Build day one, shake down ride and two ride days

Yowza! I feel like it was just yesterday that  I was wrote the last blog entry.. Lots to talk about!

Our first build day was so great! We went to work with an organization called Neighbor Works in Rhode Island. They are very invested in not only giving the members of the community a home but also to create a strong sense of community. We worked with people that they called "selfies", which are people who are benefit from the 

The scavenger hunt begins

Yesterday we had our third build day with Habitat for Humanity in Youngstown OH. This was by far my favorite build site activity so far because I was on the demolition crew and got to destroy a chimney! We were supposed to do it "brick by brick" so that we could save the bricks to be sold in the ReStore but once we got going, they were all crumbling apart, so it turned into a hug but super fun mess. We built up the scaffolding and then climbed up and used a sledgehammer to hit the bricks away from each other. We finished taking the chimney down before lunch and then after lunch we had to clean up the huge pile of bricks. This was such a fun day and totally worth all the weird sore things I have today. For example, my fingers are sore.. I think from holding the hammer...

After the build day, Caitlyn and I went around the town when we were finished our showers. One the hunt for milkshakes, we happens upon Suzies Hot Dogs where you could put ANYTHING on a hot dog. 

No joke.. It was so fun! Also that night, a bunch of the girls decided to shave the underside of their hair into a triangle shape and also do some cool blue and red hair dye. Don't worry mom, I didn't do it. Regardless, it was still fun to watch!

Today I rode to North Canton, OH on a 53 mile day with Thor and Jane. I hadn't ridden with Jane yet so it was a great day! We also started our P2S16 scavenger hunt!! I'll post the list later but I'm determined to win! A great thing that happened today was that I got Sonic milkshakes donated to our team and the employees were so excited! They wanted to take pictures with us. Another great thing that happened today was that I took laundry crew to do the group's laundry and we were able to make a pit stop at chickfila on the way :) it was great!

Ohio!

We are now in Youngstown OH getting all tucked into bed and ready for a great build day tomorrow! Yesterday we rode to Franklin, PA on a ride that was about 60 miles. I got a chance to have an almost leader ride with Travis and Carlee. The ride day was so beautiful and the weather was perfect. It got up to around 90 (compared to the 50/60, that's a perfect temperature for me). In Franklin, there was a Barbeque and Blues concert happening so the riders were able to hang out there and see what it's like to live in the town. Some of the bands that played were great! Others were a little interesting - one of them sang about smart phones and dumb people? I found it to be really funny but also weird. The group I was with went over to a restaurant and got a bunch of appetizers before going back to the host for a huge pizza dinner! After that, we checked out the festival and then explored the town a little more. It was one of my favorite days so far! 

Today I rode with "The Black Sheep". It was Kess, Nikki, Carlee, Brandon and I in the group. We named ourselves that as a joke to some of the other riders because the day before, we all had asked groups that were already full to ride with them. So we all banded together as the riders that weren't wanted. It was actually such a fun day! The hills were really hard but Brandon's lack of shifting abilities made every single hill hilarious! Almost to where I couldn't get up beacuse I was laughing so hard. This was also Father's Day! I had a chance to FaceTime my parents during my lunch stop and say hi to my daddy :). We are now at the host, where we are staying in a massive, medieval feeling church and getting ready for a build with habitat for humanity tomorrow. Tonight we also had a chance to go to the downtown area to watch the NBA Championship game and Cleveland won. It was wild watching this while in Ohio because everyone was freaking out. Another great day!!

The Eighth Wonder of the World?

Today, the team rode 80 miles from Coudersport, PA to Warren, PA. Usually the ride would only be about 70 but we took a detour to see the Kinzua Bridge. This bridge was originally built in the 1880s but collapsed in 2003 when a giant tornado destroyed it. Now, the remains are scattered in the valley, and you can walk on the remaining railroad tracks that were on the bridge. I was the van driver today, so I was responsible for helping everyone get there and have lunch. This allowed me to make the decision to have lunch in the park and allow all the riders a chance to spend some extra time at the bridge. Jakob and I got there about 45 minutes before the first riders, allowing us to hike down into the valley and get right up to all the destroyed pieces of metal. It was such a cool park to be in and I'm really happy we made the stop! Later that day, we also stopped in Allegheny state park at a beach so that Jakob could jump in the lake. The water in this lake was so clear, blue and beautiful, almost like a portrait. It was such a great day, and I'm just a tad jealous of the ride that my peeps got to experience but I'm happy they had such a great day. It makes me excited for the ride day tomorrow too!

Chillin in PA

Lots of riding days, lots to update about! I'm going to try to bullet point as much as possible so that I can finally catch up and get on track.

