look around while riding. And it’s not that I didn’t the previous 2600 miles, but the openness of the horizon forces you to look up and take in everything. The van was getting looked at again since it was having troubles but fixed by the end of the day. There’s a whole fanangled way to start the van now: release emergency break; turn ignition key halfway, shift into neutral, turn ignition key all the way; shift into drive; and you’re ready to start. It’s the same way to turn off the engine just backwards. Bike and Build really needs to start allocating funds to having proper equipment.

The van manages to make it to Watford, just 15 miles from TRNP and we have a lunch break at a park in a camping/RV spot. Nothing notable but we were so close to the park and looking forward to our first night of camping in the outdoors, mainly because the clouds were clear and there didn’t seem to be any chance for rain.

The last 15 miles to TRNP had us turn left and catch an amazing tailwind. I literally breezed through it. There were also some large rolling hills which were not a problem at all. No, actually, they were fun. At some point, I was going 25 mph on the uphill, completely unheard of without a good tailwind. After climbing a hill and with a mile to go there was an epic downhill. Some people managed to get to 50mph on it. I didn’t push the speed and instead pulled over halfway down for a scenic overlook. The view and landscape had just suddenly appeared in front of us at the top of the hill: Theodore Roosevelt National Park. TRNP is the North Dakotan part of the Badlands and the rock formations and landscape are breathtaking. Completely unexpected for the day and a great way to end it. Camping would be fun.

Now, we all had to wait at the entrance of the park so we could ride in together. Also, we needed to pay since camping would cost us about $110 as a group, rather expensive for us. TRNP also took us 20 miles out of the way and off the route, since the next day’s ride we’d just be backtracking to Watford and leaving from there. A 40-mile detour is just dumb, but I guess all previous NUS trips have gone here since it’s so pretty.

We decided to take a vote between camping at TRNP or the lunch stop which would bring us right to our starting point tomorrow and much cheaper. Gathering 30 people and their opinions together is frustrating. My main beef with the voting is that we voted twice. The first time the votes had us staying in Watford, but once that was set; there was discussion and murmuring going on about all the pros to staying at TRNP to sway the people who abstained. We voted a second time (and with the four missing people) and the votes put us in TRNP for the night. It was all a lot of hot air and noise between people. I frankly didn’t care where we camped, but was a little annoyed at the idea of re-voting. If you lose the first time, sorry, that’s how voting works, deal with it. And, abstaining from a vote does not mean that you can see how the vote turns out and then chime in your opinion for the second vote; it means you have no opinion, that’s why you abstained and should not be counted for the second time either.

Whatever pent up anger I had was immediately gone once we started our 5-mile ride through the park to our campsite, Juniper. We were riding through amazing scenery; every single picture turned out great, there was no way around it. Also, the park has hundreds of bison roaming around freely. We’d be riding and have bison or long horn cattle not too far away off the road. Or even better, the bison would decide to hang out on the road and you’d have to wait until they decided to leave. Mostly people are driving in cars through the park safely surrounded by a steel cage; we were openly exposed on our bicycles. Bicycles seem like a really stupid idea sometimes. And on a funny note, the entire 5-mile ride to the campsite, I felt like I was in Jurassic Park and hummed the theme in my head. While not velociraptors by any means, Bison can still run up to 36mph, which means I’d get mauled down.

The campsite was a campsite: picnic tables; small building with men’s and women’s bathroom; paved parking spots; outdoor faucet and nature. It was a whole lot of nature. Frankly, I get enough nature during my ride and I have no desire to be in or see more of it when I’m finished with the ride.

The first thing we have to do is set up our tents. Now, there’s thirty of us so we have a lot of tents, too bad not all of them have all their parts. We have 7 tents, only 5 of them have all their parts. We didn’t have enough stakes, so we resorted to using spoons and screwdrivers. A sixth tent was put up through a hodgepodge of leftover or broken poles and string to tie corners to a tree. Again, Bike and Build needs to invest in outfitting groups with proper equipment. We did have two tarps to make a shelter. The skies were clear and didn’t seem like rain, so none of it all seemed to matter.

Dinner crew week for me so we had the fortunate task of cooking dinner. We grilled up hot dogs, heated up baked beans, warmed up cans of corn and green beans, and put out leftover rice and salad. Erik, from his camping adventures, organized dessert: baked bananas. You take a banana, cut it in half, stuff it full of marshmallows and chocolate chips, wrap it in tin foil, then leave it on low coal to cook, melt and ooze together. It looked like barf to me, so I just ate them all individually.

For cooking, we did make a trip back to Watford to go to a grocery store to get ice for the coolers and charcoal for the grill. I jumped at the opportunity to get out of nature for even just a bit and went with the van. Now, the water in ND is gross. It smells like rotten eggs and leaves an oily finish on the tongue. I broke down and bought a gallon of distilled water. Best $1.19 I’ve ever spent.

During their rounds for the evening, a park ranger dropped by and while chatting, mentioned that it was expected to rain around 3 in the morning. Thanks for the tip and we all headed to put up our rainflys.

Now, I opted to sleep in the tent furthest away from everything. I didn’t want to be near the bathroom since I figured the smell and noise would spead. And as it got darker, the row of windows up top leaked all the bathroom light out and I wanted it to be as dark as possible. Also, most tents were set up closer to the picnic tables and around trees, it just all seemed a bit crowded and that’s how I came to the tent furthest away.

Christopher and I were tent buddies. He needs to watch something in order to go to sleep, so he borrowed Dan’s computer and drifted off to the glow of the laptop. And I went to sleep, now the fun begins.

2:15: I wake up to hear light rain falling on the tent. Take a look around to make sure everything’s sealed and dry, then go back to a restless sleep, still aware of the rain.

2:45: Wake up again to a hard rain hitting the tent. The tent is still doing its job, no water in the tent yet but a bit anxious about the rain. It’s coming down. Just in case, I reach outside the tent to grab my flip flops to have them at the ready. Also, I grab my glasses and rest with them on, so I won’t have to worry about vision should things get worse. Always be prepared.

3:00: Good thing I was prepared. Not only is it raining hard still, but the wind decided to show up and we have ourselves a full out storm. Our tent is blowing every which way but still firmly anchored. The bottom of my sleeping bag is now wet, but the rest still dry and it helps that I’m on a thermarest. Christopher is fully awake now and we’re in a bit of a panic.

3:15: Christopher’s half of the tent collapses. He’s now over on my side and we’re just watching as the wind does as it pleases to our tent. The rain is still going. We’re beginning to question whether we should stay in the tent or seek refuge in the bathroom, our only sheltered, enclosed place.

3:17: Dan comes to our tent flap door and asks if we’re okay. He also wants to know if his computer is okay (Christopher did put it back in the computer case and wrapped it with his sleeping bag). Dan tells us that everyone is in the bathroom and we should join. We get our gear and head out into the storm.

Immediately I get soaked to the skin from the storm. The wind and rain make it hard to see. But, the shining light from the bathroom windows serves as a perfect beacon to guide me in the right direction and get my bearings. When the lightning flashes, I get glimpses of the wreckage; all the other tents are completely flattened, not a single one is left standing.

I run over to the women’s bathroom, but as I get closer, see that the door is open with huddled masses of people barely fitting in. They see me coming and tell me to go to the men’s bathroom; they’re full in there and can’t take anymore people.

The men’s bathroom is nearly empty. Christopher, Dan and I are in it and a few other people trickle in. By now, there are sleeping bags and clothing hanging over the stalls to dry. It quickly became clear that if we were going to sleep at all, we were going to sleep in the bathroom. Our tents were unsaveable and the van already had people in it. We laid out a tarp over the floor, spread out the few thermarests we had and arranged our bodies to fit on the floor so we could all lie down. It was a tight fit, but we managed to get it to work. It made for some rather awkward positions/locations, but we were all so tired and we really had no other choice.

Did I mention that of the two stalls in the bathroom, one was clogged and smelled?

Sean slept next to a urinal. Kathy’s lower half slept in the clogged stall and her head facing my butt. Ian’s head and my head were quite the close neighbors. Christopher, Erik, Kim were in the fetal position. And Jessie somehow managed to get to spread out across a thermarest all to herself.

Note: Erik slept in a hammock before the bathroom and he toughed it out in the storm as long as he could. It all ended when his rainfly blew off leaving him exposed to the elements. But before that, he was just swinging with the wind.

We managed to get somewhere between 3 and 4 hours of sleep, if you can call it that. I kept waking up slapping various parts of myself since there were mosquitos everywhere. The worst was on my neck. The next day I basically had 4 massive welts on my neck.

We woke up to a clear and sunny morning. Of course. We left our bathroom shelters and took sight on the carnage of our campsite. Tents flat to the ground, except for my tent which was still standing but sitting in a pool of water. Large tree branches fallen. None onto tents, but seeing all the tree branches really hammered it home; last night was one tough storm.

Breakfast was a quick affair as everyone wanted to get out of the park, get riding and get to a church as soon as possible. Too bad there was still 100 miles of riding to go.

To top it off, the park ranger in the morning came by again and checked on the family in the RV if they were okay and made it through the storm. What about the 30 hooligans in tents with silverware as stakes? What about us? Though another park ranger did happen to find one of our tarps about a mile away in a tree.

Everyone had been under shelter during the night. Most of us were divided between the men’s and women’s restroom. A lucky few spread out in the van. Either way, it was a rough night.

After yesterday, I am not a fan of camping. The whole idea of camping is flawed. It seems that people go camping to be outside and in nature and escape; it’s a romantic notion. I don’t buy it. I think that people enjoy camping because they are in mutual misery with everyone else and bond over that. Bond over the realities of cooking, bathing, sleeping, living and how difficult and inconvenient it is in the outside and nature. 30 people should never go camping, it’s a guaranteed disaster. Natural disasters just add to the fun.

Pictures-Devils Lake, Part 1, The Ride

2008-08-03T23:34:00.006-04:00

For dinner, the night before our epic ride, the church had a perfect spread of food. But what caught my attention the most was this watermelon cake. It's strawberry cake, chocolate chips for the seeds and green frosting. I found it amusing and wouldn't shut up about it through the dinner.

To start the early day off, they made a traditional eggbake. I liked the one in Grand Rapids better because it was more gooey. This was more like an egg-bake loaf. That's a slice of banana bread on the left. And the necessary coffee to keep up all awake.

Before we eat breakfast, we take our packed bags and leave them in front of the trailer to be put away. Note how it's still very dark outside.

Our que sheet for the route's longest ride. Look at the mileage for US-2. Comical. No one got lost that day, but if you did, you'd deserve it.

From closest to furthest: Derek, Erik, Dae, Sunrise. Yes, we were on our bikes before the sun was up. That's how long this ride was going to be.

Somewhere between Lunch 1 and 2. We took a break here and I thought this street sign was funny. The cross street doesn't seem to be a road even, more like a path someone took a lawnmower too.

Taking a moment to think about how exactly I got myself into this all.

About 10 miles from Lunch 2. It wasn't gusty at the time so Kate, Derek and Erik were just playing around. We had absolutely no idea for the storm that we would be riding through and taking shelter from just 20 miles later. Because before we found shelter, that's about what we would've needed to do to stay on the ground.

Lunch 2-Cold Burrito Day. A highly anticipated lunch stop. Tortilla, beans, rice, cheese, salsa, and onions. It requires preparation the night before and a much needed shift away from the PB&J staple.

From Lunch 2 to Devils Lake there was a hurricane style storm, then a glorious tailwind all the way into the town. Regardless, I was dead by the time we reached town limits.

From riding in the rain and all the dirt that gets kicked up by the front wheel. Sure, I have a pretty fun tan line, but that's expected. Do you see the distinct dirt line? This is why we shower everyday.

Again, Dan sleeping in an odd position in a strange spot. I don't know how he does it.

PROM - Rugby, ND

2008-08-02T01:00:00.004-04:00

Now, we had a tough day, battling a fierce headwind, but we knew that when we reached the high school in Rugby, we'd have Prom to look forward to.

Kathy was the mastermind behind all the festivities and took charge of the whole endeavor. She did an amazing job, putting countless hours into planning the entire thing. She even went so far and printed out invitations and delivered them to us, placing them at our heads to wake up to in the morning.

Prom is strictly a formal event with appropriate attire. Days and weeks beforehand, people had been scouring thrift stores for the appropriate and ridiculous costume to wear.

Now, some people weren't on board with the idea of prom, but it's not meant to cause any friction, it's meant to be something to look forward to in the monotonous plains and towns of North Dakota. It's meant to be a party and raise everyone's spirits. And once people started putting on their costumes, you could feel the energy and excitement for it, it was impossible not to get sucked in. And well, it was also our dinner that night, so if you wanted to eat, you had to at least deal with it to get fed.

After dinner and some descriptions for each of the couple's, a whole crew went to Dairy Queen for post-prom. I, instead took a shower. But after all that, we headed onto the theater stage and had ourselves a dance party with the DJ stylings of Kevin. Now, we had biked a very hard day but most everyone still managed to find the energy to get them through an intense hour of terribly fun dancing.

For a better run down of prom, check out Kathy's blogpost.

Pre-prom: Katrina helping Michelle with her make-up. It's important to look good.

All the guys in their "formal" attire posing. We're in front of the picture backdrop, which consists of a banner, bike tires, a gong, and thermarests.

The theme for prom was Harvest Moon. Appropriately enough, Dan cooked up an autumnal stew of root vegetables, apples and spices for dinner.

Kathy baked several tins of cornbread and beer bread. The beer bread was phenomenal. Notice Laura's hairdo.

We set up tables outside to eat for a more romantic setting. Lo and behold, who comes driving on by during dinner? The police. They didn't stop to investigate, but we were quite the sight decked out in our prom attire, most of which was acquired at thrift stores or from the highschool's marching band and colorguard uniforms.

On the News!

2008-08-02T00:41:00.004-04:00

http://www.kmot.com/News_video.asp?news=20951

Check out our first TV news segment!

KMOT, the NBC affiliate in Minot, filmed us on our way out this morning. They even interviewed me and there's a short little soundbite in the segment from me.

Also, I posted, with pictures, about Isaiah's farm. Check out the Devils Lake day to read about it.

And a few last belated mail drop shout-outs. Lizzy, thanks for the clif bar and magazine. Lindsey's mom for the bracelets we are all sporting now. To everyone who sent baked goods, you'll be glad to know the majority of them have been eaten already.

New Town, ND

2008-08-01T19:07:00.010-04:00

Bike and Build is not a race. We are biking across the country together, not against each other. That said, I was the first here to the New Town High School today. It doesn't matter in the least bit and no one really cares, but I still think it's a nice accomplishment. There are several reasons why:

- Rolling Hills. We faced a headwind on our way south out of Minot, but then turned onto ND-23. The headwind then became a crosswind, much easier to deal with. And these next 55 miles were long rolling hills. My strategy is to pedal as fast as I can on the downhill and hope that momentum is enough to carry me back up over the next one. It worked wonderfully today and I was even acceleratin up hills. I find it so satisfying to accelerate on up hills; I think of it as a big F you to gravity.

- Healthy Body. I was feeling good. Other than a nagging dull pain in my left knee, no other major issues. My rear began to feel decent at mile 18 and stayed that way for the rest of the day. Pedaling and the hills were made that much easier since I wasn't having any physical issues.

- Unsafe Roads. Last year on this route, two riders were hit by a car and had to be taken to the hospital. At dinner last night, a church member warned us that we'd be entering ND oil country with lots of semis. Our leaders told us that ND-23 is a two-lane road with a narrow shoulder. At BINGORAMA last night, I enjyoed sharing a game of bingo with all the elderly people in and around Minot, I was less thrilled to think that we'd be sharing the same roads. Understandably so, I was a little on edge today; I even left the people I was riding with because of it. The game plan was to put as much mileage down as I could safely and then decrease my time on the road, lowering any chance for problems or accidents. It basically translates as riding like a bat out of hell.

- No Lunch Stop. The van's transmissions decided to stop functioning at mile 18. It was towed back to Minot to get fixed. This meant no lunch stop; we'd have to fend for oursevles. I caught up with the front group at a gas station at mile 42 where they decided to scavenge lunch from the shelves. I had a a clif bar and lots of shot bloks on me, so I decided to keep moving and just eat those as I rode, saving time.

- No Van at Destination. Normally the van is already at our hsot location well before the first riders get in. So, it means those that come in can take their showers, rest, etc. that much sooner if they get in earlier. Well, there was no chance of that today and therefore no incentive to be moving quickly to make it to New Town.

After chalking the one turn to the high school, I treated myself to a much deserved and needed lunch at a small cafe on their main street. Before eating, I walked over to the grocery to get a magazine to read over lunch. I wanted something more like TIME or Newsweek, but Star was as highbrow as the reading selections went. Two tables chatted with me as I entered: one a family driving back to Washington state after a family reunion in the area here and two a group of church people who had seen our group before and knew what we were doing, they even gave me a donation.

The cheeseburger hit the spot and after an hour and a half I finally headed over to the high school. Many other people had arrived and then the waiting for the van began. A bunch of us headed over to a rummage sale at the library and picked up some goodies. I finally found a sweater. Since entering Minnesota, I've wanted a sweater as most of the places crank their AC or fans, thinking that since we're in the sun and biking all day we must be very hot all the time--I'm not. Well, I picked up a navy blue cardigan with elbow patches and a "Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission" logo on the chest . . . for 50 cents. An absolute steal.

The van has finally arrived. We'd spent the past several hours filling our time with: napping on the wrestling mats; using the school's computer lab; checking out the scene at the local tastee-freeze; cleaning our bikes; reading horoscopes from STAR; Jessie giving break dance lessons; and a few showering and then wearing their rummsage sale fines.

Last night in Minot, a group of eight of us went to BINGORAMA to play bingo. We all had seen the billboard on the way in. Bingo is near and dear to my heart and for our two days in Minot had been talking it up, going through all those fun bingo phrases: Quack quack it's I-22; It's not malignant, it's B-9; Show those sexy legs B-11; etc. We had also adopted calling things a "bongo" for anything we didn't like (A bongo is when someone calls bingo but their all their numbers weren't called). We made our way to Bingorama and were absolutely shocked; it was a bingo factory. Basically old people just sitting and looking intently at their cards and blotting out the numbers when called. We were quite the odd sight and all heads turned to us when we walked in. We were the loudest in the room throughout the night and the most excited. Everyone else seemed to be a machine, they lost all the excitement for bingo. The woman who won $1700 at the end, her bingo was lifeless and dull. We played several games and spent only $5.50, a successful excursion indeed.

K-Court #2 - From La Crosse, WI

2008-07-31T16:43:00.001-04:00

To: Pen
From: Judges of creativity
Fine: 25 cents
Re: For believing he won the costume contest. Nice try, soldier boy.

To: Dae
From: Everyone
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For being so darn sexy.

Confession
To: Lindsey
From: Kathy
Re: Those shorts that I borrowed during the costume contest? Well, I was laughing so hard, I peed in them a little. Sorry.

To: Christopher
From: J-Muffin
Fine: 5 cents
Re: For getting dinner first 90% of the time…even when he drives the van.

