Day 36 - Wichita Falls, TX

Sweep day into Wichita Falls, TX! I was originally scheduled to sweep with Corina, but since she has sweep day tomorrow too (randomly assigned, of course), Hannah volunteered to take her place as my sweep partner. We took off from Atmos Energy this morning with Jamie on board (yay Jamie for being back on the bike!).

Our day was rather long today and hot, but having an awesome partner for sweep made it pass a lot quicker! Although I was disappointed that we didn't ride all day with Jamie, Hannah and I did have a fun ride together! By second lunch at a local park, we didn't think that we would make it into town by the required time and expected to get vanned at that point, but after a stop for some ice and ice cream, we got a second wind (and a tailwind) and were a able to make it in with plenty of time to shower before dinner.

As you may know, on a sweep day we get to make a sweep challenge, which is a competition for a prize of some sort amongst the other riders. These are always lots of fun and a good way to keep sweep entertained during their long day. Today, Hannah and I challenged others to take the best picture as a Texan. Hopefully we get some good pictures!

As we rode into Wichita Falls, you couldn't help but notice that many of the buildings on the area were boarded up, almost like some quasi-ghost town. As most of these were places for out of town guests (hotels, restaurants, bars), you quickly got the feeling that people have stopped coming to the town. We found out later that Wichita Falls is victim to a large outfox of people and money, due to a huge tornado in the 70s wiping out a bunch of businesses and then, more recently, the drying up of the local oilfields that brought in a lot of money to the area. As I understand it, the town is much nicer in some of the suburbs and near the college, but right in downtown you get the feeling that this is akin to what a post apocalyptic town might be like.

Dinner tonight was sponsored by the Hotter 'N Hell ride organization, which is a once yearly 100-mile bicycle ride that brings in around 20k people to the city and uses proceeds to support bicycling in the city and city rejuvenation. Our contact, Caden, took us out to Pat's diner in town where I enjoyed a fantastic milkshake and burger. Boy am I stuffed! We have the opportunity to go swimming at the Y after dinner, but I think that I'll fall into a good coma now...

Day 35 - Boyd, TX

While our route still shows Decatur as our intended route, tonight we ended up in Boyd, TX instead! The church host in Decatur accidentally double booked their space, so our wonderful leaders went through a last minute reroute and found the most unlikely place for us to stay... at a energy company office. Tonight's stay at the Atmos Energy office in Boyd found us sleeping in offices and meeting rooms, although they did have a shower for us to use! With only one shower the line grew pretty long, so to get a good night's sleep, I took a bucket shower outside and went to bed at the earliest time yet!

Ride Partners!
Hannah

Day 34 - Build Day 11 (Habitat For Humanity)

I'm back to building! Our build days so far have been a lot of finishing work, which is very valuable work to do and to know how to do, but now I'd like to do a bit more construction work on this trip. Today that all changed, as I was actually involved in framing the roof eave of the house under construction. Yesterday, our group lifted and installed all of the trusses as well as most of the windows for this small 2-3 bedroom house, so today we finished the windows, created the eaves, finished the exterior insulation, and completed watersealing all seams.

I'm feeling a lot better today, but we do have a century day tomorrow! Sally has continued to be a great host (they made burgers and sausage tonight for dinner!) and none of us are really looking forward to leaving tomorrow. Something that I haven't mentioned yet is that during our stay, Sally and Peter have been kind enough to allow us the use of their cars to get out and about the city at our whim. All of this generosity has really been overwhelming and I'd just like to give a huge thanks to Sally, Peter, and their family for organizing, funding, and hosting our unforgettable stay in Dallas!

Day 33 - Build Day 10 (Habitat For Humanity)

Well, it turns out that I'm not completely well yet and my lack of appetite was signaling that I needed some more rest, so rest I got. I'm extremely bummed out that I missed or first Dallas build day with Habitat for Humanity because of the cold, but I must get better soon!!! I'm definitely going to be there tomorrow! Today, I started in and slept a while and when I could sleep no more, started watching Game of Thrones with Liz and Hannah.