Pomfret, CT

Slept in a prep school in a huge gym. Got to ride with Caitlyn for the first day! It's really great and weird at the same time having one of my best and oldest friends on my trip. It's adding a lot of value to my summer and givng me a partner in crime and someone to go to when I need support :)

Granby, CT

First laundry day and another great host dinner! My group and I tried to get out of the host as early as we could because we knew there were going to be huuuge hills! There were. I rode with David, Kess, Josh, and Thor. In the middle of the day, Natalie jumped in to our group and we finished strong! That night, I drove Natalie back to Providence and despite being really tired, it was a great car ride. 

Kent, CT 

Another prep school! This was also my first day driving the van for the group! Nikki was my gary (the safety navigator) and we had a great day! We also got to go into a really weird petting zoo to try to find a good lunch spot and ended up in a massive show room with tons of animals that had been stuffed. There were animals from every continent and were all posing in "live" positions.

Poughkeepsie, NY 

Made it to New York! Unfortunately, there wasn't a state line sign, which was upsetting but it was still a sunny and great day! The day started off freezing, like in the 50s, and I am not used to that for the summer. Eventually we warmed up but it seems to be a trend for the summer. We had a shorter day this time around so we were able to explore the city a tad and go for a little walk over a bridge that went over the Hudson river. This was also one of the first times of the summer that I felt like I was able to relax and feel like a rider and not just a leader, which was really good to know I was going to be able to play both roles.

Roscoe, NY

What a day...This is when the terrain started getting insane! The first half of the day, everything seemed to be going well but then the hills started! We went up this one section of hills that is infamously known as Hunter Hill. This hill went straight up the side of the mountain.. I have never seen anything like this.. We even had an alumni text us and tell us that if anyone could make it to the top without stopping then he would ship us a prize. At the top of the hill, we all relaxed and celebrated but didn't realize that it kept going! There were three segments of Hunter Hill.. it took forever! That night we stopped and camped in Roscoe. I was exhausted and fell asleep immediately. At night it got so cold that it was almost painful but I was so tired that I was able to keep falling back asleep. 

Bainbridge, NY

Another really tough day. We had to do a huge reroute and add a bunch of miles on becasue one of the roads turned out being a hiking trail. The first 12 miles was also all on gravel roads with hills similar to Hunter Hill. After we finally made it out of the gravel, and into the next town, we stopped in a diner for some food and attempted to get back on our feet. The rest of the day was all rolling hills but Becca, Edgar, Brandon and I made the best of it! Despite it being the hardest day we did, it was one of my favorites! We were very close to being vanned that day because of it getting too late but managed to make it all the way in on time! 

Ithaca, NY

Ithaca was a great place to visit! I had the van on this day with Becca as my Gary. We had a great time trying to find a good place for lunch and getting ice cream during the day. The host was right downtown in Ithaca and was about a half mile uphill walk from Cornell University. That night we had our first family meeting and went o College Town Bagels to hang out and then woke up for the build the next day. We worked with Second Wind Cottages, which is a housing first organization that gives homes to homeless people. The homes are about 300 sq. ft and they currently have 9 homes in the neighborhood. We were working on houses 10, 11, and 12. One of the site supervisors, Carmen worked with us all day and started the organization. He has been fighting leukemia for the past few years but still gets out there whenever he can to work on the houses for his community. This really put my summer into perspective because I saw what he was going through and how generous and kind he was being to his neighbors without expecting or asking for anything in return.

Savona, NY

This was one of the best ride days we had so far! The hills were rolling and easy, the weather was beautiful, and I got to ride with Robin and Conor. We had lunch at a spot on Seneca Lake and then afterwards went to a town for coffee that was donated to us. In this town, we learned about a huge gorge that was just a mile off the route we had planned, so we took a little detour to check it out. It ended up being a really cool experience and really easy to get to! Savona was a small little town that was about 1 sq. mile so we just hung out in the host and played some heads up!

Wellsboro, PA

Pennsylvania! My first day as sweep with Sarah went great! We saw a random donkey on the side of the road that freaked out when we got close to it, which was really funny. When we got to the host, we had a great dinner and then took our hammocks to the town park to relax and listen to the town band. Little to our knowledge, it was a marching band and wasn’t very relaxing so instead we went to a restaurant and hung out for a while.

Coudersport, PA

A great ride day with Caitlyn, Shawn, and Carrie! We hustled through rolling hills all day and took a cool detour to go see PA’s Grand Canyon. The detour added on about 20 miles but the views were more than worth it! When we were riding, we also missed the turn for lunch but managed to find a great restaurant on the side of the road to get food. When we were in there, Shawn tried to get the lunch donated, but a couple over heard our conversation and offered to buy us lunch. It was some of the greatest fries and burger I’ve ever had – and the fastest I had eaten in a long time! Our host that night was a church that had an extra building that once was a barn. We got to sleep in the barn and watch some episodes of The Office before going to bed!