To: Katrina
From: Jessie
Fine: Undetermined
Re: For not being able to identify Minnesota, Wisconsin, or the Mississippi on a map today.

To: Isaiah
From: Christopher and Anson
Fine: 3 cents
Re: For not knowing what a tributary is

Props: Michelle
From: Christopher
Re: For being able to say no thank you while smiling but still getting across the F you message

Props: Dan
From: Everyone
Re: For the formatting of the que sheet into Gays Mills

To: Dan
From: Everyone
Fine: 50 cents
Re: For the ¬directions on the que sheet riding into Gays Mills.

To: Fan
From: Bobby
Fine: 20 cents
Re: For losing me my Jenga championship

To: Bobby
From: Jessie
Fine: 5 cents
Re: For saying “wait we’re going across the continent?”

Props: Batman Crew (Christopher, Kathy, Pen, Kevin, Erik, Reed and Craig)
Re: For being awesome

To: Maki
From: Jessie
Fine: 5 cents
Re: For not knowing that we’d cross the Mississippi

Props: Christopher and Joy
From: Craig
Re: For finding great lunch stops the past two days

Fine: Isaiah
From: Craig
Re: For having our lunch stop next to a bog.

To: Isaiah
From: Everyone
Fine: 30 cents
Re: For bragging about never getting a flat tire

Props: Anson
From: Everyone
Re: For deflating Isaiah’s tire while he was bragging about never getting a flat tire.

To: Q-man
From: Dan
Fine: My next phone bill
Re: For talking on mine for so long
To: Kevin...I have no friends
From: Maki
Fine: Your blog entry in January with title, “I Have No Friends”
Re: The only blog entry said “Some people are looking for a summer adventure, some are looking to work for a good cause. I’m looking for more…a wife.”

To: Jessie
From: J-Muffin
Fine: 5 cents
Re: For giving me my nickname. Everyone else is fined 1 cent for letting it stick

To: Dan and Kim
From: Skydive Chicago
Fine: 25 cents
Re: For making our video PG-13

Props: Kathy
From: Christopher
Re: For going all the way for the win even when it means rubbing blue paint on your face

Props: Maki
From: Christopher
Re: For have the best pick up line…that doesn’t involve a poop joke.

To: Ian
From: Laura
Fine: 2 cents
Re: For claiming to be geriatric when he is really not older than the rest of us.

Props: Kathy
From: Christopher
Re: Winning the lotto.

Props: Joy
From: Everyone
Re: For making a que sheet that was .0018 miles off all day.

To: Zack
From: Matt Damon
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For stealing my look

Props: Zack
From: Christopher
Re: For using “please” and “thank you” so politely

Props: Katrina Roi
From: Everyone
Re: For being an all around class act

To: Google maps and Wisconsin
From: Everyone
Fine: 50 cents
Re: What the heck?!

To: Caitlin Callahan
From: Kathy (Really? Do you need to ask?)
Fine: Exclusion from any and all future bike and build trips
Re: Getting in my face for a straight hour and a half during lunch; bring precocious; having attitude; plaguing my nightmares

Props: Craig
From: Kathy
Re: For being the best pace leader through city streets. He points out everything and waves at cars on the right religiously. But I think a lot of people in cars are confused by the waving.

To: Kathy
From: The rest of the Batman crew
Fine: 50 cents
Re: For forcing everyone to get up for opening night and nearly missing it yourself because you were sleeping under the sink of the 4th floor bathroom.

To: Arianna
From: Jessie
Fine: 25 cents
Re: For flirting with farm kids other than our own to get out of an extra 20 miles on our ride to Gays Mills.

Props: Minnesota and Wisconsin
From: Everyone
Re: Appropriating budgets towards state signs

To: Isaiah
From: Everyone who was at the pool with you in Gays Mills
Fine: 10 cents
Re: Dipping your foot in the water to test the temperature after a hot 120 mile day. Come on.

To: Dan
From: Jessie
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For playing the Batman song in my ear at 5:30 am far, far away from anyone who actually saw the movie.

Props: Ryan Family in Janesville, WI
From: Christopher and Jessie
Re: For having wine, befitting our European palates.

Props: Kristen
From: Everyone
Re: For getting back on your bike after second lunch

Props: Lindsey
From: Dan
Re: For always saying “Good morning” back to me

To: Erik
From: Everyone
Fine: 10 cents
Re: For being nicer than any of us could ever hope to be. We resent it.

To: Michelle
From: Joy
Fine: 1 cent
Re: For making “peeper” noises and blaming it on the frogs while in the van on the date of July 6th.

To: Sean
From: Maki
Fine: 3 cents
Re: For taking a hiatus on his blue steel look to laugh at a story told at our Ashtabula picnic

To: Jess
From: Kathy
Fine: 25 cents
Re: For getting schwaste-y faced at the party in Janesville, “Does anyone else see two Ians?”

Two part fine:
To: Sharon
Fine: 15 cents
Re: For attempted defecation in farmer’s field in Ohio. When said farmer noticed and yelled from home, Sharon retreated. Cowardice is not tolerated here on B&B, we finish what we start.

To: Katrina
Fine: 25 cents
Re: For attempted seduction of above-mentioned elderly farmer. After expressing his outrage about Sharon “dancing in his field,” and threatening to trespass in our own land so we understood, Katrina offered in a silky voice that he was free to, “Drive your tractor in my field whenever you want.”

Minot, ND

2008-07-31T15:47:00.008-04:00

North Dakota finally decided to reward us with an easy and stress free ride for our 65 mile day into Minot. There was some roadwork on the way out of Rugby, which meant a two-lane road with no shoulder that made it a bit nerve-wracking when traffic passed, especially semis. I was riding with Jessie, for one semi which blared its horn at us since it was too wide, I switched over into the opposing traffic lane for it to pass and Jessie decided to ride in the dirt median on the right. Lunch was a quick stop to eat a PB&J then back on the road with Jessie. The road work finally worked in our favor for this part since they were working two lanes. The far left lane was open for traffic, but the right lane was blocked off since it had been recently paved. This meant a 22 mile stretch where we had an entire lane of smooth road to ride on. Jessie and I still decided to ride on the wide shoulder, which meant that there was a rumble strip and an entire lane separating us from traffic; I've never felt so safe.

We had to slow a bit to pass a truck laying down asphalt/tar on the road. There were three people holding SLOW signs and just behind the truck there were two guys making sure everything was being laid properly. It's not too stressful of a job and doesn't require that much attention, so the guy nearest the lane with moving traffic decided it'd be a good idea to take the 2x4 he was holding and do whirlwinds around his head with it. I saw it coming ahead and shouted out a bit, but we were moving rather fast and he was an idiot. I put my head down since if I am going to get hit, I want to get hit helmet first. Thankfully, neither of us got hit, but we were quite freaked out and gave the guy a good scare too. Don't be stupid people.

So for more reference's sake on how terrible that windy day was. The ride into Minot I was tearing through road. There was no wind, my legs felt good and I just went. I think the peanut butter and honey sandwich I had for breakfast had something to do with it all. It was the fastest that I've ridden the entire trip. The 65 miles took about 3 and a half hours compared to the 5 hours and 20 minutes for the windy 60 mile day.

We have a day off today in Minot. It's a long stretch of 11 days of straight riding before our next day off and break. Included in some of those days we'll be camping. Camping should be fun as long as it's not raining, god help us if it rains because then all bets are off on our temperaments.

Minot's claim to fame is the air force base. It's a pretty big deal and one of the few locations in the country with nuclear warheads. Talking to a church member, who generously opened up her home (and cotton towels) to several of us to shower, she mentioned how there are a hundred or so intercontinental missile silos around in the area that can be fired at any time. Supposedly, we rode past several on our way in. I had no idea at all. But, Minot also has strong scandinavian heritage and built a park to acknowledge their history in the area. I rode over to the Scandinavian Heritage Park earlier this morning with Laura and we went to check out the large Dala Horse. Too funny.

I'm at the library using the internet, which is not letting me upload pictures for some reason, and getting my fill of magazines. Another mail drop today and thanks to everyone who sent packages. Jess, the banana chocolate chip muffins are much appreciated and will most likely be gone by tomorrow's breakfast. And my parents keep sending along the odd treats for the group, last week was fortune cookies, this week it's almond cookies. They get it, I'm chinese. Send a wok along next time and we'll cook up some stir-fry. Also, a shout-out to Anson's family for sending individual postcards to each rider, ensuring that everyone would get some type of mail this week.

The other treat here in Minot is that dinner, breakfast and our lunch has been provided on both days, quite the surprise to us. I'm on dinner crew this week and we weren't looking forward to spending two nights cooking for 30 people, so the five of us were relieved to hear that we'd only have to wash dishes and not cook the meal. Score.

Time to catch up on magazines. Then tonight either going to the movies or playing bingo. I'm crossing my fingers for bingo.

Check out some media coverage. The links are below. Two local news stations are coming tonight and tomorrow morning to film us eating/mingling and riding on our way out.

http://www.crookstontimes.com/articles/2008/07/28/news/2news2.txt

http://www.hillsdale.net/news/x1470903185/Bike-and-Build

Rugby, ND

2008-07-29T20:01:00.002-04:00

Would you rather bike 120 miles with light rain for parts and a heavy thunderstorm? Or would you rather bike 60 miles into a headwind?

Well, that's been our past two days. Today was pretty brutal with the wind. It came from everywhere. Well, everywhere except from behind. For comparison's sake, yesterday over those 120 miles I spent 6 hours and 40 minutes on the bike. Today, over the 60 miles I spent 5 hours and 20 minutes. Stupid wind.

The first half of the day I rode in a line with Kevin, Pen, Christopher and Derek. The line wasn't so much to draft or block the wind, since the gusts prevented us from being close to each other and the wind would switch between a headwind and a crosswind, sometimes both, but we were riding more for moral support. It helps to know that people are around you and you push and feed off of them. Kevin flatted about 2 miles from Devils Lake. We waited for the trailer to come since he needed a new tire, there was a large hole in his.

The second half of the day, we all split apart and rode on our own. We were all a little stressed out from riding so close to each other and with fatigue setting in, it was tough to concentrate and maintain a constant distance and straight line. Splitting up was good. I made it through most of the last 30 miles by myself, which I'm very proud of. Normally, when I ride alone I tend to go a lot slower and have difficulty since there's nothing to focus on, but things were clicking today and it felt relatively good.

On a bit of sad news, we had our first trip to the hospital today. Again, the wind was very gusty and strong so being in a group of riders is tough to keep up. In another group, Katrina tapped wheels and took a spill. I wasn't there for it, but heard that her little finger was a bit askew; she also had a few scrapes on her face and shoulder. Dan, today's van driver, took her to the hospital where she got x-rays and determined that she broke her finger. They put a cast on and bandages and she'll be alright. The hospital was in Rugby, our night's destination, and the trooper that she is, got back on her bike to make up the 30 miles that she didn't finish. She biked 15 out and then turned around for 15 back. We're all relieved that she's okay and amazed at her resilience. She's set a new standard for the "tough as nails" trophy, all while doing it with a smile.

For those that aren't aware, Rugby is the geographical center of North America. There's an large pile of rocks to make it official. It's too funny. Real people, real places.

Must run, prom tonight.

Devils Lake - Part 2, Isaiah's Farm

2008-07-29T19:58:00.007-04:00

Our epic ride through the storm and long mileage was rewarded with a stay at the Isaiah's home and farm. It was clear that Isaiah was glad to be home and that his family and friends were glad to see him. Their family embraced all of us with a warmth we haven't seen yet on this trip. Their home absorbed all 30 of us with mattresses and beds scattered in every spare part of the house.

Upon arrival, Papa Berg and his brother Nathan were offering tractor rides and tours of the farm. Tractors are big. Farms and the whole scenery and process and everything about them are such a foreign concept to me. I was fascinated looking around and learning about it all. There's just so much involved. Also, within a mile of his home, there are only 5 families. Still, it's a close community as lots of people showed up for the cookout dinner.

Just before bed, there was a thunderstorm and it kept going on in the distance. There's nothing better than sleep had during a thunderstorm. And, it was nice to be under a roof as opposed to be hiding behind a building like previously in the day. Oh and I slept in a bed.

We woke up rather late the next morning and were greeted to some great eats and lots of wind making for a rough day.

The Berg's arranged for a school bus to drive us from the church in Devils Lake to their farm in Starkweather.

Family friends brought over horses to ride. It's similar to a bike in that it involves a helmet and saddle, just different in that I have no control over the horse. The trainer led the horse around in a gentle walk. I declined trotting, as I was afraid the up and down would hurt too much. The horse neighed just before this and freaked me out a bit. I think I'll stick with the bike.

There was a hot tub on the back porch. We did not skip a beat to take advantage of it.

Pen felt the need to check the air outside. Upon opening the door, a swarm of bugs entered hovering attracted by the lights. The Berg's had seen this before and were well prepared with numerous fly swatters.

Ian cooked up the special challah he received at the synagogue in Duluth and treated us all to challah french toast. Of the group, he's the chef and takes charge of most of the meals when we cook for ourselves.

Isaiah's mom prepared homemade caramel rolls for breakfast. Delicious. Papa Berg seen dishing them out and giving extra large servings to everyone.

Devils Lake - Part 1, The Ride

2008-07-29T19:54:00.003-04:00

The ride: 116 miles in three parts.
Start to Lunch 1 (Mile 40)

Left the church with Erik and Derek a bit behind everyone else, which meant we had absolutely no chance of catching all the people in front of us. The sun was just breaking on the horizon as we left, so if we carefully turned out heads to look back while riding, we could see the sunrise. The three of us kept a pretty okay pace for the first 40 miles, but for all three of us it was rather obvious that our rears were a bit sore, we tended to stand a lot to ease the pressure. We passed through Grand Forks along the way signaling our entrance into ND. We picked up Kate and Kim by Grand Forks and left with a group of five. We learned from Kim that Quang had a crash a bit before and scraped up. That guy is a trooper. Off in the distance ahead at the beginning, I could see another double paceline had formed. Later I learned that it was a group of 14 and they were pulling at about 22-24mph. Dae got a flat at mile 7 and then again at mile 8. My flat happened at mile 38, just 2 miles before lunch. Kate was behind me and I ran over a metal coil and it sounded like my tire exploded. I honestly thought that I was going to lose control and crash, it was terrifying. It sounded much worse and was fixed in no time. Note to North Dakota: loosely packed asphalt with light gravel thrown on top does not constitute a shoulder. We biked on it for a while until we skidded a bit on gravel then moved onto the road, to the left and out of the safety of the rumble strip.

Lunch 1 to Lunch 2 (Mile 80)

We took a quick lunch break and headed back on the road, but Kim decided to leave earlier. The stop was short, we still had a lot more miles to go, feeling relatively good, and wanted to beat any possible headwind that might come. These next forty miles consisted of our pace first being set by Derek at a torrid 20/21. Then I lowered the pace to 18. Then Kate brought it down to 17. Then Erik kept it at 16/17. These downgrades were all necessary, we were definitely feeling the miles. We took a few breaks to take pictures and just plain rest. The last 10 miles to lunch 2 were some of the most difficult of the day. I personally didn’t eat enough at Lunch 1 to get me through to comfortably make it to Lunch 2. Also, the four of us played “Would you rather?” to help the time pass by.

Lunch 2 to Devils Lake (Mile 116)

Cold burrito day, our favorite. Joy, the van driver, warned us of rain in Devils Lake moving east and then the gas station owner told us of a storm that was coming in. Turns out that his version of a storm is different from our version. We left Lunch 2 with light rain and 10 miles later the lightning and thunder started. The four of us were a little concerned but we’ve ridden in rain before. The lighting kept getting a bit louder so we decided it’d be good to pull over and wait out the storm. There was a white building ahead so we raced towards that. We didn’t make it fully in time and spent maybe 5 minutes (a very long time) fighting the full brunt of the storm. The wind forced us off our bikes, the rain felt like needles and it was all entirely dangerous. Cars and trucks pulled over on the side of the road, so you can imagine how stupid we must have looked with our bikes. the storm is something you’d see on a Discovery Channel documentary called Nature’s Fury or something similar. Or, the best description I can come up with is think of a sandstorm, only with water. I ran with my bike toward the building and we waited about 25 minutes for the storm to pass. In the meantime, we watched a bird unsuccessfully fly against the wind. Leaving our shelter we rode very cold until we warmed up about 5 miles later. At that point, North Dakota finally decided it had enough messing with us and gave us a smooth shoulder and a tailwind. We breezed through the last 30 miles going at about 20mph without much effort. I rode next to Derek and we bonded over our asian-ness. The sign for Devils Lake was a welcome sight and the church was not more than 2 miles away. After arriving at the church at learning about the storm, someone said that at its peak the wind gusts were 36 mph.

Instead of staying at the church for the night, Isaiah who lives in Starkweather, ND opened up his home to our group of 30. That’ll be a separate post; as it’s chock full of fun times.

Thoughts from today:

Thor and Viggo were tired.

North Dakota smells. Grand Forks smelled like rotting shrimp, but Derek described it as vegetables in a compost pile. At another point between the two lunch stops, we went past two ponds that smelled of raw sewage.

North Dakota has a strange sense of humor. While we were riding on the loosely packed shoulder that was a horrible excuse for a shoulder, the other lanes for against traffic were freshly paved. Boo.

If you thought rumble strips were effective for cars, then they are a rude awakening for bikes. Everything shakes, including your insides.

The church gave us a bottle of squeezable jelly. And we will be reusing it and refilling it from now till the end, huzzah.

One of our trailer doors fell off today. The bolts on the latch decided they wanted to take a break and popped out. Joy unfortunately discovered this and has a scrape above her eyebrow to show for it. Isaiah's dad fixed it up once we got to his farm.

Crookston, MN

2008-07-27T22:11:00.002-04:00

We are preparing for doomsday again. Our longest ride is tomorrow--120 miles to Devils Lake, ND. Everyone is milling about, cleaning their bikes, setting out breakfast, packing the coolers, filling up water bottles, packing their bags, doing everything possible now to save time in the morning. Why might that be? Because we are waking up at 4:15. We are planning to be on the road at 5:30am.

I'm not afraid or concerned about the early wake up time at all, no matter to me. I am afraid and concerned about the 120 miles after that.

The early early days are because of our horrible day facing the wind on our ride into Grand Rapids, MN. Since the wind (and sun/heat as well) doesn't pick up till after 12, we try to start the day as soon as we can so we can get as far as we can without facing the inevitable wind.

