Day 2

Howdy y'all.

It's day two of the Bike and Build adventure, and I can tell you for a fact that it is incredibly tiring!

Orientation was a blur. I arrived in Jacksonville at around 9am from a 6am flight on Thursday, and after 2.5 hours of bus rides finally got to the Sunrise Community Church. Bikes were being assembled, introductions were had, and we promptly began our 16 hour days of Bike and Build orientation. We built for a day for Beaches Habitat, had a safety course, lots of rules talks and ice breakers, dinners all over Atlantic Beach, and a 20 mile "Shakedown Ride" down the coast. It went quickly but we were all excited to get into our saddles and ride!

Yesterday was our first real day. I'm in the "breakfast crew" so I have to wake up early with 6 of my crewmates and prepare breakfast. So far we've only had bagels and fruit, but we're going to venture into eggs. The other crews prepare dinner, do laundry, fill up coolers, and other tasks that need to get done - and we switch each week.

Our ride was almost 60 miles through country roads in Florida (from Jacksonville to Callahan), and it was my fastest ride ever. We rode through a rain storm, which was awesome, and I had some great conversation with some of my new friends. Last night we camped out at a RV campground which was an interesting and dirty experience, but we got to create a giant fire, where I taught everyone how to play Mafia, a favorite game of the Applachia trips I went on at Boston College.

Today I got out a little earlier than everyone with the fast group and we made excellent time to lunch. We crossed our first state line today on our way to Lake City, but it was only for 11 miles - we dipped through the little nugget of Georgia that scoops into Flordia. So we took photos (which I will upload soon!) and again when we got back into Florida. It was a really long ride - we did 80 miles, 30 of which were on one road. We got chased by pitbulls and German shepherds, saw giant bugs that flew into our faces. We joked that it looked like Jurassic Park. If I saw a dinosaur I wouldn't have been surprised.

At the end of the ride we did a short mile-long detour to get some ice cream at The Icy Hut. It looked like a run-down building that you'd find drugs in, but it turned out to have DELICIOUS strawberry ice cream. It totally refueled us (simple sugars at the end of a long ride are actually really good for you), and we booked it through the last 3 miles to our second campsite.

Tomorrow we ride to Perry, Florida, which is another 80 miler, but we do get to stay inside in a church which will be nice. My butt hurts a lot. A whole lot. But hopefully it will start to get conditioned soon. Until then, I'll apply loads of shammy cream, bear down, and keep riding. I'll try to post again soon, but until then, thanks for reading!