Tonight, Sally dazzled us with her generosity once more by taking us on an evening catamaran cruise on Lake Ron Hubbard. I've been really wanting to go on a sailboat ride this summer, so that was just the icing on the cake for me (and I even got to steer the boat for a while). There are few words to accurately describe how great of a host that Sally has been, but know that we are all quite grateful. A delicious fajitas dinner sealed the deal and I am now ready for bed. Goodnight!

Day 32 - Dallas

Not every day do I ride the full distance with the same ride partner(s), but today changed that! During the day, people tend to break off from their groups or shuffle groups at lunch breaks, so I noticed it at the end of the day today when I arrived with Molly M and Maddie, the same people I started off with.

Rewinding a bit, I started off the day with a great breakfast courtesy of Rich and Janice before driving back to the church. At the church I found out that even more people got sick last night, so there was a full van load of people bussing to our next city. :( Although I'm not perfect yet, I felt good enough to ride the entire way today into Dallas and I'm happy that I did! The roads were pretty bumpy at times, but we had a tailwind for much of our ride and were able to cruise quickly along.

On a random aside, I found a hat today! Nothing fancy, but a baseball cap on the side of the road caught my eye as the logo of an eagle over a American flag is exactly the same as one another one of our riders found the other day. The things that you can find when you're concentrated on the road in front of you!

Now to the best part of the day, arriving at the host! We've heard rumors from our leaders and riders from other years about how awesome Sally and Peter Muhl are as B&B hosts (perhaps #1?), but could not have anticipated our experience here! When u first rolled up, I saw a gorgeous house with a RV parked right next to it. I later found out that the propose of the RV was as a place for Sally and Peter to sleep while we were given full run of their entire house. As a walked in the side door, I just saw a huge pile of food and snacks covering their kitchen and there was Sally, asking me if I'd like a milkshake. Have I died and gone to heaven? My appetite isn't fully back yet, so I couldn't gorge on all the snacks, but the milkshake was perfect! Outside, my B&B family was already in the pool and hot tub and enjoying some of the many drinks that Sally has bought for us. Sally even arranged for an inflatable slip and slide rental in her backyard! You can be sure that I jumped right in with everyone!

The rest of the night was fairly chill. I know that a lot of people stayed up late, but because I was feeling a little weak, I went to sleep as soon as I could after the wonderful pulled pork, brisket, and ribs dinner that Sally prepared for us. Thank you sooo much for a wonderful end to a long day, Sally!

Day 31 - Athens, TX

Well, i'm feeling much better today, though still lethargic. As a result of this, I rode in the van for the first part of the day with Greg, who was a great host. At lunch, I got my bike out, got all ready to go, and rode by myself taking a comfortable place for the rest of the day. So great to be back on the bike and feeling mostly better!

I got in to the host a little late, due to my speed and that a local Sonic in Athens donated free slushes to us and I made sure to take advantage of the donation! By the time I got in, I found out that there was a large number of people that didn't finish the whole ride and got vanned due to illness. Looks like I was just the tip of the iceberg of sickness! Hopefully not everyone else gets sick too...

As a change from the norm of us all sleeping in the same building, we split into individual hosts tonight! The sick crew stayed back at the church, but the rest of us divvied ourselves amongst all of the fantastic hosts that were willing to open up their doors to us. I stayed with Rich and Janice at their lake-front house in Athens and they were more than wonderful hosts! Rich and I left the church first and made it back with enough light left for Rich to teach me how to stand-up paddleboard and for us to take a nice cruise across the lake (I only fell in once!). After washing my clothes and sleeping bag (it needed it), they left me to relax in the entire upper level of their house (to which I promptly fell asleep while attempting to blog). Thank you both sooo much!

Day 30 - Carthage, TX

Sick.

Looks like I got the stomach bug that has been hitting some people here and there on our trip. For the sake of propriety, I won't give too many details, but today I did not have any extra energy to spend (seriously it took me hours later on to accomplish simple tasks). It came on last night and has kept me off the road and riding with Maddie in the van. Not an entirely unenjoyable ride, but I attempted to sleep for as much of it as I could. Thankfully they did wake me up for the border crossing into Texas, so I did get my Texas sign picture!