That's how today started, leaving Bemidji. We woke up at 5:30 and we're out of the church at 6:45am, which is a new record for shortest wake up to leave time for us. The route was 90 miles, a long day, also prompting the early wake up. Though there was complaining and groaning about it, it made the ride much more enjoyable. We were blessed with good weather today, smooth and wide shoulders, and little to no wind. I rode with Kate and Joy and joined by Dan and Kim later to the first lunch stop. Our first lunch stop was at 9:00am. Crazy. I kept riding with Kate and Joy after lunch and joined by both Derek and Sharon. Things were going so well that we even played ghost (word game) and the celebrity game while riding. I personally wasn't a big fan of it, mainly because I find it hard to think and focus on riding at the same time. Kate had a flat tire and Derek dropped off since he was a bit sore today. Our second lunch stop was at 11:15am. At that same time, and with 13 miles left, Pen and Ian arrived at the church for the day, just as morning mass was getting out. When our group of four made it near the church, we decided to bypass it and go straight into town to find a Dairy Queen. The thin mint blizzard is highly recommended and my new favorite. Go out and try it while you can, since it's this month's flavor and only around for just a bit more.

All in all, it was a good ride for everyone. At one point, in front of me there was a double paceline with 10 people in it . . . and they were all playing a game of contact while riding. Though, I'm afraid that since we've had such a good day today that tomorrow is going to be hail and brimstone.

The folks here in Crookston and the church here have been wonderful. Just like in Edwardsburg, it's a great place to be the night before one of our toughest rides. Lasagna, rice and vegetables for dinner filled us up plenty. They advertised our presentation well so there were more than the usual amount of people. And, they are waking up tomorrow to make us egg-bakes for breakfast . . . serving at 4:45am.

Tomorrow is cold burrito day for the second lunch stop at mile 80. Since I my chore group has changed to dinner group, we were in charge of getting that all prepared for tomorrow. It consisted of a trip to the local Wal-Mart and getting the tortillas, beans, rice, cheese, lettuce, onions, and salsa that go into a cold burrito. While shopping, we found the bulk food area and as Ian went to pull out a giant bottle of ketchup, he knocked over a glass jar of pickle slices. It was probably a gallon and a half of pickles. WIthout hesitation, Christopher and I bend down and pick up some pickles to start munching on them. Heck if we were going to let them go to waste.

Kathy made beer bread tonight in preparation for Prom in Rugby, ND. The ingredients are flour, sugar and beer. It's delicious.

During our presentation today, while we were introducing ourselves, when Sean stood up, we all instantly broke out singing Happy Birthday to him. It's his birthday today and we made a public spectacle of it. It was great.

Lastly, my calves. They now have their own identity. Kevin named them. The left one is named Thor. The right one is Viggo. Apparently Thor is the god of weather and I forget what Viggo is the god of. Well, we had our group meeting after presentation today all cozy in a smaller room and someone mentions that the good weather today is due to Thor, the god of weather. Immediately, several people bow down and start stroking my calves. It was quite the sight and very odd, but hilarious.

Early day tomorrow. Longest day tomorrow. But we will be rewarded by staying at Isaiah's farm. He lives not too far from Devils Lake in Starkweather and we'll be treating to horses, tractors, a cook out, beds, showers, sleeping out under the stars, even a school bus driving us from Devil's Lake to his house, everything . . . who knows if we'll be even up for taking advantage of any of it.

Bemidji, MN

2008-07-26T18:13:00.001-04:00

We’ve entered the land of Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox. A statue of the pair right on Lake Bemidji seems to be part of their claim to fame. It’s a nice town and seems to be the most immediate and largest town west of Grand Rapids. A few people are exploring their main street area, as there are a few thrift stores, they’re searching for prom attire. Again, check out Kathy’s blog for a posting about prom.

A 70-mile ride today that was much better than yesterday. We woke up a bit earlier (6:00) than normal (6:15), but later than planned (5:45), as Dan didn’t wake up to his cell phone. Kathy was awake and went around waking us up and placed out prom invitations near our sleeping bags, the theme is Harvest Moon. The egg bake breakfast (6:30) was delicious. It’s basically an omelet in a casserole dish with no opportunity to get dry since there’s loads of butter and milk in it, along with croutons, ham/sausage, and lots of cheese. It was gooey goodness to start the day.

For the first half of the day I rode in a paceline with Kate, Ian, Jessie and Kim. We were moving at quite the clip, about 17/18 mph and it was tiring. Towards the end just before lunch, I could feel my legs shaking and muscles tensing. At mile 27 my rear tire decided to go flat. A bummer since our group was just behind the front rider and while I was changing it, lots of people passed us. Kim also veered off to the left twice, each time it was a dog chasing and barking at her.

The highlight of lunch today was the giant fish structure in the picture below. There was a stray kitten that kept trying to eat our food. Isaiah moved it several times, but once we had some food spilled on the ground, we decided to let the cat stay to clean it up. Towards the end of lunch, a fun one-eyed doxen and a golden retriever dropped by which delayed me getting started for the second half. Ian decided to break out the peanut butter and cocoa puff sandwich. I broke out the peanut butter and cheese sandwich.

I moved to the less intense paceline of Erik and Kathy for the second half. They were going at about 15/16 and that 2mph made all the difference. It was a relaxing speed . . . until the wind picked up. The nice thing about getting started earlier than normal is that we were able to beat the wind. It doesn’t pick up until about 12/1. It wasn’t as bad as yesterday, but we were all still cursing it. At one point, Kathy pointed out a hill to the right full of grass and wildflowers. It would’ve been pretty, but all I could focus on was how much it was all moving around.

Just before the church, we stopped at a bike shop. I was looking to buy tubes since I’ve gone through two in the past few days and owe Jessie one, since she gave me hers when I had the flat earlier. On a whim and following Erik’s extreme care for his bike, I asked the owner to check to see if my chain had stretched. After riding for so long, the metal links that form the chain stretch wreaking havoc on the gears, rings and everything else the chain touches. Turns out that my chain is fair to good, closer to fair. Erik’s chain is good to fair, closer to fair. Which means that soon, I’ll need to get a chain. A few others have already changed theirs.

Arriving here at the church and scoping out the place, I was reminded of two other things (which they have here) that make for a great church. There are 6 showers here, 3 for the men and 3 for the women. After a day’s ride, the first thing to do is take a shower. We’ve been sweating in our chamois all day and well, you’ve got to get yourself cleaned otherwise bad things happen/form/grow. Normally, we’ll have to take van trips to the local Y, high schools, pool or wherever else, but the fact that we can just walk a few steps from our bags to the showers is quite the luxury. The second item is an ice machine. Anywhere there’s an ice machine I’m sure to fill up bags and ice myself to help my muscles recover. In the morning, it means that we can fill our camelbaks with ice for cold water. A side note this church has a walk-in refrigerator and freezer, something we haven’t seen anywhere else.

Dinner provided tonight. A picture as a group for the local paper. And lots of meetings. We have to have our town meeting with K-Court following it. Then after that, our weekly affordable housing meeting. It’s going to be a long night. Thank god there’s an ice machine.

Kangaroo Court - Session 1

2008-07-26T18:12:00.000-04:00

Every week, normally on Saturdays, we have something called Town Meetings. It’s a forum for people to raise comments, problems, issues, etc. and address it to the whole group. It can get tense especially if it’s a personal call out, but normally it consists of smaller reminders about keeping up with chores, proper chalking, following the rules of the road.

Since Town Meetings often leave the group with a bitter taste in their mouth, Erik had the brilliant idea to have Kangaroo Court. K-Court consists of small fines or props to people for actions and events in the past week. Note: The maximum fine is 50 cents. It’s a good laugh and fun to share stories since not everyone hears everything. And it puts us back into a good mood.

I’ll be posting K-Court fines and props. These are from Week 1 and were told back in Grayslake, IL. It’s basically all a bunch of inside jokes, but still worthwhile to take a gander.

To: Zack
From: Pen
Fine: 1 cent
Re: For not listening to his mother.

Top 5 B&B’ers who resemble celebrities:
#5 Ian-as the Rat that can cook in Ratatouille
#4 Anson-as Napoleon Dynamite
#3 Pen-the lead singer of High School Musical
#2 Joy-as herself
and finally, the B&B’er who most resembles a celebrity
#1 Christopher-as Jar-Jar Binks from Star Wars
(Props for 1st four, 10 cent fine for #1)

To: Route 20 [the miserable stretch leading into Cleveland]
From: the riders of Bike and Build
Fine: 50 cents
Re: F you too.

To : Quang
From: Michelle
Fine: 20 cents
Re: For sticking a strand of your hair on my face

To: Reed
From: Craig
Fine: 15 cents
Re: For wearing his chamois all-day in Niagara . . . and not even biking there.

To: Reed
From: Everyone else
Fine: 50 cents
Re: Wearing his chamois and jersey (with a black t-shirt over it) to Niagara Falls when everyone else riding in the van was wearing normal clothes. When asked why he was still wearing his chamois, Reed replied, “They’re comfortable.”

To: Ian, Craig, Michelle and Kristen
From: Kathy
Props: For sitting through 2 hours of the worst cinematic tripe to cross the screen since Snakes on a Plane. This experience can also be described as watching the movie, WANTED

To: Zack
From: Christopher
Fine: 10 cents
Re: Happy Birthday Zack!

To: Christopher
From: Kathy
Fine: 15 cents
Reason: Berating me for buying $3 secondhand chamois when he owns a pair of holey chamois that gave everyone a serious glimpse of his butt.

To: The van
From: Everyone
Fine: 50 cents
Re: For being the non-descript sketchy white drug van and for having crappy bumper stickers and always being full of everyone’s crap.

To: Quang
From: Christopher
Fine: 50 cents
Re: For never taking your jersey off before dinner…because you don’t want to mess up your hair.

To: Isaiah
From: All
Fine: 3 cents per line drop
Re: For trying to woo or swoon the female congregation with his killer pickup line, “I’m a farm kid.”

To: Leaders
From: Riders
Fine: 10 cents for each violation
Re: For losing the van keys

To: Anson, Isaiah, Dae and Christopher
From: Kathy
Fine: 5 cents each
Re: Wearing those heinous unitards. Enough said.

To: Anson
From: Michelle
Fine: Chamois Buttr
Re: For digging through our duffel bags and stealing our chamois butter hoping that nobody would notice

To: No Chew Spew
From: Laura
Fine: 22 cents
Re: Left Silver Bay heading to Indian Lake. After eating homefries, at the top of that massive hill someone puked up a whole potato square. I must ask: Was it as good comin’ up as it was goin’ down?

To: Sean
From: Everyone
Fine: One sleeping bag
Re: Send it home or so help me, it is getting trashed

To: Vancouver, Canada
From: Everybody
Fine: 50 cents
Re: For being 4000 miles away

To: Canada
From: Erik
Fine: 8 minutes of my life back
Re: For putting on the worst fireworks display in the history of fireworks

To: Reed
From: Sharon and Bobby
Fine: 25 cents
Re: Stop hitting mailboxes. You are going to kill yourself

To: Christopher
From: Pen
Fine: 50 cents
Re: Existing

Bemidji, MN - Pictures

2008-07-26T15:46:00.012-04:00

From the William Munger bike path. A caution sign warning people about the steep hill ahead. Take a look into the distance of the bike path, that's the steep hill. Are you kidding? I've climbed up mountains. I wouldn't even call it a hill, a mere dent in the road.

Dae using the putting green during our lunch stop yesterday. It was all fun and games during lunch, but then we left headfirst into the wind, which was neither fun nor a game.

Again, to reiterate, we sleep anywhere. Pen choosing to sleep halfway on the putting green and the rough, a perfect cushion to take a nap.

The double pace line. Pen and Kate are in front. Kevin and Kathy are next. Laura and I are in back. You'll also notice, as it's rather blatant, the orange visor on Kathy's camelbak, a find from a thrift store in Hinckley. See her blog for more info on it. Also, if you look close enough on Kevin's camelbak, you can see the purple Tinky Winky head that he carries for funny pictures and movies along the way.

On today's ride from Grand Rapids to Bemidji we entered and left Chippewa National Forest. I regretted not stopping to take a picture on the way in, so I made sure to stop on the way out. Erik's camera has the pictures with actual people in it. I was just taking pictures to use as a desktop background.

Our lunch stop today, in the parking lot of the Big Fish Supper Club. You can see how they get their name. We were also visited by a cat that ate up Christopher's spilled Trix cereal. Then a doxen and a golden retreiver came out of nowhere and played with us for a bit. And, I'm getting eaten by the fish.

From our ride into Hinckley when I was a sweep with Reed. The treehouse that Kevin and Pen found just off the bike path. Very impressive. The ladder was the least structurally sound part of it all. There was even an extension cord run from somewhere for electricity.

Another one from sweep day. The sign says "Colors by Craig." It was a picture break disguised as a rest from my seat and bike.

The William Munger bike path. It's a beauty. It just keeps going and going. Paved, smooth and probably the best path we'll have the entire trip.

Coming into Duluth, we gradually climbed and biked through several rock walls like this. I felt like I was back in New Hampshire.

Grand Rapids, MN

2008-07-25T23:39:00.003-04:00

Duluth evened the score with us on our ride out from the city. We climbed out of the city away from Lake Superior and up the hill. Locals that we’ve talked to always went on about how there could be as much as a 20 or 30 degree difference between down by the water and up on the hill. The rather steep climb brought us to a scenic road, which afforded views of Duluth down below. While a sight, I didn’t think it was anything impressive, I mean it’s Duluth, a city based heavily in manufacturing and mining. And I couldn’t really focus on looking left because I was so focused on looking down and forward since the road was rough and patchy. It completely demolished my wrists and elbows, which were already tender, and set up for a rather painful ride the rest of the day.

From this, we made a right turn and began our long affair with Route 2. We roughly measured it last night on Arianna’s map and it should be about 800 miles. Of our 85 mile day today, we were on it for 73 miles—73 excruciating miles.

The wind today was out of control. It was like riding into a wall. The tall grass on the side of the road was twisting and turning every way making our day miserable. Though our legs hurt and our rears were sore, talking to people after they made it in, the worst thing about wind is just how exhausting it is. It takes everything out of you. In the morning I rode in a paceline with Ian, Kathy and Jessie. There were some hills so it helped to break things up and we made it to lunch relatively unscatched. Dan found a golf course parking lot for us to stop at. He even picked up a bucket of balls and some clubs in case we wanted to use the putting green or driving range. I left lunch alone and decided to face the winds by myself. Big mistake. From the morning, I was worried that with the wind and my lack of mental energy that I might accidentally tap wheels with the rider in front or some other careless accident. Well, I rode 13 miles against the wind before I stopped to take a break. I saw Jessie and Kathy not too far behind, so I stuck my thumb out to "hitchhike" and add to their pair to help battle the wind together. While I can't say that pacelining created an effective barrier, having a wheel (and target) to focus on helps make the miles go much faster. It was 10 miles till the next break that we took at a gas station. The 10 miles I rode with them felt like half the time than the 13 miles I rode by myself.

As a group, we were all just exhausted, it was a rough day to be riding. John P. nodded off while riding and tapped wheels with Ian, but he was able to recover and no accidents. Erik was having a rough day and dehydrated, but Katrina and Kate stayed with him and pulled him in. Derek decided that the previous 2000 miles were just a warm-up and decided to step it up today and just killed the ride, showing what he's been hiding. Michelle and Lindsey get major props since they rode most of the day alone. In the wind. Both came in a little frustrated and angry, but to spend the greater part of 73 miles facing what seemed like gale force headwind alone is quite the feat. The individual stories today are endless, but we all had a tough time with it.

Things weren't all bad, thinking bad the highlight of my day was the cold tuna pasta salad leftovers I ate for lunch. Tuna pasta is near and dear to my heart, as a variation of it basically got me through my study abroad term in Rome. Tuna, farfalle, peas, onions, parmesan, and mixed up in a carbonara style. Delicious.

We are staying at a United Methodist Church here in Grand Rapids. So far, I think it's the best equipped church we have stayed at as it has all of the items (and then some) that make for a good place to stay.
- Numerous electrical outlets
- Wireless
- 4 brand new computers with internet
- Plenty of bathrooms
- Kleenex
- Hand soap that is not pre-lathered
- Large common room
- Multipurpose room to store bikes
- Smaller rooms for everyone to find a sleeping place
- Couches
- Industrial dishwasher
- Large kitchen for cleaning everything and refrigerator storage
- Snacks upon arrival (make your own smoothies)
- Dinner provided (cookout at a "carnival" next to a lake)
- Breakfast provided (eggbake tomorrow, we'll see how that turns out)

Time flies by here. We already have such limited free time in the evening that it's important you make good use of it. After coming back from dinner (and a needed stop at DQ for a thin mint blizzard), I had maybe and hour or so to take care of everything that needed to be done. What did I do instead to recover? I got onto youtube and watched the first set of the women's wimbledon final from a few weeks ago. I needed a good veg out to rest and relax.

Duluth, MN - Build Day

2008-07-25T20:49:00.001-04:00

We worked with Common Ground today, a local land trust that provides affordable homes for families. Their model is very unique and seems to work here and for them. I didn’t get a full understanding for how it works as it was all over my head. But, seeing the homes in the subdivision that they have built said it all. The homes are high-quality and don’t look like affordable homes at all. A number that stood out to me, the home that I was working in would have a market value of about $215K, but because of their structure they could sell it for $145K. It was nice to work with a group other than Habitat to see another way. There’s more than just one way to tackle the issue.

For today’s work, we divided into four groups. Six people went to the Common Ground office to paint walls there. The rest were taken to a subdivision where they are working. One third of us went to work on one house detailing and painting. Another third went to another house to detail and paint. The last third regraded a basement window well, which means they shoveled dirt in the morning, in the cold and rain. They earn the gold star for today’s build. In the afternoon they switched to the more enjoyable task of demolition. Common Ground is now allocating their funds to renovations, as opposed to new builds, so they stripped a floor of a house to its frame.

I spent the day working with Sean, Kate, Kathy, Ian and Sharon. Our site manager was this firecracker of a woman, Julie. In the morning the other five primed window frames and I swept the floors and walls for dust. Our lunch was a fantastic spread for wraps with deli meats, fresh vegetables and a cartons upon cartons of fresh fruit. It was probably the best lunch we’ve had hands down the entirety of the trip. In the afternoon, we painted all the primed areas and added the baseboards to the list. Our group had quite the rhythm going on and we just sped through all the woodwork. TO pass the time, as we normally do during the afternoons of build days, we played a game of contact. Sean and I went to another house to help them with painting and upon arriving, we realized how well out house was working as a team. It was like we stepped into the bizarro world.

Afterwards, we had a dinner at a park on Lake Superior with the Common Ground organization and some of the homeowners. I was in the second van, so that means there were sort of slim pickings on the food. Not that it matters though because it was mail drop day and I had quite the sugar high going into dinner.

Mail drop. First, thank you to the parents for sending along a whole box full of Clif bars and shot bloks. And a big thanks to Lizzy for sending a fun new flavor of Clif bar and a trashy celebrity magazine—nice. Mail drops are sort of like Christmas, they just happen every Thursday. We all anxiously wait to see who got packages and everyone else stands around as people open their packages to see what they got. The best part is after all the packages are open because then we set aside all the food, goodies, baked goods, snacks, candy, etc. on a table for communal eating and munching. Highlights today included Anson’s salmon (from a previous mail drop), Joy’s chocolate chip meringues, and Pepperidge farm cookies from Pen’s host family in Avon Lake, who included three packages along with his boxers that he left there. Basically, we love mail drops. Because even though one might not personally get a package, they still get to reap the benefits. By the way, there are three more mail drops left, in case you were wondering.

