We are finally in Texas!! I'm definitely glad to be out of Louisiana. The roads were rough and the drivers were not very nice! Now in Texas, the roads are hilly, hot and windy but much much nicer quality and the drivers are way more gracious in the room they give you. The lunch stop for the way into Texas was right before the border so we all were buzzing with excitement of a new state! For lunch, I made an awesome banana, Nutella and peanut butter taco.. That actually was a great meal! We love having Nutella and were able to have some thanks to the care package Sally from Dallas sent us the other day. The Texas border was awesome because everyone always tries to make the best picture in a competition. This time was a little more difficult because of how tall the sign was but it is still awesome crossing a border! The roads were noticeably different immediately. Super smooth! One of the cool things that happened while riding was we came across a persons yard that had a bunch of donkeys in it. But even cooler than that, there was a zebra too! We don't actually think it was a real zebra, just some cool cross breed but we still got off our bikes to go over and pet it. There was a little confusion for me with the que sheet and right when I was in the middle of two groups, trying to catch the one ahead, they turned without me seeing and I kept going straight. So, before I knew it, I was about 2 miles off the route and feeling a little but lost but luckily for me, Rhys got lost too and we ran into each other at a perfect spot. Because this happened, we actually cut the route shorter than what everyone else did and beat everyone that I was trying to catch up to! The house we stayed at that night was awesome! Right when we got there, there was a ton of coolers of Gatorade and water waiting plus a ton of delicious food! They had a hot tub and a pool that was just a short walk away. Me and Rhys got there so early that we were able to just relax on the front porch and be the welcoming committee. The host was a family that had a daughter who did bike and build a long time ago and what happened was the host the daughter was supposed to stay at flaked out so the parents allowed the bike and build team to come stay at their place. They've been hosting bike and build ever since! The family was very nice and welcoming and they had a really cool house with all different Aztec and Native American decorations in the house. That night, I was very very sleepy and fell asleep during the World Cup viewing at 7:00. So, I got lots of sleep that night!
The next day, we got ready to head out for a 90 mile ride into Carthage TX. Here we were going to stay in separate homes and get split up into separate groups because there were several families that wanted to help. This ride was the hardest ride I've been on yet. I started off the day feeling ok but as the day went on, I felt increasingly weak and my stomach started hurting pretty badly. I was basically in the struggle group until first lunch because Micah was having serious stomach problems, and Colleen was having problems with her hip from the crash we had gotten in earlier that week. Come first lunch, we rode in with sweep because I had gotten 3 flats and were running very behind. Ashley let me borrow her back wheel so that I would stop getting flats and we could finish the ride a little bit faster. There wasn't very much bread in the lunch boxes so we were also hungry leaving first lunch. Finally back on the road and everything continued to go downhill, Micah and I started to feel worse and Colleen was starting to feel the hills (and may have possibly pulled a hamstring). We finally made it into second lunch and there were three people throwing up and I was definitely next. Micah had to van himself because his body was shutting down too - there was obviously something going around in the team. Unfortunately, after huge internal debate, I vaned myself and got driven into the host site where I had all the lovely symptoms of a stomach virus along with 6 other of my team mates. Everyone else went off to their individual host homes and I fell asleep around 6:00 without dinner and on a very empty stomach. I was up and down all night but got looooots of sleep hours which was well needed! It was a tough day for Bike and Build and the leaders really pulled through and helped us out. Greg shuttled the sick and injured people all day, which I can imagine was extremely stressful because of all the people who couldn't stop throwing up. And then that night, Dan K was in charge of looking after us and making sure that we all had medicine and were comfortable. It wasn't quite the power of my mommy but it sure was helpful and necessary! Dan even managed to get a prescription called in so that we would stop throwing up and it was a good muscle relaxer. I'm still a little sick but feeling much much better!
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