I'm sad to have missed an entire ride day with my Bike and Build family as well as hanging out with everyone at our amazing host's house. From how I understand it, there was tons of food and drinks (including beer) and a great pool and hot tub. I missed all this whole I was asleep upstairs at the host, having gone straight to bed after getting there.

Day 29 - Elm Grove

SUMMARY: Today was a mix of bad and amazing! Oh yeah, and it's our last full day in Louisiana (goodbye bad roads!).

So, while I have not been making a big deal of it, I've hoped to be able to bicycle every mile of this trip. Unfortunately, today that hope was cut short when I chose to be safe and van myself after experiencing some intense knee pain following our short police escort over a narrow bridge out of Natchitoches. I knew that a day like this may occur and I was mentally prepared for it, then Claire and Colleen made sure that the van ride was entirely enjoyable!

After lunch, I was feeling better so I hopped on the bike and finished off the ride to the incredible host awaiting us at their island home on a lake. Our hosts have two children who have both done Bike and Build, so they were quite ready for us to roll in hungry and tired. The pool toys were out, the 4 wheeler ready to go, lots of sodas and water on ice, and plenty of food inside. I was so excited to see the dock leading out onto the lake, it didn't take me more than 2 minutes to strip off my shoes and jersey and jump in the water after arriving!!

The rest of the night passed in a frenzy of swimming, eating, kayaking, and alligator hunting with Rhys. Needless to say that by the end of the night, I passed right out.

Day 28 - Natchitoches

How do you say Natchitoches? We settled on "nacho cheese" at our morning route meeting. As it turns out, the true pronunciation is closer to "nack-a-tish", though we did see some store names and bricks with "Nakatosh" printed on them. Perhaps that's an alternative or older pronunciation?

We left early from last night's hosts, as the school children needed their building back, so that meant that we had plenty of time for our short 53 mile day! There are a couple ways to get to Natchitoches, but we took the most direct (maybe future trips could route the more scenic way by the plantations, wink wink). We were warned in advance of some fantastic plantations along the way that we could stop at for tours and we even had one called ahead for us, but when it came down to it, I decided to skip the plantations. Why? Because of sushi in the amazingly quaint city of Natchitoches! I've been craving some sushi recently, so yesterday night I found a place with sushi in our next town and a small group (Hannah, Megan, and me) headed straight for town after our lunch stop for some delicious food!

We all met up at our host at 5 for another bike clinic today! This time, it was my group (Sugar Gliders represent!) that was in charge of preparing and running the bike clinic, though we were not alone in it at all as all of our B&B team was out there as helpers, obstacles, or even sea creatures in the bicycle riding course.

With a lot of excitement, including the start of the World Cup, today was yet another good day :)

Today's ride partners!
Angela
Marley
Morgan
Hannah
Megan

Day 27 - Alexandria

Mexican
Stayed in church gym

Learning to take it easy and have fun :)

After our recent 115 mile ride, every other ride seems so much shorter and manageable by comparison. Of course our leg muscles have been getting stronger and our average speed has been slowly going up, but it still feels like I am more ready to see the sights instead of getting to the next host. Today's 75 miler was no small feat by any means, but it was a beautiful day with plenty of scenery to see along the way.


The friendly dog in this pic followed us for at least a couple miles


Riding with Madeline and Hannah

We still arrived a little early to the church host and decided to grab some food since the host and dinner would not be ready for a couple hours. How could the Taco Bell be closed?! Oh well, we got some more legitimate Mexican food and headed back to the usual craziness at the host.



Cheers!

DAY 26 - Opelousas, LA

Boy oh boy was this a day to remember for various reasons.

We started out the day with a stern warning by our leaders to get over to a nearby location by a certain time. There we would be meeting a police escort for our bridge crossing across the mighty Mississippi.

I left in one of the first waves of bikers to head to the rendezvous location. The morning was a little rainy, so I had all my raingear on and my taillight flashing. After crossing one set of railroad tracks, I realized that my taillight was no longer on my bike (need to fix its tenancy to fall off). Since I knew where it fell off (I heard the faint thud), I headed back to grab it, leaving the rest of my riding group waiting for me. As I crossed back over the railroad tracks, the rain signal came on and a train started approaching. Not a big deal, until the train stops in the crossing. Not 15 minutes goes by before the rest of the bikers behind me start showing up. As we waited for the train to move, we entertained ourselves with impromptu dancing, singing, and group huddles to keep out the cold. It didn't help that the rain started pouring viscously while we waited.