It’s halfway now and I am glad to say that I still like peanut butter and jelly. We always have it for lunch and makes the occasional appearance at breakfast, but I can still stomach it. But you know what I can’t handle anymore? Bananas. I can’t stand the flavor, texture, anything about them. I still eat them, but I don’t enjoy it. I know that they are good for me and that the potassium will prevent muscle cramps later in the day, but it’s tough.

Oh, did I mention that I got a flat coming into the synagogue the other day. No, literally coming into the synagogue; I wasn’t even on my bike. I was walking it up to the front door and all of a sudden it just goes flat. Annoying, but still better than on the road. I finally changed it tonight and just plain old replaced the tube since it has two patches on it (one patch for function, one patch for my stupidity). I checked the inside of the tire for any sharp objects and found a little bump. Thanks to the help of Sharon and a fun little tip to bend the rubber, we found a little shard of glass that most likely caused the flats. So tomorrow should go smoothly.

We’re halfway through and it’s pretty clear at how adept we all have become with our bikes. Today, four people got their package with aero bars to install on their bikes. Some of us are ordering a second set of tires since we’ve worn through the first set. Kathy, meanwhile, finally changed her tires from the stock kind. Derek changed his chain (as they stretch after awhile and wreak havoc on the cogs and gears). Derek’s chain change wasn’t the most successful, he biked ~40 miles in his lowest/easiest gear the day we were going into Pepin, which meant he probably maxed out at 12 mph and therefore spent a lot of time in his saddle. And, we, though names will not be mentioned, are getting saddle sores and have sought out antibiotic help. So hardcore.

Ugh. Ian and I just spent the last 16 minutes tries to find the light switch to turn off the lights. We were walking all over the room flipping every switch possible. It was pretty clear what we were doing. There were several people on their computers doing work. It turns out, one of them knew how to do it, but was engrossed with the screen. I realize it’s my fault for never asking directly, but how do you not even notice what’s going around you if you’re in front of a computer? Just a little harmless vent. Bedtime now.

Duluth, MN

2008-07-24T18:21:00.001-04:00

Where have we stayed so far? Churches. YMCA’s. High schools. Dorms. Host families. And we can now add synagogue to the list. We’ve made it to Duluth and are staying at Temple Israel. It’s the only synagogue within a 3-hour driving radius and they have a congregation of about 185 families. The president of the Board gave us a tour of the place. I opted not to take it. I have a slight aversion to synagogue tours after traveling with my friend Dan in Europe. The reception here has been just as warm as our previous locations. And the highlight of dinner was an amazing chocolate cake.

To get here, and make it to our halfway point, we had an 80-mile day. 70 of those miles were on the William Munger bike path. Joy, our trip leader who made the que sheet, said it is the nation’s longest continuous paved bike path. Words don’t do justice for how pleasant the ride was today. The bike path was clear of any other bikers, walkers, etc for the majority of the day.

I spent the first 35 miles on the bike path in a group of riders. Kate and I biked the first 13 miles together to Finlaydson and stopped at a café for breakfast. We were joined by a bunch of other riders and we all ate a hearty and cheap breakfast. Much needed, since our B&B breakfast was a bit subpar today; I blame it on Hinckley and the lack of refrigeration and kitchen. I had a scramble/skillet: hash browns, green peppers, onions, American cheese, mozzarella, two eggs over easy, all mixed together with a healthy dollop of ketchup. Afterwards, I was in a group with Kate, Kathy, Laura, Kevin and Pen and the paths were so nice and clear that we pulled out the double paceline. Laura and I pulled first and it was great. I especially enjoyed how we all worked together when there was an upcoming pedestrian to transition from a double paceline to single file. It was all going smoothly until Kathy got a flat. The patch she put on didn’t take, so thanks to Zack with an extra tube, she just changed the entire thing. At this point Kevin and Pen left, so it was the four of us and we rode hard until the lunch. Laura and I at one point were pulling at 21 mph. This was much too fast.

So after lunch, I opted to ride the second half by myself. I didn’t want to stress of a paceline and I wanted to take advantage of the trees and greenery around. Especially with a double paceline, the two pullers in front are kind of racing each other and the speed ever slowly tends to increase. So riding alone I still pushed myself, but averaged about 16/17. There were more holes and bumps in this second part of the trail. But the path is well maintained, and all of them were clearly marked with orange spray paint so you could plan your line ahead of time. So thoughtfull, Minnesota really has it together. I stopped in Carlton at mile 60 to fill my Camelbak with ice. I decided that my new thing is going to stop and get ice so I can have cold water to drink. The best part of the ride today was going though narrow parts with rock walls on either side.

Entering Duluth, well, it’s very brown. Everything seems rather drab. But it’s right on Lake Superior, so that in addition to being so close to Canada makes it cold. I’ll be able to get a better sense of the city tomorrow as we head to the build site and hopefully I can talk up more people. Oh, Mike, the Board President said something interesting about Duluth. How way back when around 1900/10, the city was booming and on track and predicted to be the next Chicago. So, civic leaders bought up all sorts of green space and made parks, in anticipation of dense urban growth. Well, that never really happened, but the parks stayed, which is why there’s so much green space here.

We were informed that Duluth is hosting Finnfest 2008 this year. It’s a gathering/celebration/festival/convention of Finnish culture and heritage. Basically, all sorts of Finns will be flocking here to Duluth and spending the next week being Finnish. Tonight was the opening ceremonies. Of course, I had to go so I went down with a van and caught the last 30 minutes of the opening ceremonies. Nothing too crazy, just saw two dances, a singer, lots of speeches/thank you’s and was clearly out of place. The mayor of Duluth in his speech decided to pepper his speech with Finnish related jokes, what did he make fun of? Saunas. The whole idea of it made me really excited, but I think I’d rather see the fair part of it and find some fish if possible, though I don’t think we’ll have time for that. The president of Finland is coming tomorrow though and will be here for a few days for the festivities, so this whole thing is kind of a big deal. The funniest part about it though is that earlier today while in the double paceline with Kathy, Laura and Kate, Kathy was telling us about how Conan O’Brien had a segment where he went to Finland and met the female president and how they oddly look alike. So, these past two places we ran into the circus and Finnfest, but all I really want to is to run into a demolition derby. That’s my goal for the trip, to see one.

After my little stint at Finnfest, I went to go see Wall-E with Kevin and Pen. Others were at the theater seeing Batman and Hancock. So far, there have been four waves of riders to go see Batman. I’m not really sure what news on the outside world is, but if our group is any reflection, then that movie must be breaking some box office records.

A build day tomorrow. We’re finally mixing it up and working with a group that isn’t Habitat. We’re working with Common Ground, a local affordable housing chapter. Someone actually came to dinner and chatted a bit about it and what we’ll be doing tomorrow. One group will be finishing/detailing a house, last-minute touch up stuff and the other group will be . . . moving dirt. A collective groan swept all of us when we heard that.

Hinckley, MN

2008-07-22T21:54:00.003-04:00

There’s nothing to do here. Okay, the Big Top Circus is in town (and today only, how fortuitous for us) and I snapped a few pictures with the elephant and a few other people shopped the two thrift stores on main street for flair, but other than that, nothing. It’s a pretty small town and don’t have a clue what it has going on for it. Their biggest claim to fame seems to be a fire that destroyed the town in 1894.

We’re staying at the local high school tonight and sleeping in their gym. It’s not the most ideal of situations because there’s no community interaction and no one to provide dinner for us, we have to pay to use the pool, there’s no refrigerator for us to store our perishable food items and did I mention that we’re sleeping in the large, single room, wood floored and therefore heavy echoing gym. It’s a good reminder to value the churches and communities that we normally stay with.

For internet, I hijacked it. I found an ethernet cord and went into a classroom to plug it in. Resourceful, no? Everyone else thinks that there isn't internet, but I failed to mention this since I'm not supposed to be in this part of the high school anyway and I don't want a huge mad rush of people grabbing ethernet cords from computers and using the classrooms.

Because we didn’t have a dinner provided, Joy’s parents generously donated a pizza dinner for the group. A big thank you to them! We had plenty to eat and actually the first time we’ve had pizza in a long time.

My chore group this week is cooler crew and van clean up. The latter is rather self-explanatory. For the coolers, our responsibilities are to empty the coolers into refrigerators upon arriving to the church and then cleaning them. In the morning, we are supposed to repack the coolers and then fill the jugs that hold our water and Gatorade. Well, yesterday, we kind of dropped the ball and we were nicely called out for it today. It was a confluence of things: arriving in St. Paul yesterday and then being shuttled immediately to our host families; some of our members (though not me) who just didn’t know that the coolers were in the 2nd floor kitchen; some members being told by the ladies at the church that they would take care of it; and that always present factor, laziness. Thankfully none of the food is bad and shouldn’t go bad since we’re going to pack the coolers with ice tonight, but still not a good thing since all 30 of us depend on the food inside the coolers. It’s not just us though, it’d reflected in all the chore groups. We are over a month into the trop and the chore groups are slowly starting to degenerate.

Today, for the 84-mile ride, I was a sweep with Reed. For the first half of the ride I rode behind Reed. His bike tends to wander while riding which is totally okay is there's a shoulder. When there isn't, it's terrifying. There weren't that many shoulders so I rode behind him since I have a large florescent safety triangle on my Camelbak that way drivers would be a bit more warned that there are cyclists to share the road with. There was a 22 mile stretch where we were on the bike path we all heard about in St. Paul. Stopping to chat with someone, they mentioned that the bike path is the old railroad bed from St. Paul to Duluth. They just paved it over and boom, bike path. We were all very happy.

We were also blessed today with a front of cool air that came down from Canada. Kent, my host from last night, mentioned it this morning. It made the day that much more pleasant to be riding. Sunny, cool and a silly headwind. Silly because we are riding east to get to Duluth and that means we should be getting a tailwind, but that'd be too easy for B&B NUS 2008. The final thing that captured my attention most of the day--clouds. They were the cotton ball puffs of clouds in the sky at regular intervals, continuing all the way to the horizon. I found myself staring up more than forward most of the day (this is also a testament to how nice the roads/path was). For further clarification, they remind me of the clouds in the introduction/opening of the Simpsons. I didn't take a picture though, since I didn't really want to stop. Though I did stop to take a picture at a place called "Colors by Craig." They are a sign shop and make signs or vehicle decals.

The day was much longer than I had anticipated. I figured that since it's 84 miles, it'd be short and a piece of cake compared to the 120 mile day. But 84 miles is still a good chunk of road to get through. Also, I didn't eat enough for lunch to get all the calories that I needed. Towards the end, I could feel my legs shaking a bit from fatigue. Reed and I stopped to take a break, just 5 miles from the church, and I had a Clif bar, 2 shot bloks and gatorade to replenish myself.

So, as sweeps we are supposed to stop to help with any riders that might be having trouble along the way. Today we didn't have to deal with any issues like that, but we did have to deal with Kevin and Pen. Those two have been taking it easy and having a good day with their rides. So, the four of us went just down the street from the church in St. Paul and had coffee and a pastry at the "Finnish Bakery" to start the day off. My host mom, Katherine, made eggs and sausage for breakfast, so I wasn't really that hungry, but still. And about those eggs, probably the fluffiest eggs I've had in a long time, top-notch. We ended up finishing our morning coffee and leaving around 9. We biked to lunch, which was at mile 40, then just two miles later we see two bikes laying on the grass next to the bike path. My immediate thought was that someone was going to pop out and scare us. It turns out, Kevin and Pen were playing in a treehouse just beyond. Reed and I walk over and help them film a scene for their Tinky Winky video (this is a much longer story that I don't have the space to type out now). We all head back on the bike path and move along. We keep biking and as we enter Pine City and pass an A&W eatery, Kevin pops out and waves us to come by. So we sit and have a snack with them. You'd think it'd be annoying to stop so often, but it wasn't in the least bit. They were much needed breaks, my rear is still hurting, and the two of them are a lot of fun. And Kevin was so happy everytime he stopped.

Another accident today, but not a serious one. Kim was drafting Dan and her tire clipped his. He didn't feel much of anything, but Kim off her bike and onto her butt. Just a scrape on her left elbow and she was more than able to make it those last 7 miles to the high school. Though, Dan's spokes did get all out of alignment.

Honestly, there's absolutely nothing to do here in Hinckley; I'm kind of going out of my mind. There was a point, before I found the internet connection, where I was contemplating setting out on my bike and heading straight to Duluth. Also, the firewall here has blocked youtube, which is a bummer since I was banking on catching up on the wimbledon finals I missed. Oh, and the only show that I watch and is new in the summer, My Boys on TBS, well their online video player only works with PCs.

Get me out of here.

But to be fair to Hinckley, it might not be the town itself, rather the long, exhausting and fatiguing day I had as a sweep.

Scavenger Hunt

2008-07-22T00:04:00.011-04:00

The Scavenger Hunt.

Bike and Build is filled with some rather competitive personalities. I mean, we're biking across the country and each day could basically be viewed as a race if you so choose. We're nearly halfway and we're pretty comfortable and familiar with how biking works. So, today was the scavenger hunt. Christopher, one of the trip leaders, wrote it up last night, after spending a day as sweep with Katrina. While in the back, they chatted about good things to have people search for.

Teams are groups of 4 riders. You need to take a picture of the object/item/whatever on a camera, the more creative the better. You need to arrive to the church before the sweeps. The hunt is scored on points, not number of pictures. So, the picture of a unicorn is worth more than a picture of a dead frog.

Kathy, Christopher and Jessie formed my group. We were bratty about it in the morning, naming ourselves the "Pirates" and even doing a cheer. I don't think that won us any friends. We decided to basically haul as fast as we could towards St. Paul. Then once we got closer, spend the time to find the items. Well, that plan was going great, we had a quick paceline and we even did some quick stops to take a picture. We passed most other groups. Then Christopher got a flat tire. Deciding to maximize the time, Kathy and I turned around to bike the mile back to a cemetery to take pictures of a rider's name (first or last is 1 pt, 5pts for a full name) on a headstone. On our way there, Kathy gets a flat. Half our team is now non-functional and while changing the tires, everyone passes us. I got to the cemetery and take pictures and by the time I get back, the sweeps have caught up to us and we are last. So much for the plan.

Other than that, we did a good job of riding hard while on the road and being productive and effective whenever we did stop for a picture. Erik's blog has a full list of all the items on the scavenger hunt, I believe. Below are some pictures we took from the day's ride and a little explanation. Enjoy. We did.

A unicorn--Basically, it meant you needed to be creative. We tried that and scoured an antique store for something that would work. No go. So we opted for the easier route and stopped at a library and went straight to the myth and folktale section. Jessie impersonating a unicorn and Christopher is rubbing it in everyone's face.

A doctor in scrubs--It never said it needed to be a living person. This person is clearly a doctor (i'm point to the MD) and most definitely wearing scrubs. All about the creativity.

A rider 10 ft off the ground--We tried to climb a silo, but were denied by the owners. We asked a utility person to give us a lift in their cherry picker, but couldn't for liability reasons. This was near the end and by the above picture. Christopher just jumped off his bike and just took off and tore up the sign. If you can't tell, he's in pain since the top of the metal sign was very hot.

Imitate a statue or monument--At the Como Zoo in St. Paul. A perfectly sited statue as we were on our way to another clue, a living large non-domesticated mammal. I saw the zoo sign from the road, so we biked up and just booked it to the gates. And yes, our picture for the living, large non-domesticated mammal is a gorilla. No one is going to top that. Christopher argued that a human could be valid, but I argued that we are domesticated. Thoughts?

A mail carrier--Vocal signs are good in a paceline to warn those in the back about bumps, holes, gravel, etc. Today, they were good for spotting and shooting this mail carrier. The person in front screamed and pointed to the mail carrier. I was in the bag so I whipped out my camera and took a picture. This is a team working at its best.

A rider giving a stranger a business card--Worth a lot of points so at least a few more people would know about our organization. A genius item since it does good for our group, as a scavenger hunt group and as an organization.

A discarded glove on the side of the road--We stopped at an ice cream shop for pictures of an ice cream scoop. Too bad they only had soft serve. But, they did have plastic sanitary gloves. So we took one, then proceeded to discard it on the side of the road. Well, we picked it back up so we weren't littering, but the picture says it all.

A biking sign--Pretty easy to find. Christopher planned to make a right turn signal since the sign says right. I'm not sure if he's aware he's actually telling everyone he's stopping. He's the one that's also ridden across the country before.

This is when we went guerrilla. Literally took all of 30 second for the picture. Jessie jumped off her bike onto the motorcycle and I took the picture. The owners were none the wise, we were too quick.

A person wearing a shawl--There was a cardboard cutout of Marilyn Monroe, so we decided to play dress up.

St. Paul, MN

2008-07-21T23:28:00.002-04:00

Last night in Pepin, before going to bed I needed to patch my tube. For the several days before I had been riding with a slow leak. Basically, each morning my tire would be flat, but if I pumped it up to 120 psi in the morning, it'd be enough to make it through the day. Out of laziness and fear to touch my bike, that's what I did. Push came to shove and after arriving so early into Pepin, I decided it was time to find that small little hole in the tube. I sat myself down on the grass and set about going to work: removing the wheel, deflating the tire, releasing the tire, pulling out the tube, finding the hole in the tube. To find the hole, basically, you just inflate it then put it close to your ear to hear if air is leaking from anywhere on the tube. It's a rather tedious process but necessary. It didn't take me long to find the small hole (which is surprsing since I can barely hear people talk sometimes) so I go about using my patch kit to take care of it. To patch it there are several steps: roughen the area around with sandpaper, apply glue to the area that will be covered by patch, attach patch and hold down with pressure until fully adhered. So I patched my first tube. I put it back on my bike and pump it up fully. Then I hear check it with my fingers and hear some hissing, then feel the tire slowly to deflate. What? Repeat all the steps again and look at the patch. Near the patch, I notice an area that seems to have been sandpaper. Whoops, I patched the completely wrong area. Actually, I patched an area that was perfectly okay. Well, good thing I had done it once before so I could do it again.

An 80 mile ride into St. Paul. Leaving the nice roads of Wisconsin to enter the similarly nice roads and landscape of Minnesota. That was a nice treat. There was one major difference. Today's ride there were hills and hills and hills. If there were rolling hills in WI, then today there were Rolling Hills with a capital R and H. I think it has something to do with all the lakes in the state. It was tough. Even worse, for most of the hills, you could see straight ahead what you were approaching, all of it, to completely scare the life out of your legs and kill your mental will. The morning I was chugging along, which I think is a result of frosted shredded mini wheats for breakfast, on the hills. And I pulled the paceline I was in for a good bit of pavement and at a good clip as well. Then after lunch, I wasn't feeling it as much. The worst was this terrible stretch of straight, Rolling Hill road that we were on for about 11 miles. The cross street we entered at was 110th and we were supposed to make a left on 10th street. Basically, we had a countdown as the signs announced 90th, 80th, 70th, etc... It was terrible.