Trying to catch up!

Yowza! I feel like it was just yesterday that  I was wrote the last blog entry.. Lots to talk about!

Our first build day was so great! We went to work with an organization called Neighbor Works in Rhode Island. They are very invested in not only giving the members of the community a home but also to create a strong sense of community. We worked with people that they called "selfies", which are people who benefit from the organization but are responsible for the construction of their homes. When we had gotten to them, they were working on siding and insualting the houses and had started construction back in October. The had made all that progress on their own and we were the first volunteer group they had every had on that site. This goes to show how hard they were constantly working. For lunch, they were able to provide us with an awesome lunch of hamburgers, hotdogs, coffee, and many other great things! During the lunch break, I had a huge emotional wave come over me as a realized that I was back in the grind of a Bike & Build summer and I couldn't be happier. It's so overwhelming to think about the experience I got to have and now I'm getting to share that with others. This build day was a great way to start off the summer! After the build, we went to the NeightborWorks summit, where they did a huge kick off for the organization. That night, we finished up presentations and worked on the trailer more. It was a jammed packed day for all of us and we were exhausted!

After the build, we had our shake down ride the next day. It was so rainy and cold this morning, making it hard for us to want to get on the road, but we were all so anxious to get going that it worked out alright! We started with bike maintenance and drills, which took all of the morning. After that, we went back to the church, ate lunch, and then hit the road! My riders are all so amazing at calling out all of the obstacles on the road, making me feel very confident in how the summer would go. That night, we finished everything with writing our team charter and then hitting the hay.

First ride day was great! We did the wheel dip over in India Point park and then took waaaayy too long to ride 37 miles into Pomfret. Dan Kaminsky also came to my wheel dip, making my heart swell with joy! It was so great getting to see my previous B&B leader as I set off on my journey as a leader. He gave me a lot of really great advice and confidence. Dan is the man :) I love him! Getting out of Providence was a little difficult because of all the poorly labeled roads and confusing city route, but once we were out, the ride was great! Pomfret school is a prep school that we got to sleep in and have a wonderful dinner and breakfast provided. The riders had some time to play ultimate frisbee and relax, we also got to completely finish the trailer! Frank is happy.

Writing everything in retrospect is hard, but lack of sleep is harder! Tomorrow, I hope to add the rest of the days and get caught up!

The Riders are Coming!

Finally! I can post in this thing.. It's been an incredible and extremely busy past couple days and has limited the amount of time I have for doing some personal things. At this point, the leaders have been sufficiently oriented, and the riders and just about done with their orientation. For the leader orientation, we went through all the different presentations we had to present to the riders, learned how to drive the van and trailer, and got a full run down of all the generalizations of the trip. It was really great to spend some quality time with just the leaders and Natalie and get to know each other a little bit more. We did bonding activities where we learned about each other's stressors, we went shopping for 30 people, which is a crazy experience!, and we even had an opportunity to go out to a restaurant and have fun time where we didn't talk about B&B. When I learned about the van and trailer, I even took the extra bonus challenge and learned how to parallel park it! If anyone needs their boat backed into the lake, I can definitely do it! 

As leaders, we also did a once over on the shake down ride that we had planned. It was really nice to have a chance to ride with my peeps before hitting the road for realz. 

And now, the riders are here! They got here on Friday, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, and by the time Friday was over, they seemed exhausted. They got here, checked in all their gear and then had time to socialize. They also managed to completely white wash the trailer in no time, making it very easy for us to finish that sucker hopefully before orientation is over. This seems like it's going to be a very efficient and fun group of people! After settling in, we played named games, watched some presentations about "A Day in the Life" and "Safety" and then we did one on the budget and affordable housing. After all of that, we had them split up into their chore groups and come up with short skits about the B&B policies that are in place. They were all so great and hilarious!! All the names of the groups are:

Octopi

The Odd Bod Squad

Slumbike Buildonaires

Killer Whales

Backstreet Bikers

After all that was over, they were able to make significant progress on the trailer and even managed to get us a "trip pet", Frank. Frank is what we call and Unipotato and he is painted on one side of the trailer, which is hilarious! On the back we have a nice big safety triangle. The sides are still coming together but one is the map of the US and the other is the major landmarks and cities we get to see! 

Unfortunately I'm exhausted but I'll try to catch up about the build site day we had today on tomorrow's blog! It was probably the best build site I've ever been to.