After about an hour of waiting, we took shelter in a truck repair building. That's when we learned that the train always blocks that intersection for 1-2 hours in the morning. Needless to say, we were pretty late getting to the rendezvous and were all very cold by the time that we got there. Forgetting any boundaries within the group, we all got under our big blue tarp at the rendezvous and cuddled to get warm.

The rest of the ride continued to be wet wet wet. Eventually we got to our host for the night, which was in the locker room of a high school football team. Since there was no host on site and no dinner prepared, we headed out in search of food donations on our way in. My group did a pretty good job in this with getting a few pizzas and some Chinese food for everyone.

We ended the night with our in-group affordable housing presentations (finally out of the way!) and all fell right asleep.

Day 25 - Build Day 9 (Rebuilding Together)

Instead of new construction, which I've been solely involved in at all of our build sites, today's build day focused on home restoration with Rebuilding Together. We headed out brought and early to caulk and paint the new siding of our homeowner's house. Along the ride in, our RB leader talked with us about the importance of helping out long term homeowners in run down neighborhoods. He described how they are anchors to neighborhoods and have influence over keeping out crime and drugs in their communities and keeping the neighborhood from falling to seed.

After the build day ended, we got a little bit of time to explore Baton Rouge, home of LSU. For my part, I headed out with Micah for smoothies, bicycle parts, and to visit the LSU Bengal Tiger. Throw in a late night walk through town and by the water and you have a nice day. :)

Day 24 - Baton Rouge

Although I had no idea what to expect of Nola, our stop there proved to be much too short and I'm left wishing that we could have had one more day off as a group there. Too much to do and too many things that I'd like to see for our limited time outside of working for affordable housing, but sightseeing is not what this trip is ultimately about, do I'll just leave with the knowledge that I'll be back again.

Perhaps I'm just missing the time off of my bicycle, because today was one of the longest bike rides of the summer at 115 miles! Although the distance was tough, much of our ride was on a paved trail on top of the levee leading all the way from Nola to Baton Rouge. Although we followed the levee the whole way, not all of the trail was paved, so we had to get back on the main road while passing through 'cancer alley', a series of refineries and chemical/oil plants. Talk about a bad smell! I couldn't imagine living near those plants for any extent of time and I truly feel for those who do.

After a slow start with a bunch of flats in my riding group, I didn't think that is make make it to Baton Rouge, but here I am! Not much happening tonight... we are all quite exhausted and headed to bed as soon as possible.

Day 23 - Build Day 8 (St Bernard Project)

Guest blog today! This is filler until I can complete the post on my own :)

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Today was our final build day in New Orleans. It was rewarding to see the progress we had made as we walked away from the site. Working in New Orleans has been an eye-opening experience for all of us. Nine years after Katrina, the amount of work that still needs to be done in the rebuilding efforts is staggering. More so, the disparities in progress and renovation between the wealthy and impoverished areas of the city remind us that there is a much greater battle than simply reconstructing levees and houses. The affordable housing cause is a small facet in a greater movement for justice.

That being said, we had a BLAST at the worksite today. Three of our brave (stupid?) friends engaged in what is commonly known as a strenuous test of human will and strength: the gallon challenge. In this challenge, the competitors must consume a gallon of milk in one hour and resist vomiting for the hour following. While our brave comrades fought valiantly, their efforts were futile, and the ground ran wet with regurgitated milk that fateful day.

Following our work day, we were graciously received for dinner by a Bike and Build alumni. The food was amazing, and we really enjoyed sharing stories from the road. It's exciting and encouraging to consider the impact Bike and Build has had, not only on the affordable housing cause, but on those of us fortunate enough to embark on this great journey.