Tonight we have a treat, host families! Anson and I are at Katherine and Kent's place, which is just a bit more than 5 minute walk from the church. The place is beautiful and I even had her give me a since there's all sorts of great arts and crafts woodwork going on. Having all those little life things to be taken care of and accessible (like white out, reliable wireless, a table to write postcards on) and not being only limited to the items in your bag take a lot of the stress and pressure out to refresh us.

Duluth is two days away and the halfway point. Word from the church members is that there is a bike path from here to Duluth. We all clapped when this was announced at dinner. You should see the smile that comes across my face when we head onto a bike path. Glorious.

Now I know I typed a lot, but I didn't even mention the best of it. To spice things up on today's ride we had a little scavenger hunt. It was epic. To the point that an entire post will be dedicated to it with pictures.

Pepin, WI

2008-07-21T00:35:00.004-04:00

Who knew the little town of Pepin would be such a great place? First, it's the birthplace of Laura Ingalls; they have a museum right on main street. And coming in on Route 35 there was a perfectly located ice cream shop where I had a mint ice cream to cap off a tough day of riding. Erik opted for the most intriguing item on the menu, a black cherry soda float. The snacks and food waiting for us at the church was quite the spread and dinner consisted of heaping plates of spaghetti. And the church has wireless, hence the massive post dump.

Again, Wisconsin has continued to impress us with smooth roads, wide shoulders and beautiful scenery. It was an ideal ride on paper, but for me, those 120 miles two days ago finally caught up with me. I just couldn't get comfortable sitting my saddle for the entirety of the day. I had to keep adjusting or stand up for a little bit just to relieve some of the stress on my sit bones. Standing is dangerous while in a paceline, so I didn't do it that often and suffered as a result. It's such a tough decision because if I leave the paceline to get comfortable then I will inevitably go much slower, but if I stay in the paceline I'll get there much faster but be in much more pain/discomfort. I opted for the latter for most of the day.

The que sheets this week have been in the care of Joy, one of the four trip leaders. Her que sheet yesterday was spot on, down to 0.1 of a mile. That's very good, especially considering Dan's que sheet two days ago was just blatantly wrong and was part of the reason for having a 120 mile day. This morning was going swimmingly until my group (Kate, Kathy and Jessie) saw a chalking in the road that read "shortcut." Immediately I was excited to shave off some distance, but then I remember that Dan was in the van and most likely determining the shortcut. Uh oh. So we go along, seeing the roads on our que sheet but no longer able to make the appropriate turns and then we catch up to the front pack and the van. Great, they are re-evaluating but with the help of the van's GPS we follow them back on track. We follow them all the way to the entrance of a national wildlife reserve (the picture) with a dirt road section. Uh oh. We chalk it and make our way through the preserve. We end up losing the front pack, but noticed a chalking that read "I pity the fool" with a right turn chalked. The options are either go straight on the paved road or follow the chalking to the right and go on a dirt road. We assumed it was a joke and read it as "I pity the fool . . . who chooses the dirt road over the paved road." Funny joke. Then we get lost in the nature preserve. We call the van and make our way back to the que sheet and roll into lunch. Have a quick chat with the front group and turns out the chalking was serious to go right and not a joke at all. Let's just say, the four of us weren't laughing. Thankfully, we only added 5 miles to our day's ride.

For lunch, we had leftover sloppy joe meat. It was the best thing I have ever eaten at lunch so far. Combined with an apple cider that had been frozen and then turned to slush, perfect meal.

Erik joined us for the second half of the ride. We followed along the Mississippi for a good portion of it. The highlight for me was seeing a giant Viking man standing outside a store as an gaudy advertisement. I wanted to stop and take a picture, but I couldn't break the momentum of riding. The other place I wanted to stop was the Wisconsin Luggage Reclaim store. Basically, it's where all that unclaimed luggage items go if no one finds them and it's sorted and organized and sold to the public. But again, couldn't break the momentum.

We'll be going in Minnesota tomorrow. I'll be sad to leave this state and its alphabet soup of county roads (CR) that have confused us.

Gays Mills, WI

2008-07-20T23:52:00.006-04:00

This place is a small town—population 600—and its apple country. I was talking to the pastor at dinner because I was interested to learn that the town is thinking of relocating. Last August and this past June they’ve had substantial flooding, 100-year floods actually, that have left many of the homes unsuitable to live in. It’s difficult to get the FEMA help to rebuild, but many of the residents aren’t even fully aware of what the process of going about that would be. It was quite the story.

The pastor has been great to us. She made a dinner with plenty of vegetarian option, most of which proved to be me favorite, especially the chickpea, carrot and raisin salad. But, she lives right next door and opened up her home to use wireless, sleep in the extra bedrooms, shower and play with their adorable bulldog or two cats. Where I also quickly remember that I’m allergic to cats.

121 miles. That’s what my odometer read today. It was a doozy of a ride. It was only supposed to be 102, but this morning we got lost and added 18 miles. And then there were other points during the day I had to turn around. Anson I believe had the highest, 130 since he got lost several times. The picture is the chalking of our new directions. We were well off the que sheet, so the van driver, had to resort of chalking an entire new set of directions to get us back on track. It was highly unorthodox and hopefully we'll never have to do something like that again.

It was a long day to being with. But those extra miles were the result of a combination of things: que sheets being completely wrong, intersections without street signs, and our own stupidity as we were riding into the sun, which meant we were going east instead of west. It was a mess of a morning. We were all in pretty bad moods since we all knew that the mileage was going to be long.

The route was great. Very little traffic, smooth roads, and beautiful scenery. That was the saving grace for our unintentionally longest day yet. Wisconsin is hands down the best state we have ridden through. Everything is so green. And the farms are a bit more spread out then in New England or New York, so you can see a bit more of everything. But there were also rolling hills. Which sound fun and seem easy, but they add up. Dae, has an altimeter on his bike computer. So, not only did we ride about 120 miles, but we also climbed a vertical mile in the day. Which is completely unexpected since we’re in Wisconsin. For me, I really came alive around mile 90. There was a long uphill that I demolished, even catching up to the next person in front of me, which is something I normally never do, especially on hills. I think it was my desire to get to the church, but Sharon, who I was riding with just before, mentioned how she was impressed with my level of improvement.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I saw Batman last night at the midnight showing with Christopher, Erik, Kathy, Reed, Kevin and Pen. The movie was great, fun plot twists and the Joker was very well done. But, we got back to the church at 3:30am, meaning I slept for two hours since we had a 5:30am wake up time. Which means I did all that riding basically on two hours of sleep. And it was totally worth it.

The first lunch stop. Supposed to be at mile 40, but really mile 50 since we all took the "detour" and got lost. 50 miles is a long way to ride before the lunch stop. Oh wait, our second lunch stop was at mile 100. The whole day was a bit kooky with the lunch stops. But they were needed and Christopher generously offered up his personal stash of Clif bars to us.

Like I said with Kathy, we will sleep anywhere. This is Dan at the first lunch stop. Thankfully the morning was cool and a bit overcast. But just before lunch, the sun came out and it was hot. Many naps were taken all around at this first lunch stop. A nice place though, shaded and next to a gas station to buy necessary drinks/food and use a real restroom.

The final descent, after first biking up to the ridge line and then the rolling hills along the ridge line, to Gays Mills that night's final destination. A much welcomed and earned 10% grade. Isaiah posing with the sign. The sign to the left off in the distance is the town sign. At this point, there were about 3 miles left.

La Crosse, WI

2008-07-20T23:52:00.002-04:00

We woke up at 7:00 this morning, which is late for us. We were all still exhausted from the day before. Last night, the sweeps came in at 8:30. We like to have everyone in the church at 4:00pm. For everyone, we all basically just ate dinner then went straight to bed.

Despite our tiredness, I’m proud of everyone for making it through yesterday and finishing the route. It was long, it was hot, we got lost, we were angry, but on the whole we had a positive attitude and persevered.

We left Gays Mills by going up a steep and long stretch of uphill. Again, I was feeling good and made it up to the top with the group of stronger riders who are normally in front of me. The downhill was by far the best, a 9% grade with smooth roads, little traffic and wide turns. My max speed was 40mph.

The downhill brought us to the Mississippi. We rode along it for the most of the day. And these roads, again, were great. Smooth, good shoulders and little traffic. Stayed in a paceline with Erik, Kathy and Kate for most of the day with Laura for a good stint at the beginning of it. We were booking it, that’s how good these roads, terrain and our bodies were. Our paceline speed was about 20mph. The 61.9 miles was a breeze, but my rear was feeling rather sore for the last 10 miles, leftover from yesterday’s long ride. To talk about that more, I looked at my bike computer and it clocked my ride at 8 hours and 22 minutes. That doesn’t included stops for lunch or breaks that was how much time I spent in the saddle.

After dinner, I went with a few people to a local ice cream shop. The pastor recommended it to us and it didn’t disappoint. It’s in a residential area and the ice cream shop is basically a converted home. All sorts of flavors, but I settled on brownie, cookies and cream and neapolitan. I was wearing my bike and build t-shirt and a nice couple stopped me to chat about the program and what we’re doing. It’s always nice to talk to people about the program to raise awareness and interest.

More riding tomorrow . . . and nearing the 2000-mile halfway point.

Madison, WI

2008-07-20T23:03:00.004-04:00

The most eventful item of today’s short 40-mile ride into Madison was fording a flooded section of road. Roads are still closed off from the rains and flooding and one of those just so happened to be on our route. We drove on by the “road closed” signs and made our way to the little lake in front of us. It wasn’t deep, maybe about mid-calf at its worst, and about 30 meters long. Christopher led groups across if they wanted to ride across, since there was a crack in the middle to be careful of. And instead of calling out pothole, bump or gravel, we were calling out sandbag, tadpole and algae for some laughs. I opted to take off my shoes and socks and carry my bike across. So, I was sad to hear later that day that Ian, Pen and Kevin, who were far behind since they stayed at the library back in Janesville to use their computers, noticed the paddleboat floating on the side. They paddleboated their bikes and themselves over. The perfect nautical equivalent to biking.

The low of the day was our lunch spot. The “gondola” sandwiches that the people in Janesville had given us were befitting of their name and big. The majority of us who finished their sandwiches had some slight stomach problems making the last bit of the ride a bit slower than normal. Also, Isaiah, who was the trip leader driving the van, decided it’s be wonderful to stop right next to a bog. I think he was lured by the swing set and picnic bench, but he was not aware of the mosquitoes. We were eaten alive. Most of us sought refuge and moved into direct sunlight, which isn’t really a refuge at all.

Madison is a great city. It has a lot of things going on and it’s very biker friendly. I’ve never been to Portland, OR, but I imagine it’d be safe to say it’s the Portland of the Midwest. The city is on a strip of land between two lakes and the capitol building is at the top of the hill, always there to orient you. I would come back to this place in a heartbeat

The first night I went to town with a bunch of people. Split off with Jesse and listened to the weekly music series, “Concert in the Square,” which consists of the Wisconsin State Orchestra playing outside with everyone sitting around on the lawn watching or listening over the speakers. Then, we met up with other riders of age and grabbed an outdoor table along the main drag, State Street, and had a few drinks. It was a much-needed release to sit back and enjoy each other’s company outside of biking.

Day off. I started the day off by sleeping in till . . . 8:30. I tried to wake up later, even sleeping in the coat closet (again) so it would stay completely dark inside, but it didn’t work. The Mermaid Café was right next to the church, so I brought my computer there, had a cappuccino and finally bought my plane tickets back from Vancouver. The café was great, for those familiar with Dartmouth, sort of like Bagel Basement (chalk board menu and all), just a coffee shop and not staffed by high school students. Then, I walked a block for a massage I scheduled the day before. Arianna had scoped the place out since she was dying for a massage. An hour-long session and it was great to relax and have the knots in my muscles worked on. When signing in, they give you a sheet with different body parts/areas you are supposed to check to make sure the masseuse works on it. I basically just checked all the boxes. In the afternoon I biked the three miles into Madison and ate Chipotle and had a Jamba Juice. Visited Monona Terrace, their convention center that sits right on Lake Monona and was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Visited the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Art Museum with Kathy for a bit more than an hour. Then finally went over to the university’s Union and sat on the Terrace, a popular outdoor spot that looks right onto the lake. A needed and perfect day off. The Han family hosted us for dinner. Two of them are current students at Dartmouth, Andy ’09 and Chris ’11, and knew people on this trip. Again, nice to be in a home and a delicious bean and corn salad served with lasagna as the main entrée. Ice cream for dessert, and since we’re in the land of dairy, the 4 tubs of ice cream actually came from the creamery from the university.

La Crosse, WI

2008-07-19T17:29:00.007-04:00

Three states in a day again! Started in Wisconsin, then crossed the Mississippi to head into Iowa and rode along the river, which turned into Minnesota for a bit. Crossed the Mississippi one more time to come back into Wisconsin. Sounds complicated, but the roads were well-paved and had some nice lookouts onto the river. We could've gone 3 miles shorter on another route, but this allowed us to add one more state to our list.

Janesville, WI

2008-07-19T16:40:00.008-04:00

I heard through a friend that Janesville wasn’t the best town and got the impression that it is rather small. So, I was surprised to see that its population is 60,000 and after walking trhough the town, it seems like a fun place with lots going on for it. The ride itself to Janesville was pretty. Things of note included the lack of state sign for both Illinois and Wisconsin at the border. And an amazing sandwich I made at lunch which consisted of wheat bread, olive oil, parmesean cheese, spinach, tomatoes, cilantro, sugar snap peas and onions.

I am continually amazed at the generosity of everyone that we meet along the way. Two examples:

Today, we decided to spice up the days about 70-mile ride by having a costume contest. The rules were that you couldn’t spend more than $5, so basically it’s things that you find along the road, dumpster diving, or asking for donations from stores. I desperately tried to find items along the road, but shredded road tires, construction materials and nature just wasn’t cutting it. After getting into the church, I walked over to the library, only to be turned away because I didn’t have an ID on me. But, along Main Street there was a consignment shop. Pen and I walked in and on a whim told them about Bike and Build, our costume contest, and asked if they’d be willing to donate anything. Deb and Pat were ecstatic to help us find our costumes. They settled on a purple princess dress Halloween costume for me with this great baseball hat that looks like an elephant. For Pen, they went with a skirt and top of matching pink material with a purple cowboy hat. It was out of control. I ended up buying the hat since it was so funny and well received. Deb and Pat basically just let us borrow the items for a few hours and let us return it the next morning before we left.

For dinner, the Ryan family, who live in Janesville, hosted us. Their son is on another Bike and Build trip elsewhere in the country, at that point in time, he was in Arizona. But they have heard all these stories from their son about how open and welcoming people throughout the country have been, that they wanted to return the favor to our group. An amazing spread of marinated chicken and tofu, great salad, and roasted asparagus, my favorite. We ate outside and chatted with friends they had invited. A great evening. We gave our usual Bike and Build presentation by setting up chairs on their driveway, with a convenient balcony for Ian and Dan to talk from. We were also treated to “legal fireworks” which consisted of a tub of gold balls be poured from the second story so they would bounce into the audience.

And pictures from the costume party. Ian and Isaiah served as the hosts and Kevin as the DJ. The hosts always seemed to be lost for words since our costumes were just that wild. Also, Quang dressed up as Quail Man, but that picture doesn't seem to want to load. Their were only a few entrants in the costume party. Pen won, only because I think there was a voting block against Christopher and Kathy, since they had been smack talking the entire day about how awesome their costume was going to be.

Costume: Camelbak. Personally, I think it's the best costume and most creative. On Kathy, the blue is supposed to be the water. The clear plastic bag holding the blue balloons is a dry cleaning bag they asked for along the way. Not sure where they found the blue hose. The yellow mouthpiece Christopher is drinking from is two plastic bowls taped together. Kathy attempted to get on his back, since that where a Camelbak sits, but it proved to be too difficult.

Pen: Southern Belle. He has the ability to turn on his Texas accent and he finally switched it on to get into character for the costume contest. It was a riot hearing him talk. The costume itself isn't so bad either. For reference, there's a pink fluffy skirt that he's wearing which gives it its mass. Don't forget the purple cowboy hat that he also had as part of his costume. Deb and Pat, from the consignment shop we borrowed from, told us that this outfit including the cowboy hat were brought in by one person as her "line dancing ensemble. Oh my.

Costume: Perfect Fusion. We like to make fun of Isaiah for using this phrase in a quote for a newspaper. He described Bike and Build as the perfect fusion, combining both service and adventure. We'll never let him live it down. So, Lindsey and Kate decided to dress up as the phrase. Lindsey is "Service" and has caulk, a pencil in the other ear you can't see, a tool belt, and a nametag with "Edwin" written on it. Edwin was our site manager at the Cleveland build; he also had a twin brother named Erwin. Kate is dressed up as adventure and refers to the biking part. The paper bag is drawn to resemble a road. The nametage says "US-20" that terrible road in Ohio we all hated. And a helmet filled with foliage for good measure.

Costume: Jasmine from Aladdin. There wasn't really much thought into my costume, which I think took away points in the scoring. It's just such a ridiculous thing that I needed to use it. As a group, we have a penchant for various Disney songs, so I figured it'd be appropriate to dress as a Disney Princess. They had plastic tiaras at the shop, but they were small and the teeth dug into my head if I did try to wear them. Also, the elephant hat is just so great. It's not really relevant for the costume though. Also, we were planning to watch Aladdin later that night, so it was topical.

Costume: Lost and Found bag. Dan surprised us all with this costume. Hilarious and creative. We keep a duffel along in the van that holds all the various items that people forget at the church, don't claim in the laundry, and other random stuff we accumulate. He basically just adorned himself with all the objects. A bold move, since many of the items are very dirty and smell. The book he's pulling out of his bra is a 501 French verbs book. Why would anyone bring that along?

Grayslake, IL

2008-07-14T23:21:00.002-04:00

A short day today, about 40 miles. My dad drove me back into the city to meet up with the group at 7:30. There was a neighborhood party the day before and there was a cotton candy machine leftover to be returned for rental later that day. So, we surprised everyone with cotton candy, to eat in addition with pancakes we made.

Since it was such a short day, I spent it with Kathy taking our time. We dropped by Wrigley Field for pictures. Then stopped in on my cousin Vanessa's place who lives nearby and say hi to their newborn, Joshua. From there, we had lunch with bubble tea at Joy Yee's, a hipper chinese cafe in Evanston. By then, it was about 12:30 and we needed to go about 25 more miles to make it to the church by 4:00. A quick stop to see the Bahai Temple and then we booked it through the North Shore, following Sheridan and Greenbay for a good bit of the ride. At one point, we saw a chalking marked "detour" so we called the van leader, Joy, to get more information about it. When we told her where we were, Joy was a little taken aback at how far away we were still. Whoops.