Colleen Daly
Rider, SUS '14

Day 22 - Build Day 7 (St Bernard Project)

Guest blog today! This is filler until I can complete the post on my own :)

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We started off the day with a lovely cereal bar provided by the Camp Hope. While we were getting ready for the day a few of the guys decided to get creative with their facial hair. Super stylish mustaches and other awesome things that I'm not sure I know the names of! Then it was off to the build site! We went back to the same mint green house we had been working on in the 9th ward. I worked on the second floor of the house which is where I had been working most of the week. We started off the day with some really intense paceline sanding, which was hilarious and surprisingly kind of efficient. Most of the day we worked on sanding, mudding, skimming, and priming while another group was outside painting the exterior of the house. It was a very productive day and we even got done a little bit early! We were all a little sad to be working with the awesome AmeriCorps volunteers (Jack, Amy, and Amelia) for the last time. However some of us were able to hangout with them for a little while after building, which was really fun! After that we headed back to Camp Hope for showers and some dinner! Then we were off to do some more exploring in New Orleans! It was nice to hit some favorite spots from earlier in the week, but also check out some new and exciting places!

Megan Lindgren
Rider, SUS '14

Day 21 - Build Day 6 (St Bernard Project)

Guest blog today! This is filler until I can complete the post on my own :)

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After spending the previous build day swimming in sweat inside a tyvex suit, it was a relief to spend the day painting and mudding with the entire group. The folks I was working with focused on reskimming and priming the giant kitchen-dinning-living room.

After the work day, we were all invited to a Welcome Home ceremony for another home in the neighborhood. A few staff from the St. Bernard Project told us about the process Ms. Vera went through to be accepted into the program. She first applied in August 2009 and now 5 years later her home is complete and she can move back in. It was amazing to see all the AmeriCorps volunteers at this event and many of them she thanked by name.

Check out my blog for pictures of Ms. Vera's rebuilt home-
www.corinabikes.blogspot.com

Corina Cheever
Rider, SUS '14

Day 20 - Build Day 5 (St Bernard Project)

Guest blog today! This is filler until I can complete the post on my own :)

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On Wednesday, June 4th, we awoke to a lovely breakfast of oatmeal and fresh blueberries. One of my favorites so far. After doing dishes and packing our sack lunches we hit the road to walk to our build site again. We are working with the St Bernard Project, and being led by some fantastic AmeriCorps volunteers named Amy and Jack. Today, I became an expert at what is called "floating." This is a process where you spackle a product we call "mud" onto areas of drywall that need to be smoothed or covered. I was in no way comfortable with this process at the beginning but then became very good at adjusting my angles and pressure to create the smoothest lines. I worked with Morgan, Kirsten and Liz on this project upstairs for most of the day. In the afternoon, we got to steal the boom box from the downstairs volunteers which made our work so much more fun with music. There may have also been
a bit of dancing involved. We packed and cleaned up at the end of the work day and headed back to Camp Hope where it was also cleaning day. We had to clean the bathrooms, kitchen, and the showers. Afterwards, we were treated to a traditional Cajun dinner and a night on the town.

Hannah Crawford
Rider, SUS'14

Day 19 - Build Day 4 (St Bernard Project)

Guest blog today! This is filler until I can complete the post on my own :)

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Today as we walked towards the first day on our build site in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, locals called out from their trucks thanking us for helping them rebuild. As it has been 8 years since Katrina (August 29, 2005) this is remarkable to me. Unfortunately, this also reflects the sobering reality of how much destruction remains and how forgotten New Orleans may feel. We, however, are proving each day we build that New Orleans is not the city that hope forgot.

We are volunteering with the St. Bernard Project in the Lower Ninth Ward. Mostly we have been working on the inside walls by mudding, priming and painting a duplex which will serve as a rental unit. never knew it took so much to make a wall flat and straight.

We have also gotten to know the Americorps volunteers at the build site. It is very rewarding to know that we are going to be working with the same organization, at the same house for the next couple days. I am excited to see the impact we will make.