The biggest moment of realization for me was seeing the rollercoasters at Great America. Because that meant that I had just biked from Wrigley Field to Great America. And that was an easy day. But back before this trip, and having been raised in the suburbs, I would've never even considered making that trip in anything but a car. Being in such familiar territory for me, really impressed that sense of perspective of distance. I mean, realizing that I had biked from Wrigley Field to Great America, to me, seemed like a bigger deal than that 117 mile trek just a few days before.

Arlington Heights, IL

2008-07-14T23:10:00.002-04:00

Everyone else in the group was exploring the city for our day off, a bunch of them even went skydiving about an hour north. Being home was great and eating all those foods that I wanted to eat was comforting.

I made sure to head to Portillo's for a cheeseburger, fries and chocolate cake shake. I went with my friend Kevin to catch up on his own travels and the working world and fill him in on mine. We also dropped by a bike store and an REI as I needed to get some thing in prep for the rest of the trip

Late, my friend Kari was having her graduation party on Sunday, so I was able to spend a good chunk of time there catching up my lots of friends that I hadn't seen in a long time. They all knew that I was on my trek across the country (which they labeled as "tour de america"), but showing up showered, clean and in normal clothes just give the appearance that I was actually biking. For all they knew, I could've been making it up the whole time. I hope the tan line was proof enough.

All in all, a welcome day back at home. Though, I will admit, it was weird not to be around the other 29 people for that time. I've just become so accustomed to always having one of them around.

Oh, and being at home and thinking about how I could've been spending the summer back at home with a job, made me fully appreciate the experience and opportunity Bike and Build is. It renergized me and made me ready to get back on the road and my bike.

Pictures

2008-07-13T17:57:00.012-04:00

Our first lunch stop on our ~100 mile day was in the parking lot of this place. The ponies don't even have a chance against Kathy, Kate, Pen and myself.

Sharon led us through the streets of Cleveland. Our first urban environment.

In front of the Art Institute with the lions. At this point, my odometer read somewhere around 110 miles.

Passing by the Art Institute wasn't on the que sheet. We were supposed to stay on the lakefront trial. I took a little detour to meet up with my sister who lives in the city.

The traditional Bike and Build pose. I couldn't help myself. I just needed one in front of the Bean at Millennium Park. Also, my parents happened to be in the city strolling around, so I was able to meet up with them here.

Laughing, chuckling and yakking it up at a red light while going through Buffalo. Good times.

And then came more red lights. It seemed that every stoplight we came to would turn red on us. The laughing stopped and frustration began.

This day we started in NY and ended in OH, meaning we rode through PA in a day. The next three state day would be be leaving from Edwardsburg, MI and ending in Chicago, IL and going through Indiana in a day.

Derek looking out over the landscape.

A giant rooster on the side of the road of an abandoned fried chicken restaurant. It provided us lots of entertaining pictures and a nice break in the process.

I rode with Erik for this terror of a day. Massive uphills and torrential rain. We were relieved to finally be entering the town of of final location.

My sleeping space and area, set up behind a piano.

From our build day in Rochester, NY. Our task was to landscape the backyard, which basically meant remove all the weeds, tall grass, and overgrown greenery. This involved tearing down the vines from a tree. Sure we could've cut them down, but playing Tarzan proved to be just as effective.

Again from our build day in Rochester. It was a hot day and landscaping was tiring work. Lunch consisted of two slices of pizza, not even close to being enough to fill us. So, we were understandably tired. Kathy, curling up to take a nap, nestled on and next to drywall.

Arlington Heights, IL

2008-07-13T11:08:00.003-04:00

Things that have made the difference: a bed, a private shower, and a cotton towel.

The silly synthetic camping towels that we all use just don't absorb the same. Synthetic towels dry faster and are more compact, which is why we all have them, but it's nowhere near a substitute.

As much as I wanted to sleep in, my body just wouldn't let me. I woke up at 8:30, which is late for the trip, but I was shooting for 10. But reading the Sunday Tribune this morning at the breakfast table, I laughed when I came across the front page article of the "Q" section. An article titled, " 'On your left!' Some translate that as 'Get outta my way!' " It's about the proper etiquette for cyclists when passing other pedestrians or slower cyclist. How appropriate. And relevant considering my jaunt on the Lakefront Trail yesterday that was swarming with people. Basically, if you hear someone saying "On you left" we're not yelling at you or angry. Not in the least bit, we're just trying to make sure everyone is safe and you are well aware. It just might sound like we're yelling or angry since we may or may not have biked a hundred and change miles ahead of time.

Chicago, IL

2008-07-13T00:28:00.002-04:00

117 miles later, I'm back home in Arlington Heights. My parents came and picked me up from the church we are staying at in Chicago and brought me out to the 'burbs. Sitting here, thinking about the distance we've covered, to help put things in perspective, I basically just rode my bike from school to home. A trip that I've made several times in my car and completed in 16 hours, I just did on a bicycle over 25 days and my own pedaling power.

But today's long day really begins last night in Camden. You could sense it in the air, we were all buzzing about, preparing our bikes, our bodies, our minds for basically doomsday, the 109 mile day. People were getting everything ready and organized, since we had a 5:15 wake up time.

We left the church at 7:00 to overcast skies. And since Christopher was driving that meant it was going to rain. How he manages to always drive the van while its raining I have no idea, but I find it irritating. It's not his fault in the last bit and he has absolutely no control over, but when I'm wet and riding, I need something to deflect my anger and frustration on. And I choose him.

From the church to lunch the most eventful tidbit was a 4-mile detour a fair amount of the riders took. Detour is a more diplomatic way of saying getting lost. The que sheet had us going on a dirt road, never a good idea, so I think the front riders assumed the roads were set up on a grid and we could just a left, right left, to get back on the right track. Wrong. Roads were angled and nothing really worked. We flagged down cars to ask for direction and things worked out. There was light rain and I showed up to the first lunch stop at mile 40 wet and just a smidge irritable. The rain stopped by lunch and stayed away for the rest of the day. Ironically enough, the road we got lost on was called Chicago Road. A few riders figured we could just take that road to Chicago (a dumb idea). And another rider wasn't really worried about being lost, since we were headed in the general direction of west (I am not easy-going enough for this to be valid). But being lost on Chicago Road in the first 40 miles was basically a sick joke

The 40 miles form lunch to lunch #2 was on one road, Route 12. Rode most of it by myself, which was deliberate. We were told to be very careful on the road as it's busy and I didn't want to have to be responsible for hand signals or careful of closely I was following someone. Turns out the road wasn't that bad and a good chunk went through the Indiana State Dunes State Park, so it was scenic and well-paved. The most memorable thing from this stretch were signs advertising, "Free Parking-Gary Air Show" about every 5 miles.

Lunch #2 was just a clif bar and refilling my water bottles. Left with Jesse, Kathy and Erik. We were a good group riding through Gary and made it to the Lakefront Trail. What a relief seeing the Lake was. It was just a glimpse though as we got a little lost due to lack of chalking, but we found our way and picked up Bobby, Jesse and Kevin. Followed US-41 for a bit, then made it on the real lakefront path. Amazing. Bike paths, well paved, the Lake to the right and open pavement in front. It was a stroll in the park. Then we saw the skyline. I know for me, it just re-energized me, as if the previous 100 miles hadn't happened. A second wind and we stopped and took pictures and Erik and Kevin jumped into the water. I kept pressing on to meet my sister in Millennium Park with Kathy and Jesse in tow. Kathy got a flat and Jesse stayed back with her. Met my sister in front of the Art Institute then walked over to Millennium Park and the Bean to meet the parents who were in the city, a welcome surprise. So comforting to be back in familiar territory and have the family around.

After some quick photos, picked up the Lakefront Trail making my way to Montrose. Ran into Kevin and Erik and we made our way, slowly, to Montrose. The pathway was just packed with people, it made it difficult to move at a good clip. The highlight was us passing a rollerblader listening to his iPod and was offended with how abruptly I had passed him. So he sped up and rudely passed us just to make a point. Erik went to chase after him and passed him and sort of cut him off in retaliation. The rollerblader was being a jerk. How are you supposed to hear me say "passing left" if you have headphones on?

Made it to the church in Ravenswood at 5:11pm. I left this morning at 7am. Chicago is an hour behind where we were in Michigan. That's 11 hours total, most if it on the bike. But, I was feeling good, much better than the 96 mile day into Bowling Green. I tried to keep at a slow and steady pace, so not to tire myself out.

The sweeps, Kate and Ian, arrived at 5:24pm. We al did it. Some were hurting, some wanted more, but we were all tired and a bit ornery. We were all anxious to take off and see friends, family, explore the city, etc. but we needed to have a group meeting first. Lots of tension in the room. We all tore off Christopher's head when it looked like he was going to leave the group meeting to say hi to a friend.

Everyone's off and enjoying the city. I opted to spend time at home. I'm sad I'll be missing out on doing things with them in Chicago, but frankly, I've got plenty more time ahead with them. I think we're all better off if I spend some time away.

Dinner with the family in Chinatown. Ate family style, as it should be, and fulfilled my craving for clams with black bean sauce and chinese broccoli. Back at home, icing my legs, watching Food Network, and basking in the comfort of home.

Edwardsburg, MI

2008-07-11T21:08:00.002-04:00

Michigan has just been wonderful to us. The roads, the people, the food, everything. I'm so glad that we are the first Northern US Route to go through Michigan, past years don't know what they've been missing.

Today's route was about 75 miles. So pretty average for us. But the roads today were spectacular, everyone was raving about them. Smooth roads which make it so much easier on the entire body, since we're not soaking up the vibrations from the road. Sure there was the frequent roadkill, but let's face it, when is there not?

For me, today was the best route and day so far. Again, I can't go on about the roads, it makes such a difference. In the morning, we were led out from Camden by a church member who rode us past an Amish community. We were basically thirty-people taking up one lane of a two-lane road, it was stupid and dangerous, thankfully there was little traffic.

From there we headed out onto rolling hills. A much welcome change from the monotonous and taxing farm fields of Ohio. I was going at a good clip for this bit then I came to a stop light. Clipped out of the right pedal, but still attached to my left pedal. For some reason I was shifting my weight around and just shifted it too far to the left and over I went. Out of nowhere, I just fell in front of most nearly all the other riders. Good one Craig. So, I pulled over quickly to get out of the traffic, double checked the gears and chain, then headed out with Jesse and Kate who kindly waited for me. At this point, everyone had passed us, so we formed a paceline and just attacked the hills and caught up to most of the people.

Lunch was at mile 37. Picnic benches on a nice town green. Even better, the restaurant where I got fries and a slice of strawberry pie. A terrible lunch, but delicious.

The second half of the day rode with Jesse, Kate, John P. Sean joined for the last 18 miles. More rolling hills, I basically was only able to pull for one of them before I tired out. The road we were one also had a shoulder that had rumble strips. We could ride to the right of the rumble strips and it made me feel much safer knowing that there was a barrier between me and a car. In regards to more fun stuff, we took a picture with a tank. Jesse did a handstand on it and Erik hung his bike from t he gun barrel.

The church here in Edwardsburg set a new standard. They had the local bike shop come to tune and help fix our bikes. They were here for about 5 hours, working on all 30 of our bikes. This would be hundreds of dollars of work; they did it all for free. Especially important since we have a long day tomorrow riding into Chicago, about 110 miles. I looked at the que sheet and it's going to be a doozy. But, at this time tomorrow, I'll be back home in Arlington Heights.

Camden, MI

2008-07-10T21:58:00.002-04:00

Another day, another state.

Today, my number finally came up and I was assigned to be of one of two people for the sweep. Two riders are assigned each day to be the last riders. That way, they can help any rider that might need help along the way and provide support. Also, once the sweeps arrive at the church that evening, that means everyone has made it there.

Isaiah and I were sweeps today. It was my first time, which is odd since other people have already done it twice. But, we were quite the funny pair together. Mainly because the two of us have completely different mentalities towards sweep. Isaiah is a pretty intense biker and races at Dartmouth. He's more into the idea of a sweep as there to encourage and herd the riders in front to get to the church safely. My attitude is to make sure that I don't see any of the riders in front of me. I want to be as far back from any other riders so that I can go at my own pace still. The only reason I should see another rider is because they need help. So, in the morning we were staying back a bit since I was going slow, Isaiah thought it'd be a perfect opportunity to use the expanse of pavement for sprint workouts. What? Basically, he'd sprint ahead then slow down, once I caught up, he'd sprint ahead again. We were quite the sweeps. But worked great together.

No major problems from the day. Stopped twice as one rider was taking a break and then lost something as it fell out of his camelbak. The most eventful moment was a fateful left turn to stay on Route 34 where the chalk mark had faded. Laura went straight instead, other riders caught it and told us, so Isaiah, as if he were preparing for this moment in the morning, rode on ahead and caught Laura to make sure that she turned around the get back on track. Successful catch, as Isaiah was churning his legs out . . . I was sitting on the side of the road. Did I do anything productive? Yeah, I called Michelle and mistakenly told her she was also lost and then to turn around. Turns out she wasn't and I made her backtrack for a bit, whoops. Sorry Michelle.

The route today was good. It was actually nice to be sweep since I could go slower and didn't need to push myself, a nice recovery from yesterday. At lunch we got yelled at by a farmer for being in his wheatfields. And we passed through a town called Napoleon.

Mail drop today, a nice letter from my parents. And this is the first time we are in Michigan. I mean, this is the first time this route has made the little sidetrek to Michigan. Just a way to add another state to the list.

Bowling Green, OH

2008-07-10T19:32:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's ride wasn't a complete century, it was just short of it...by 4 miles. And let me say, thank god I didn't end up having to go 4 more miles, I don't think I would've made it.

I spent the morning at a good clip, breaking off from a larger paceline into a group of three with Katrina and Jesse. We all had a little bit of blame in an accident that happened along the way. I was "pulling," which means that I was at the front and we were making some turns through a commerical/residential area. Well, I sort of freaked out as I saw a pedestrian crossing the street ahead and since I am a vehicle, they get the right of way. So I slowed down, a bit too abruptly, then Jesse behind me braked more abruptly and pulled tot he side of me which caught Katrina off guard and they both took a tumble. We took at a break at the firestation nearby to shake off the jitters and rest a bit before getting back. The good news is that no one was hurt, the bikes are okay and we learned that falling/crashing isn't the worst thing that can happen.

The first lunch stop was at the entrance to the Cedar Point Causeway to enter towards the amusement park. I desperately wanted to take the afternoon and go o n some rollercoasters, but the lunch stop was at mile 35 and I still ahd 60 more to go. On the upside though, the generous people from Avon Lake filled our trailer with all sorts of food and leftovers from our stay that lunch was a feast. I was pleased that there was cold pasta with meat sauce

Just leaving the lunch stop, we passed by a Merry-Go-Round museum, which is random, but wasn't random enough to warrant a stop. And did I mention that I hadn't even reached the halfway point?

The second lunch stop was at mile 75, with 20 miles left to get to Bowling Green. From mile 40-75, I remember regretting how hard I pushed myself in the morning since I was hurting. But I was in a paceline for this stretch and though I was aching, I didn't want to leave the paceline since that meant I would have to face the wind on my own and not be able to draft off of anyone. So, I got to the second lunch stop exhausted.

From mile 75 to the end, it was bad. I began to realize that I hadn't been drinking enough water during the day and I was beginning to feel dehydrated, my throat just wouldn't stay moist. So, as I was "pulling" I had to take a break and rest and regain myself. I also cursed the rural, barren landscape since we were supposed to turn right on County Home road and it seemed that every road that came up wasn't it, which meant another mile or so until the next road. Which was an eternity and a lot of pain for me.

County Road home finally came and now there were 5 miles left. My stomach decided to turn against all the water I drank after thinking I was dehydrated and basically spent the last chunk going very slow and feeling like I was going to throw up. If I didn't feel that way, I most likely would've stopped at a Chipotle we passed in that last bit. Made it to the church, but I was moving slow and not feeling great. The best part was a church member who was there greeting us and kept pointing out the way to the men's room to me, since I guess it looked like I was on the verge of something.

Laid down and rested outside for about half an hour and felt better. Though I was eaten alive by mosquitoes, a worthwhile tradeoff. So, I made it through the day and even biked around the grounds of Rutherford B. Hayes's estate in Fremont, OH, our 19th president. But I learned nothing else about him and nobody else on the trip knew anything about him either.

Yes, yesterday was long. In fact, our longest day yet. So that in itself makes it difficult. But then there's this thing called headwind. And makes it very difficult to cycle. A constant, relentless force pushing against you. Absolutely draining physically. And then there was this thing called Route 6. A busy two-lane road and though it has a shoulder, it also has lots of semi's barreling down it. Which stresses me out since I constantly think I'm going to be roadkill if I stray from the shoulder and creates weird wind patterns when they pass you. Exhausting route in all aspects.

Bowling Green is a college town. We had our showers at BGSU's athletic center. Great pressure. And there was a nice little main street with a coffeeshop with free wifi. Most others did internet work. I had a currant tea called Monk's blend and a slice of lemon cake and read the NY Times, at a table outside.

I dreamt last night that I was at home and in my own bed. So, I was a little startled when I opened my eyes and saw the stained glass windows of the church's sanctury I was sleeping in. Chicago and home can't come soon enough. I'll be arriving Saturday afternoon/evening.

Avon Lake, OH - Build Day

2008-07-08T21:22:00.004-04:00

The night at our host family's home was great. Zack was my house buddy and our family has been nothing short of awesome. Provided everything we needed and even with early morning drives back to the church.

Our build day brought us back to Cleveland and the Habitat site was this row of three houses, the lots right next to each other. The Cleveland Habitat chapter has its act together; I was very impressed. We were backfilling the foundation. Which means, that we were filling in the gap between the basement foundation walls and the hole that was dug. Yup, more dirt moving. The biggest obstacle was filling in the large volume of space below the future porch. MIT John was a rockstar and used the rickety ramp to wheelbarrow dirt into the hole. No one else would attempt it or had the skill to do it. He gets the gold star of the day. Again, it seemed impossible, but we finished by 2pm.

The group working at one of the other lots were people affiliated with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Not the players, just people. They were awesome and chatting with them at lunch, one of them knew someone at the Rock and Roll museum and managed to get us all in for free. So after finishing, vans were loaded up and most headed over there, in the shirts that we sweated through from the morning. I did not though, I managed to get a ride to the Cleveland Museum or Art, on a day that it is open. I was a bit too overexcited for the museum as I misread the word "reopening." I know the museum is going under construction and I thought it was finished, but actually the museum will be finished in 2012 and just a few of the galleries reopened for the first time as the entire museum was closed. Oops. Still, it was a welcome 2 hours to be cultured and civilized for just a bit. The air-conditioning didn't hurt either. Though most of the collection wasn't on display, I was still impressed and I'll be sure to make it back once it's all finished. My host dad was kind enough to drive and pick me up at the museum, about a 35 minute drive. I couldn't be more grateful.

Dinner was another jaw-dropping spread of food from the congregation. I was a little late to dinner as I was waiting for a back massage from a member who just happens to be a massage therapist. This really has been the best place we have stayed at and it will be hard to top, they have set the standard so high.

Afterwards, I went to pump my tires to prepare for tomorrow. While pumping it there was a little hole in my valve and then my tire went flat. My first busted tube. I was doing so good too. But better to have it while stationary and able to fix it easily then while on the road. Actually, Mike, my host dad is a cyclist and was awesome and helping replace the tube. I was playing a coin game with their two younger daughters and he just shows up with a fully inflated and functional rear tire. I thought he was fixing the stove.

It's finally here. The century. At our group meeting after dinner to discuss tomorrow, we were informed tomorrow will be 110 miles. Oh my. But I'll be sleeping in a bed tonight, have had a warm shower and be well-fed in the morning. I can't think of a better place to rest up and prepare for tomorrow than from here.

And even if I barely make it tomorrow, I'm sure I'll look good. Megan and Katie, the two girls, bedazzled my hair with a single blue jewel. I'm totally set for tomorrow.

Avon Lake, OH

2008-07-07T23:16:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, it's hard to believe that everything that we do in one day is all part of the same day. Today was one of those days. It started with a terrible ride and ended with an amazing community of people here in Avon Lake.

First, the ride. 73 miles today. Feeling good. The second day you could feel summer. The day before was the first and the result of me forgetting to put sunscreen on my face are the awesome raccoon eyes I now have from my sunglasses. But we spent about 40 miles on US-20 towards Cleveland. Seems easy enough. Wrong. US-20 is not made for bikes. It was 40 miles of rough road, with sewers about every 50 ft. You had to constantly be looking on the side for holes, ruts, bumps, manholes, grates, gravel, etc. And US-20 is a busy road. Basically, the majority of it had many strip malls and big box stores (Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy) on it. It's made for cars to drive from one shopping center to the other one across the street. Which means fast drivers on this four lane road. So, we're looking on our right to make sure we don't damage our bikes and we're trying to be aware on our left so we don't get damaged by a car. Oh yeah, there are no shoulders. It was extremely stressful and dangerous. More dangerous than any of the many days of rain we've had. We leave chalk arrows for the riders behind us to guide them. We also leave messages. Today, my message was "I hate US-20."

Lunch was a saving grace and much needed. A small diner/cafe somewhere on the route. I met back up with Dan Dittrick there, who decided to ride the day with us. We headed out together as he was going to guide me through the more unsavory parts of East Cleveland. My favorite was a chat I was having while taking a break at Dairy Queen. The lady working this say our directions and where we were going and said, "Oh, I got lost around there once and I just kept driving to get out of it somehow, wasn't going to stop and ask anyone." And we were biking through it. It wasn't as bad as she made it out to be. Sean, Joy and Sharon added on to our group and Dan took us on a slight detour to the Cleveland Museum of Art. I was so pumped to see the museum since 1) I had never been there before 2) It was art 3) They just opened their brand new wing on June 29th and 4) It's free. But of course, it was closed since it's a Monday. Figures. Well, we made out way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for pictures and postcards. Then Dan headed home and we started on the last 18 miles to the church in Avon Lake.

We biked through downtown Cleveland which I am considering an achievement. I would've never considered to ride in an urban city before, not fully secure with my biking skills. But if there's anything the last 800 miles have given me, it's security with my biking skills. It wasn't a problem and I'm looking forward to tackling Chicago.

Those last 18 miles leaving out from Cleveland, just as stressful. Still the same poor road conditions and crazy cars. As a group though, and led by Sharon, we did an amazing job of calling everything out and communicating to each other about the road. It helped to ease the stress.

But then we entered Avon Lake and the poor road conditions disappeared and a bike lane appeared. And at that moment, I knew it was going to be a good stay. We made it to the church all in one piece and they had everything out for us, cold drinks, snacks and chilled watermelon. And there was a pool across the street for showers. After showering, I rested in their TV room, with a bag of ice, good company, slouching on a couch watching Seinfeld in air conditioning. Whoa. Dinner was a feast. It was a pot luck and everyone brought some spectacular dishes. So many church members came to the meal, our largest turnout yet, and it was wonderful to chat with them.

After dinner, one member was generous enough to open up his lakeside house to us to go swimming and relax. We headed on over and jumped in the water. They had a trampoline in the water but even better, this plastic cylindrical inflated tube that you are supposed to run across, ideally without falling. It's quite difficult. And it's hilarious to see people as they attempt it and fall into the water. No entry is every the same. Lots of laughs and lots of fun. I even made it across the tube.

And instead of sleeping in the church, we are scattered at various congregation member's homes. Which means we all have beds. What? A first on the trip. The closest thing we've come to beds before might be a couch here or there. It's absolutely amazing how generous all the people here have been to us.

Build day tomorrow. And I'm up well past my bedtime.

Ashtabula, OH

2008-07-07T23:04:00.002-04:00

I am now into OHIO. The midwest. Familiar grounds. And I'm ready to burn rubber on the flatness of it all.

Yesterday, on our ride from Westfield, NY to Astabula, OH we went through this little thing called Pennsylvania. It was quite the accomplishment at the end of the day to consider that I had been in three states in a single day. Rode with Laura and Kathy in the morning and we were tearing through the pavement. The roads were rural and through vineyards, so it was easy to chat. Just before lunch, we were joined by Derek and Jesse and we decided to take a peek at this sail boat on Lake Erie. Took our pictures, chatted with some other cyclists and then went to lunch, which was all of maybe 200 meters away. A wonderful spot on on the lake (capital "L" lake is reserved for Lake Michigan for me) in Erie before we set off in a large group towards Westfield. I was in the back of the paceline with Laura and Kevin when his tire decided to pop and go flat. We pulled off and stopped to fix it. More riding and after what seemed like ages and sun, we finally entered Ohio. My left decided to feel like jelly so we took a break and Kevin joined us back again then we rode along when Kevin's tire decided to flat again. Fortunately, this time it was right in front of a Steak and Shake. While Kevin was fixing the flat, I offered moral support by drinking a strawberry milkshake. Then a quick 3/4 miles to the church.

So in Westfield, a previous rider on the Northers US trip last summer and a friend from school, Dan Dittrick, decided to stop by. And he enlisted the help of the local Dartmouth chapter the host a cookout for dinner at a place called Roaming Shores. Basically, it's a man-made lake and we ate burgers, played volleyball and dipped out feet in the water.

On the drive back to the church, my car saw the B&B pulled over on the side of the road. When we stopped, we were immediately shown a picture of Christopher with his hands behind his back and head a police car's hood. So they got a speeding ticket. Then, here I go back to the church and proceed to tell this elaborate story with wild hand gestures to everyone else. Oh wait, in the morning I learn that it was all staged. The van broke down (some belt decided to snap), a police car stopped to make sure everything was okay and they fabricated it all. I was had.

I spent the evening with a few others writing fines for Kangaroo Court. It's this thing that we started where each rider can write a fine (max is 50 cents) for another rider if they see something silly or stupid. It should get interesting.

Wheatfield, NY

2008-07-05T21:41:00.002-04:00

A quick note form last night's fireworks at Niagara Falls. They were terrible. They lasted all of 10 minutes, which is being generous. We were all very angry since I would've rather slept. I'm still bitter.

Below is the post I wrote for the group journal, it should be posted in a day or two. But here it is on my blog:

Bike and Build. Northern US 2008. Coast to Coast. Moving 0.3 miles at a time. This probably best describes the first 20 miles of our ride today. We spent the majority of it moving through Buffalo and somehow we all managed get stopped at every opportunity for a red light. This, combined with rather rough roads, made for a rather frustrating beginning part of the trip. Normally at the beginning of the day we quickly disperse into smaller riding groups, but with all the red lights, we all were getting bunched up together. I remember at one red light, there were 20 of us in a line waiting for it to turn green. There are 30 of us. We were quite the sight in our matching jerseys moving as a large pack through the streets. Eyebrows were raised.

After making it through that stretch, we spent 48 miles on Route 5, also known as the Seaway Trail. It follows along Lake Erie and it was quite the welcome sight to see all that water and feel the cooler breeze. Several riders stopped off at Graycliff, a Frank Lloyd Wright house built in 1929, which was right off the road. There’s an admission charge, but the people there were nice enough to let us go take a look around the grounds. After hearing about our trip, they were kind enough to let us take tour of the house. I chatted with the Grounds Manager, Clif, who told me even more about the history of the building. For me, it was an hour and a half break but well worth it. Funnily enough, lunch was just 2 miles further down the road, so even more of a break for me.

Leaving lunch, I continued along the Seaway Trail and with 23 miles left, Eric, a Wheatfield church member, joined me to finish the last leg of the day. It was great to have someone ride with and he definitely helped to keep me on pace.

The church here in Wheatfield has been great. They provided a nice spread at dinner and we are very excited to entertain ourselves with the various foosball, ping-pong and large flat-screen TV they have in their church. We also gave a Bike and Build presentation to a few members after dinner.

Today was supposed to be our first 90-mile day, which would’ve been our longest day yet. Thankfully, Isaiah, our ever clever trip leader, somehow managed to cut 12 miles off from our day’s route leaving from Niagara and arriving in Wheatfield. Our bodies were very grateful for the reduction in mileage.

As a group/route/family, whatever you want to call us, we have been quite fortunate that no one has had to ride in the van yet. Despite some rough bits of rain, climbing mountains, multiple flats on the same day, and even some crashes/tumbles, we’ve all made it through the day’s route.

Which leads us to today’s “tumble.” Kathy was riding in a paceline and her front wheel accidentally touched the rear wheel of the rider in front of her. While the rider in front didn’t feel anything more than a possible large rock, Kathy meanwhile veered off the road and basically “flew” off her bike. Fortunately, it was a grassy area to help cushion the landing. No major injuries, just a few nicks, but her front wheel is now a little bent.

Despite that and our beginning through Buffalo, today was a great day for a ride. The weather was perfect, sunny, cool, and not windy. A welcome change from the rain that we are used to.

Tonight’s our last night in NY, as we move on to Ohio tomorrow, passing through PA along the way.

Niagara, NY

2008-07-04T20:18:00.002-04:00

Happy 4th of July!

There are several things we are good at here on Bike and Build. Eating anything. Sleeping anywhere. And sniffing out internet.

Another package received last night was a group package for Erik, Isaiah, Katrina and myself from a common friend from Dartmouth. It included chocolate (a nice treat) and festive red, white and blue garland to festoon our bikes. We divided up the garland amongst everyone and we all put it on our bikes for our quick 20 mile ride today. Kathy received an amazing headband with two American flags poking from it. And she wore it under her helmet for the ride. Priceless.

Gorgeous day today for a ride. Backroads and it took us little more than an hour to get to the church for our stay tonight. It's located in Niagara, NY and only about 7 miles from the falls. Since we all arrived here by basically 11:30, we changed and loaded up the van to head over to see the the falls. A few people biked over, but considering that I think we have 90 miles tomorrow, I opted not to.

Several others were craving chinese food, so we crossed into Canada and ate at a chinese place. The whole place around the falls on the Canadian side is very touristy and kind of trashy. Things like wax museums, haunted houses, IMAX, a WWF museum thing with ride and other things that involve lots of bright colors and signs. Lunch was good and a nice change of pace from our other meals, but it's such unfamiliar territory to not eat family-style at a chinese restaurant to me. I'm not really sure how to conduct myself otherwise. After lunch, others went to check out the falls, but since I've been there before twice, I opted to head across the street with Kate to grab a drink and watch some Wimbledon. Kate wrote out some postcards and I watched about an hour and a half of the Nadal match. Dinner back at the church at 6pm and oddly, I had a massive headache after the meal. I rested for about an hour. We're going to fireworks later today, which we are all looking forward to.

Kate and I were a little late getting back to the van meeting point since I left my credit card back at the bar. But as we were crossing into the US, the checkpoint guy asked if we were biking across the country, to Vancouver. We were both rather caught off-guard, but I guess a bunch of other riders had crossed through earlier and were talking about it. What were our giveaways that we were part of the same group? Tan lines.

Lockport, NY

2008-07-03T15:31:00.003-04:00

Overcast. Light drizzle. Drizzle. Rain. Heavy rain. Lunch. Rain. Light Drizzle. Overcast.

Basically summarizes today's ride. A shorter day, relatively, as it was only 58 miles. Left RIT and thankfully we didn't need to go through any suburban heavier traffic scary areas on the way out, basically started on the backroads and stayed on them until just the very end in Lockport. But seriously, what's with all the wet. As most cold and wet things do, it put me in a bad mood. But especially today though, my sit bones were hurting and my seat felt particularly hard. Not to mention that my neck still hurt, looks like the realignment didn't stick and I'll have to get to icing that neck/shoulder muscle tonight.

My lunch stop lasted all of 10 minutes, enough time to down a PB&J sandwich and other misc foods then head back on the road. I was cold and wet and I just wanted to get to the church. The van/trailer stopped at a nice lady's house for lunch and she was kind enough to let the wet riders in her home. So many took refuge there for a long time and watched the Price is Right.

Rode through some nice nature preserves from lunch to the church. Saw a turtle and frog on the side of the road. I think the turtle was alive, the frog most definitely was not. Really, nothing else from the road today. Especially since it was raining and overcast, I just tend to look down and try to get through the miles as opposed to look around. Oh, it's also easier on my neck to look down as opposed to up.

Showers at the YMCA, nearby the church, and the library right next door. We have the entire basement of the church, plenty of space to spread out.

It was also mail drop day! Received some much needed clif products from my parents (and Kathy as well...from my parents). And thanks to Lily, I got a bottle of "Cold Snap" which is this herbal pill thing that supposedly "realigns the righteous chi" in me to snap the cold away. And thank you Joy's mom for the wonderful little rubber duck and thoughtful zip tie to attach! I'll try to put it on my bike tonight.

And to recap last night in Rochester. We all went to the movies to see our respective, desired films: Wall-E, Hancock, and Wanted. I was in the Wanted group. This was an absolutely terrible movie. It's a bad combination of the Matrix, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Snakes on a Plane and none of it done well. Thankfully, I saw it with a good crew of Ian, Kathy, Michelle and Kristen, who all understood the movie for the junk that it was. We were laughing at it and the ridiculous terribleness that it was the entire way through. As a group, we're all anxiously looking forward to the next Batman movie on July 18th.

Tomorrow, an easy 20 mile day to Niagara where we will be spending the 4th of July. Woo!

2008-07-03T15:24:00.003-04:00

Lindsey and Kristen loading their bikes onto Advance Transit in Lebanon, on our way to Hanover to get their bike's checked at Omer and Bob's.

Kate and I at the amazing bakery/bookstore in Rochester, VT. She's eating the sweet potato corn chowder and I have a peach crumble pie.

Kathy and Erik, loading onto the ferry to cross Lake Champlain, to get from VT to NY.

It is not easy climbing in cycling shoes. Erik and Katrina, on our way up to Brandon Pass/Long Trail.

Giant Adirondack chair and me.

Rochester, NY

2008-07-01T17:38:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, while riding from Palermo to Rochester, the group I was riding with, we were chased by dogs. Oddly enough, they were both pitbulls and scared the crap out of us. It's a potentially very dangerous situation. Separate from the dog possibly wanting to take a chunk of your leg, if the dog gets near you it's basically a fall. Once the dog came, someone screamed "DOG!" and then we all proceed to sprint as fast as we can away. Or, if you are prepared enough, we do have several options to shoo away the dog. 1) Unholster a waterbottle and squirt the dog 2) Unhook our tire pump and poke in the direction of the dog. Or just sprint away like mad.

Bugs. Also on the ride yesterday, it was the first time that a bug flew into my mouth. Gross. I quickly spat it out. Thankfully, I had the instinct not to bite down.

My tanlines are coming along nicely. I think the leg and arm ones are inevitable and unavoidable, no matter how much SPF 55 I put on in the morning and then reapply. What's been unexpected though are my glove lines on my hands. My hands are several shades lighter with a distinct line at the wrist. At least I haven't been sunburned yet . Because those look very comical.

Finally, on yesterday's ride, I was in a paceline for a good 20 miles. A paceline is basically a group of riders in a line with my wheels about 6 inches away from the rear tire of the person in front of me. The front rider is doing the "pulling" and all the riders behind then have it easier since they don't need to break the wind. It conserves energy for the group as the front rider will switch out when they get tired. I didn't have a chance to paceline before yesterday, but it was great. There were eight of us and it made things much easier. It's a cool feeling to know that everyone is working together and in sync. One downside is that since you are so focused on maintaining the distance from the rider in front of you, you tend to miss out on the scenery around. I was okay with that yesterday, as it was our longest ride yet, about 86 miles. Or you can alleviate that downside by forming a double paceline, which we did. Basically, two columns of four people, so that you can talk to the person next to you. It was a beautiful thing. The paceline ended when I was upfront pulling, mainly because then hills came and I'm absolutely terrible at hills--very slow.

In Palermo, after our hosted dinner by the church, we had a group meeting to talk about business and such. I'm not sure why, but I was in no mood for it. I didn't find anything funny, I thought it was a waste of time and I wanted it to end. It took about an hour and a half, by the time we were done it was nearly 10. I would prefer to be in bed by 10. It was the first moment of wanting to get away from everyone so far on the trip. I was also tired from the day's ride, but sleep and a good ride to Rochester the next day helped to ease things mentally.

Oh, so we finally are in our largest city yet since Concord. Though it was our longest ride yet to get here, the last 10 miles were the scariest and longest. It was through the suburbs and outskirts of Rochester (not the actual downtown) and these are roads not meant for cyclists as the shoulder was narrow or nonexistent with speeding traffic. Very nervewracking.

And today was a build day in Rochester. We worked at a site doing landscaping. I was impressed, the site manager said that in the area we were at, they are planning to develop 100 Habitat homes to revitalize the neighborhood as it's rather rundown now. We basically attacked the backyard and anything that was green. Weedwhackers, rakes, axes, scythe-like tools, etc were used. We tore that place up. I spent most of the day raking the vines and their roots from the ground. Lunch was rationed to two pieces per person. This was not adequate enough for anyone after all that yardwork. So, the afternoon went a bit slower. The main highlight for me included people swinging from trees, pulling down the branches.

Last night, our leader Christopher had his brother and mother come to visit. They are a chiropractor and licensed massage therapist respectively. She led massage/stretching demonstrations for us to use later and the brother, well he realigned everyone. So my back was realigned which felt great and I'm hoping eases the tension in my neck tomorrow. He also mentioned that I have a strained muscle which is most likely causing the neck pain.

Back on the bike tomorrow. Though it's been great to stay in the dorms here at RIT and be here for two nights.

Rochester, NY

2008-07-01T17:29:00.003-04:00

Made it to Rochester after our longest day yet so far--86 miles. But I'll post about biking either later tonight or tomorrow. Tomorrow's a build day so I should have some time and I have to head to dinner in about 15 minutes. So just two thoughts:

Wimbledon--I am sorely missing coverage of the tournament. I just spend the last 25 minutes reading online about what's been going on. I kind of just want to find a TV and watch just an hour of anything at some point before it finishes. Yesterday, at the church in Palermo, I used my brief internet time not to check e-mail, post or anything else, but read a few articles about tennis.

RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology)--I'm currently in their library using a computer. But, I needed to register for it and even then I'm 1) limited to only 4 hours and 2) can only register to use their computers "up to 3 times in a calendar year." Also, the library guy didn't even know if their wireless was open/free or not, which I'm assuming then it mostly likely isn't since he'd probably know if it were something that simple. So, this sudden encounter with other internet/technology/computer policies made me realize how lax things are at Dartmouth. When we were there last week, it was free reign for everyone, computers and internet for all. Though, I should probably start getting used to things being more difficult out there from the bubble in Hanover.

Boonville, NY

2008-06-29T22:30:00.003-04:00

I am literally in the boonies. Don't let the name fool you though, this place is much better than Indian Lake and the church put on a great dinner for us. It randomly included fish that a congregation member caught recently on a trip to Georgia.

Today was about 75 miles, our longest day yet. Despite that, it wasn't as bad as when we were climbing the mountains and other things with elevation. Filled with rolling hills and on the whole, a drop in elevation which meant more downhill than up. Also, we stilled followed several lakes in the Adirondacks which made for some great scenery. Our lunch stop was at mile 35 in the town of Inlet, NY. The main street just popped up on the road we were biking on and filled with all sorts of nice shops. The bike store was also a flower store "Pedals and Petals." And the bakery in town donated several dozen donuts to us. The route included 53 miles on the same road, Route 28. There were many patches of "rough road." Not good for the rear. But of everything, the biggest pain is at the base of the left back neck for me. I think it's a combo of my handlebars being too low and not being used to looking up so much. After lunch, more of the same but with the last 9 miles to Boonville, it was this great back road, wide, few cars, smooth and rolling downhills. Nice. Even better, it started raining after I got to the church. Good day. The biggest thing that I noticed while riding was the large amount of dead butterflies on the shoulder. It was sad. And the scary/stupid part of the day for me. While riding at the beginning, I veered off the asphalt and onto the dirt and then careened down into the ditch next to the road. It was a close call. I immediately looked back to see if anyone saw me being stupid. Thankfully, no one did. But I did rinse off my legs since they were in the grass/brush. Kim and Kate each got odd rashes the other day while on the side of the road in the grass.

65 miles tomorrow. Now that we are out of the Adirondacks less hills, thank god.

I've also found that I've been sleeping in the most random spots. Last night at the the church, I slept behind a piano. Tonight, I'm sleeping in the Pastor's Office.

And of course, when you put 30 people living in close quarters, riding outside for hours on end in the rain, and pushing their bodies physically . . . there's bound to be some sickness. You can hear it in our sneezes and cough, we are slowly getting sick and some people already have. My next purchase will be anything and everything vitamin C from the next drugstore.

Starting today, our chore group rotation switch. I moved from dinner to the trailer/laundry group. This means packing everyone's bags into the trailer in the morning. But the laundry is the more crazy part. Again, there's 30 of us, we create a lot of laundry. Earlier, we took up 15 washers at the laundromat. Basically, we just lay out a tarp, one for regular clothes and one for cycling, then everyone throws their stuff onto it. We roll it up into a "laundry burrito" then stuff it into the van. It's heavy. Wash, dry. Burrito. Van. Roll it out back at the church and it's mayhem and a free for all. Surprisingly few bits of clothing get lost.

Rumors of french toast for tomorrow morning. It really doesn't take that much to please us.

Indian Lake, NY

2008-06-28T22:22:00.003-04:00

It was just one of those days.

Zack had five flats today (4 on the front, 1 on the rear). Two people fell while crossing railroad tracks in the rain. I fell while coming to take a break on the side of the road. Many people got lost because of a mismarked turned on our directions. The lunch stop seemed like it took forever to find.

Left the Silver Bay resort after instituting the three-bagel policy form the breakfast buffet. Grab one to eat, then two to add to the group's food. We started the day off low on bagels, we now have over 60.

The ride? We hit a massive uphill that stretched for ages. But I went slow and steady and was able to make it to the top without taking a break.

Then the next part, a scenic ride along the Schroon River. Only after some more hills. This set of hills were straight up, so you could see how little progress I was making.

A photo stop with a giant rooster and through Adirondack state park (I think).

Then lunch at a scenic spot along the Hudson. It really was pretty. It was good to load up on food since there were even more massive hills afterwards. Then rain. Erik was awesome and stayed with me from lunch to the campsite/church.

Rain and more rain. On the hills. No fun, there was cursing and questioning what exactly I got myself into.

And finally, within the last 2 miles of the campsite, our que sheet tells us to make a left at Big Brook road. Wait, it was actually a right and then I get lost for about 2 miles. And Erik comes looking for me and it turns out there was a group of about 5 just waiting to see where I was. Stupid mismarked turns. But it was an honest mistake.

Arrived at the campsite while it was still raining. Set up the tents in the rain and then it downpoured. Just as that was happening, Dan, a trip leader, bikes on in and tells us that there are two churches in town willing to host us for the night. Amazing.

We bike on down to the church. Get our gear and change into dry clothes. I shower. I eat at the local tavern/restaurant. And I am going to bed.

Silver Bay, NY

2008-06-27T19:53:00.002-04:00

I decided to skip the B&B breakfast of several day old bagels and cereal and hopped across the street to pick up something from the bakery/bookstore. I went with an egg, cheese, spinach and onion sandwich on a cornmeal biscuit. Great. What wasn't so great? The fact that it stayed with me for the first third of the morning. I felt so slow. This combined with the general tiredness from biking was not good.

In the first third, we went through another mountain (I think) peaking at Brandon Pass (2170ft) where I also saw signs for that Long Trail that I've seen on beers around. A good morning. Fun downhill that brought us to another cute town where there was a market. I didn't get anything; all I wanted was some type of beverage, sadly all there was was soap, pies, and honey. Though, there was an ice cream shop that did have a massive Adirondack chair. From the market to lunch, we went through Vermont farm country. Finally made it to lunch. Our lunchsite was in front of a white church with open lawn at the top of an uphill. A perfect location, as it meant that we were treated to a fun downhill after lunch. Spent a long time at lunch. Learned that one of the other riders had a spill coming down from Brandon Pass earlier. Quang was a trooper though and made it to lunch all scarred and bruised and then finished the ride after lunch.

2nd third. More Vermont farm countryside. It reminded me of any rural Midwestern farm area, just with rolling hills on the landscape. The sun decided to come out, combined with the smell of manure, it was not the most pleasant. Tough to get through but I made it to the ferry to NY.

We all met together at the ferry, as it's the only way (on our road) to get to NY, crossing Lake Champlain. So random, this road literally goes right up to the water, then ferry, then continues on in NY. While waiting for everyone, I laid down on a bench.

Fort Ticonderoga was right on the other side of the Lake. I didn't stop at the fort but did go through the downtown. I learned that this week/weekend marks the 250th anniversary of some battle and they are holding the largest re-enactment of it. While taking a picture of the sign, some random guy in a suv with trailer in tow just kept going on about it. He was clearly excited.

This last third in NY was terrible. I was tired. There were still more rolling hills, but not as gentle. It was tough to get through. Stopped at an ice cream place for a break then entered the Adirondack region with all sorts of pretty lakes to see while riding. But my neck was hurting, my arms were hurting and my rear was hurting. Today, felt like three separate days. Even just thinking back now about the 58 mile ride, I can't imagine that it all took place today.

We are staying at the YMCA in Silver Bay. It's nice and located right on Lake George. There are private showers. We have beds. Heck, we have private rooms for two people to share. And there's recreational activities to do. I played tennis with Pen, but that didn't last long since we couldn't really move all that much. Then, with a few others, moved onto the less physical sport of shuffleboard. Dinner was buffet style and we gorged. Filled up with angel hair pasta and sauce, broccoli and squash, salad, strawberry shortcake and a firecracker popsicle. So good. So filling. It seems that I'm always really tired while eating. Most other people rest and recover immediately after their ride. I tend to have lots of energy after a ride then get a little loopy during dinner.

Lastly, while walking to use the computers, it was raining but there was a rainbow. And I saw the end of a rainbow! It was right on the lake. How cool is that?

Body is still tired. Ack. But great accomodations tonight, it's basically a resort, and tomorrow we will be camping. You never know what you are going to get.

Rochester, VT

2008-06-26T16:35:00.004-04:00

Bobby, another rider, described it best, "Today was a gnarly day."

The folks in Lebanon sent us off right, with a breakfast of ham, pancakes and waffles. THey have been wo warm and welcoming to us, it's made all the difference in our stay there. We headed out to overcast skies to finally cross our first state. For those that are familiar, we crossed the bridge just past Stateline Sports (NH) and then came up on the Listen Center (VT). Took a fun picture to start the collection. Then biked back across the bridge to take a picture with the NH sign.

The crazy thing about today, separate from the hills (later), is that I biked from Lebanon to Woodstock. These are familiar towns to me and is something I would've never considered doing while at school. So, it was weird to pass such familiar landmarks like the Farmer's Diner, Queechee gorge, and Firestone's on my bike. If only I had picked up biking earlier.

Mostly drizzly, but I was smart this time and packed my rain jacket. I had quite the session at REI back at home, spending about an hour and half between a cycling specific rain jacket or a regular hiking jacket. It was draining. I am glad that I went with a cycling jacket since it's more fitted. The whole dilemma was because I didn't see much utility in a cycling rain jacket for after the trip. And I wanted a hood, but there was no way that a hood was going to fit over my helmet anyways.

Fun country Vermont scenes in the middle part. But it started raining which is not fun. Biked through Bethel, VT. Pretty town. And then the hill came. Turned left onto Camp Brook Road which became Bethel Mountain Road, my own 6 mile uphill punisher. I had separated from the people I was riding with, so it was just me and the mountain. I took about 4 breaks and there were many moments of heavy breathing and burning muscles, but made it to the top. And that downhill was well worth it. I maxed out at about 40 then slowly applied the breaks since going that fast scared me, especially since it was wet on the road.

Note: If you see a cyclist, on a two-lane road with little shoulder, be kind and pull over as much as you can when passing said cyclist. As in, at least have your left wheels in the next lane over, not just on the median line. Because especially on an uphill, I am swerving a bit from pain and delirium. And, the side of the road is where all rocks, glass shards, cracks and potholes primarily occur, which is normally bad news bears for a cyclist.

Made it to the church after some great downhill action. We have to be super clean at this church since last year's group left a mess and they are reluctant to let us even use it. It's Bike and Build lockdown basically. One room witha tarp down for all shoes and dirty stuff, one room for everyone and their packs and cleanliness. Of course, when we get to the church/destination, the sun starts to come out. I hope that these rain days mean there'll be more sunny, moisture free days ahead.

I've decided that Clifbars are better than Powerbars. And Febreeze can mask any smell.

So far, Kevin had our first flat, just two miles away from Lebanon. Derek had a flat today. Michelle, unfortunately had two flats (front and back) and front derailleur issues today. She was relieved to make it to the church. Kate, had a flat coming down the hill towards the church but rode on it anyway since she was so close. And Erik takes the cake for best flat. We were at the bakery/bookstore eating our various foods and all of a sudden we hear a "pssst." His back tire just deflated, just leaning against a wall. What is going on?

Mail drop today! It was nice to see three letters waiting for me. It's was great to read the messages to keep me plugging along. My dad even enclosed a picture of me on Leno for another rider. I'm speechless.

There's a quaint and delicious bakery/bookstore in town, just across from where we are staying. Went there afterwards for a tea, peach pie with crumble and a sit outside. Exactly what I needed after a elevation filled ride. If there's one thing I could do forever, it's sit outside and eat.

So Rochester is located in a valley. Which means, we'll be riding up and out of it tomorrow.

*I posted pictures on the Bike and Build website. So go there to take a look, as it's easier for me to post there as opposed to the blog.

Lebanon, NH--Bike Maintenance

2008-06-25T21:25:00.002-04:00

Worked on my bike tonight. Turns out that now the front tire is out of true. The culprit? A bent spoke. So Christopher, one of the trip leaders, took the time to help and teach me to change a spoke because the wheel can't be trued with a bent spoke.

Problem fixed and the bike is ready for the massive mountain tomorrow. After dinner we had a meeting about it, and it is the most difficult day of the trip. I ran our of clif shot bloks, so I went next door to a grocery store and bought two bananas, two powerbars and an energy vitaminwater in preparation for tomorrow.

It's going to be a doozy. But at least we're finally crossing a stateline!

Lebanon, NH--Last Day

2008-06-25T16:58:00.003-04:00

Today was our second build day here in Lebanon. I went to the Dartmouth Habitat site with 12 other people in the morning and we finished with the concrete foundation and put up blue foam board on the flooring and exterior walls. Good day's work.

Headed over to the Norwich site to meet up with the rest of the group for lunch. Pizza again. Then took a group picture and since there were limited jobs, a group of about 10 took the bus back to the church. We spent the afternoon doing various things: painting the front and back of the trailer, calling future locations for food donations, cleaning, and more calling for contacts and support. I worked on the trailer, primarily on the back with Kathy and help from Derek. It looks amazing. It's a rider sillohuette with a car silohuette behind it on a hill. Underneath the cyclist it says "200 lbs" underneath the car it says "2 tons." Then it also says "Yield to Cyclists" in the top right and on the bottom edge, "Be Safe" in large red letters. It's beautiful.

Showered at the community center and back at the Leb library. This evening should be rather low key, packing and getting ready to spend the next week cycling. It's been such a treat to spend three nights here in Lebanon. I was lucky enough to get a room in the church basement to myself and I have all my belongings strewn about the place. Our next build day is July 2nd in Rochester, NY. So lots of miles between now and then.

Tomorrow is supposedly a difficult climb. We're going over Bethel Mountain/Hill. Whatever it's called, I guess it's a 6 mile uphill. Fun.

As for myself physically, I'm not sore anymore. But, I woke up today just tired. I especially felt it when I was at the build site. My entire body is just tired and needs time to recover. I'm hoping a good night's rest will do the trick.

Lebanon, NH

2008-06-24T19:48:00.002-04:00

A build day today. There are two sites we are separating ourselves at: the Dartmouth site in Lebanon and another site in Lyme. I'm working at the Dartmouth site, the same place that I built the picnic table before. The concrete basement wall foundation was poured, but the reinforcing metal tie bars were still exposed. So our job? Take a hammer, swing at them and knock the tie bars off. It was lots of fun. Then my arm felt the weight of hammer and things slowed down. Good thing there are so many of us there to work on it. Once that was all finished the exterior walls were water sealed with a brown tar substance. Lunch consisted of pizza, pop and sitting on the picnic table that I helped built. After lunch, the rain started to come (dumb rain) so we had to pack up and then bike on back to the church. The site is only a 4 mile ride away.

Afternoon took Advance Transit (the local/area bus) with Lindsey and Kristen to head to Dartmouth. I took them to Omer and Bob's to get their bikes looked at and I wanted to finally be able to walk in there without feeling like an idiot. I bought some arm warmers and more reflective stickers to attach to my helmet and camlebak. After riding in the rain, I really got a sense of how dangerous it it for bikers in the rain. We're hard to see, we're moving fast, it's slipper and harder to control. I figure $7 for safety stickers is a good investment. Saw another '10 resident, Dave, who was kind enough to let me use his computer to upload pictures.

Dinner at another church in Lebanon, just a ston'e throw away from the one we are staying at. We are at the congregational church, this was the methodist church. Chatted with some nice older people during dinner. But it was hard to converse since it was such a good spread. Highlights included pulled pork, mac and cheese and shepard's pie.

Evening, I went to go see Kung Fu Panda, back in Hanover at the Nugget. I didn't bring my Dartmouth ID along on the trip, so I was unable to get the half price student ticket, which bummed me out. The movie itself? Didn't really like it. Funny parts, but really? There was a cackler in the movie which was very annoying. And with an hour to kill, headed over to the library to finish this post. Where, of course of all places, saw some other '10s on Berry 1. Woo for facetime. As an alum. Creepy.

Back to the church. One more build day tomorrow.

Lebanon, NH

2008-06-24T16:37:00.005-04:00

From the bike ride on Monday, June 23rd. 35 miles and a few observations:

--Cold and wet are conditions I do not enjoy.
--Rain is wet.
--Cycling at speed with the wind is cold.
--Rain jackets are no good if left in the trailer.

You would think I would know better, after having spent the last 4 years here in NH, especially in the area so close to Dartmouth, to be prepared for anything. Overcast day wtih drizzle for about the first 20 miles. Then just before the lunch stop at 20 miles it was heavy rain. I stopped to eat, but only ate half a muffin since I wasn't that tired and I was freezing and wanted to get the last 10 miles over with. Kept going through and since I was very very cold, I was hoping for hills. Since it meant that I was going slow and working hard to get the blood going. I became very efficient at using my exhaling breath to heat up my face. Though, the cold helped me on my hill work. Since I chose to use harder gears for the hills which I'm sure will help out later and a good sign. The rain stopped and slowly began to clear in the last bit of the ride, like the last 5 minutes. Rode through familiar towns on our way to Lebanon, passing through Enfield and past Lake Mascoma. Then I saw the signs for Hanover and Dartmouth. Finally made it to the church, it's right on the green in Lebanon which great since there's a few places in town including this library where I'm able to update the blog.

The ride was only from 8-11 about. Quick day. The afternoon I spent on-campus as the van drove a bunch of us there. Had a chai at Dirt Cowboy with Will, a resident when I was a UGA in Bissell and joined by Katy from my Art History study abroad. Then ran aruond Admissions saying hello to everyone and checking in on the new interns. And finally, went to my old dorm from last year, South Mass, and took a nice, long shower. For lunch, I stopped by Collis to get a signature chicken salad sandwich. It was Mac and Cheese Monday, but I arrived too late to get some.

It's funny, I'm pretty sure the non-Dartmouth people think we are all crazy. We take up half the trip and once we got near and to campus, we just started using our acronyms and campus jargon, and I started calling our people that I saw from the van on the street. It was a bit odd being back to campus so soon, since when I left on June 9th, I thought it would be the last time in a long time before I would see the place again. Well, that's a lie, I knew I'd most likely be back in the fall for my Hood Space for Dialogue exhibition gallery talk, but that's much longer than just a few weeks. It was fine and good to be around something so familar and a place I am proud of and hold so many fond memories, but on the whole I knew that that's all in the past and not mine anymore.

The evening, after our provided dinner, went to Molly's to get a drink. $2 margaritas. Back to go to sleep and get ready for two build days in Lebanon.

Pictures

2008-06-24T14:44:00.004-04:00

Finally, some pictures! Uploaded them while I was at Dartmouth and chronologically in reverse order.

The wicker basket duck.

Familiar territory. Woo!

A few of the other riders, painting our trailer. It holds all of our gear while we ride for the day. It looks beautiful. I'll try to post completed trailer pictures the next chance I get.

Front to back: Laura, Ian and Michlle. We're divided into chore groups. Our group is called the "bars." Our current rotation is dinner, which means preparing (normally just warming up), setting up and cleaning up dinner.

On our way to dip our wheels into the water.