Bikebuildkirstin.wordpress.com

Day 18 - Day Off in Nola

Guest blog today! This is filler until I can complete the post on my own :)

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I feel very privileged to write the blog entry for 6/2, as this was our day off in New Orleans! Although it was out day off, we gathered together at Camp Hope in Arabi at 11 to walk over to the blair school farm. Once there, we met with Nat Turner, a former New York City schoolteacher who moved out to New Orleans after Katrina in order to pursue some of his passions and assist in turning the neighborhood around. Turner was treating us to a social justice tour of the area. He brought us around to various sites in the Lower Ninth ward, including a Levy, to try and explain why some of the devastation was so severe in this area and how things came to be this way. He also showed us some parts of the local wetlands, or rather former wetlands, and explained their crucial role
in absorbing hurricane storm surges.

Later that night I went out with some of the group after dinner, and we ended up back on Frenchman street. Once there we went to a bar/music venue called Maison, where we were dazzled by a local music act called big easy brawlers. This was such an amazing way to see live music, just walking into a bar and seeing something incredible, radically different from the buying of tickets and waiting in line that I'm accustomed to.

Build day tomorrow! Looking forward to meeting the project partners!

Charlie Santos
Rider, SUS '14

Day 17 - New Orleans

We are in New Orleans!!!!!!

We've been getting ready for Nola since the beginning of this trip, so we are all quite excited to finally get here! It took another long rainy day to get here, but we were well entertained along the way.

Today's 69 mile ride kept us in view of the coastline for most of the trip. As a group, we had previously decided to start up "rando rides," which are half day rides with someone that you have not ridden with as of yet. While I feel like there are still a fair number of people that I have yet to ride with, it has been my goal to ride with everyone in the group. Today marked the first of these, from our start to lunch.

When it comes to lunch, sometimes you have awesome lunch spots and sometimes you have normal ones (they haven't been bad yet ). This time, the lunch stop was one of the cooler ones, as we stopped after crossing an old lifting bridge at a bayou tour business. Although I did not partake in the tour, a small group of riders did and they had a great time!

After lunch, we continued on our way and battled even more drenching rain. As we were cruising along, I noticed something quite unexpected... a crawfish in middle of the road! It appears as though it was time for the crawfish to be moving about (in the rain), because I never would have expected to see one in the road! Once we stopped, we saw many others in the puddles and mud around the side of the road, but we took it upon ourselves to name our first friend Wilson. Wilson has a starting time in a short video of clamping into Rhys' lip, who allowed it on behalf of a dare.

Another story from the road... as we reached the final stretch into Nola, we found ourselves almost on the set of Terminator 5! As we passed a construction lot, I called to the group that there was some plane wreckage inside and that maybe we should check it out! The gate was open and we didn't see anyone around, so we bicycled in just to get stopped instantly by a security guard. Although he didn't allow us any further in, he did tell us that it was a movie set for T5 and that no, he hasn't met any big stars yet.

How many more things can I talk about? Well, dinner this night was not provided by our welcoming hosts at Camp Hope (where we will be spending the next 6 days), so we went instead to a feast at a Nola Hare Krishna temple. It seems as though this dinner service is regular and always free to anyone, but we went early to join in with a religious praising and offering to Krishna. With dancing, chanting, and wonderful food, this is not a night to forget.

As we are in Nola and we have no curfew tonight, it is only fitting to enjoy the town! To end the night, we headed out as a group to have some fun out on Bourbon and Frenchman street.

Day 16 - Long Beach

Yes, we're in Long Beach, not Biloxi, but we did ride through there on our way! Long Beach is the next city west of Biloxi, so while we were rained on and the traffic was very busy, we had a great time riding in and also stopping in Biloxi along the way.

Excitement from the day:
First off is the donated lunch from Sonic. One of their locations along our ride came through in fine form and donated as much as we could eat! Lunch was greasy, fatty, and unhealthy, but it tasted just sooo good! I got some beads (from a tree) and we stopped at Cafe Beignet in Biloxi for a quick coffee pick-me-up but we missed out on the beignets. I must get some in Nola!

Our host for the night has given us free rein of their church community space and eight showers!!! While it may seem silly to be excited about showers, having that many sure makes things go quicker and much easier! We've had hose showers, cold showers, and showers with very low water pressure, so every time that there is an ample amount of hot water and available showers, there is reason for celebration.

Tonight was also the first night of dinner crew making dinner. I give them some serious credit for an awesome meal cooked up, including mac & cheese, soup, and crawfish! Thanks crew!

When will this rain stop? I do love riding in the rain (for some reason), but it will be nice to be dry soon. :)

Day 15 - Build Day 3 - Habitat For Humanity

Happy Birthday, Charlie!

We had our 3rd build day today! This time it was with Habitat For Humanity of Mobile. They were very flexible for our large group of 32 volunteers, so when the forecast called for more rain, they switched our group into three houses needing interior finishing. I got my first experience with fitting flooring pieces into place and that took up most of the day.



The construction of these homes is quite intense! Although we were not part of the framing, they showed us how they anchored down all edges of the house with full height allthread to withstand hurricane strength winds and installed triple pane windows with extreme object impact resistance. One thing to say is that these Habitat homes will be around for a while!



After the build day finished, we had a short bicycle clinic for some neighborhood kids, showing them how to signal, pump up their tires, and to always wear a helmet. We finished up the day with a delicious dinner provided by our host Lella, who went through the effort to get taco salad and pizza donated to the cause. You are the best!

Day 14 - Mobile

Soaking wet! Yesterday we had a little bit of rain, which was a crazy downpour that left us completely soaked, but today was our first extended ride in the rain (94 miles!). Getting away from Pensacola was a little busy but we made it on the road and out to Mobile with no trouble, besides some pretty heavy headwinds and some increasingly steeper hills as we entered Mobile.

A couple of exciting things happened today... The first is that we are no longer in Florida! The Alabama state sign surprised all of us as it appeared out of nowhere on Perdido Key, so i of course took some pictures (coming soon!) at the state line and the Flora-bama bar there. Secondly, we took our one and only ferry ride today! We were warned about having to ride fast enough to catch the ferry or else we would be vanned after the ferry ride, so I was super happy to get to the ferry on time. I tried for an early ferry and might have made it, but my plans were derailed by 2 flats on the way. Not a problem at all and irrelevant because the ferry schedule was off today. I can only imagine what the car drivers thought of the 20 or so bikers on the ferry, haha. We definitely had a lot of fun on our ride.

I will say that today has been eventful, not for me directly but for some of our other riders (and henceforth the whole group). Sadly, Jamie took a fall while coming down one of the bridges with a heavy, gusting side-wind. She has sustained a number of scrapes and scratches, but they all seem to be superficial, so we are hoping for the speediest of recoveries for her!

Although the mood of the group is a bit down, our host has more than made up for it! Welcoming us in with cucumber water, hummus, amongst other treats, we were happy to relax after such a long day.

Day 13 - Gulf Breeze

So tired!!! Today I completed my first century ride ever (that is, a bicycle ride over 100 miles). It's amazing to see what your body is really capable of when you push it to the limit, which is what we all did.

Our ride today took us from Deguniak Springs to a church in Gulf Breeze, FL. Gulf Breeze is on an island just outside of Pensacola, so we never did get into downtown Pensacola. Our cue sheets for the day (which have our bicycling directions and other important info) only had us riding 98 miles today, so many people in the group found a way to add on another 2 miles. For me that was cycling around the second naturally roundest lake in the world (in Defuniak Springs).

Today also happened to be my first sweep day! Sweeps are the riders that stay behind the entire group and have a med kit and bike maintenance items in case anything happens to the riders in front. I was paired with the lovely Colleen today as my co-sweep and we had a blast of a time! Not everything went quite so well, as Colleen picked up a large metal object in her rear wheel and damaged her derailleur within the first 15 miles of the ride. With a bit of hitting the derailleur with a rock to flatten it out and a zip tie replacing a missing screw, we did succeed in getting back on the road after a half hour of resting on the side of the road. Let's just say that everyone's moods improved after that :)

We did have to make good time after that, which we did at an incredible pace of 18-22 mph. We made it the entire way to the host and didn't have to get vanned (which happens if you fall far behind or are otherwise unable to continue riding)! Woohoo!

Not much to say about the host, other than it was the biggest and most decked out host space that we've had thus far (it was a youth center at a church). We say around, talked about affordable housing for a while, and fell asleep.