N'Orleans

First thing's first - big shout out to Grandma and Kaitlyn for sending me a box of delicious cookies. They also promised to send stuff EVERY WEEK for the rest of the summer. I have an awesome family. Can you top them? Check out the mail drops for my route - we get mail every Thursday, so make sure it's where it needs to be by thursday! I accept cash donations, letters, and, most importantly, delicious treats.

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I last wrote here in Panama City, which turned out to be an awesome party town. New Orleans puts it to shame.

Before I get onto the the raucous crowds of Bourbon Street, I'll take you through Western Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. We crossed many states in not so many days.

From Panama City we biked north to DeFuniak Springs (we put the fun back in DeFuniak). Along the way, most of us got caught in multiple rain storms that seemed to be following us across the Florida pan-handle. On a bike, that means you need to do some serious maintenance work before the next ride. Most of us wiped our bikes down with rags, re-lubed the chains, cleaned out the cassettes and brakes, and generally performed daily maintenance tasks after arriving in DeFuniak's community center. We were only there for one night, and there wasn't much else to do, so it worked out pretty well. In the morning, we got back in the saddle and headed to Pensacola, but before we left Defuniak Springs we had to ride (rather unnecessarily) around one of two perfectly circular lakes in the world. The other is in Switzerland, apparently.

Anyway, that day's ride was interesting. I rode with Colin, Luke, Z, and Justin, and we really dropped the hammer. It was my first day of serious pedal-mashing, and we were doing pretty well until we hit about mile 50 of 80-something. Route 98 is not friendly to cyclists, and the asphalt soaked up the heat of a 95-degree-day and turned it into at least a 110-degree oven. After a quick water stop in the parking lot of Wal-Mart that Hans had set up for us, we re-routed along Santa Rosa island, a barrier island that felt more like the gates of hell. Sand surrounded us on both sides, and the heat didn't abate, though the traffic was much better. We trucked along through a headwind though, and finally arrived at a delicious feast prepared by our hosts for the evening. Colin mixed chocolate syrup into a gallon of milk, and I think it was gone in less than 60 seconds, split between the 10 of us that arrived around the same time. It was glorious. And there were couches to sleep on.

We only stayed in the Pensacola Paradise Hotel (read: United Methodist Church) for one night before heading to Mobile, Alabama. One of our leaders (there are four, Hans, Colin, Agata, and Cassie) is responsible for the route each day, and for this stretch of the trip it is Agata. She told us we had 91 miles, definitely our longest ride day so far. The morning went quickly. I was riding with Colin again and we were hammering out the first 40 miles like it was cake. We missed the Alabama sign, but got into lunch feeling good... except for my tailbone. I think I injured my coccyx playing intramural hockey this year, and sitting in the library studying on hard chairs didn't help it heal. Now I'm spending close to (or over) 5 hours a day on a skinny, hard bicycle seat everyday. Not a good combo.

At lunch I decided, after talking to both Colin and Hans, that I would spend the rest of the day in the van. I really wanted to finish the ride, but I figured some rest now would help me to ride more later on - I didn't want to injure it further and have to sit in the van for multiple days down the road. We had 2 build days in Mobile, so that was some additional rest.

The van sucks. It's got air-conditioning, but that's about the only perk. We had to set up a second lunch stop, pick up riders that missed a ferry, and drive down beautiful winding roads that I should have been riding my bike on. Sucks. AND there was a "surprise" 5 miles at the end that I missed. I know, you're thinking I'm crazy to have wanted to ride an extra 5 miles up and down hills at the end, but there's something about grueling through a difficult and long ride with your friends that builds a lot of cameraderie. I am sad to have missed it.

But it's all good, and my butt healed a bit during our two build days. I spent my build time with Justin (his last name is Butler, so we call him Butts) working in one of the houses. Frankly, the Mobile Habitat for Humanity needs a construction supervisor. We saw multiple issues, like the crack in the floor that we were tasked to fix, throughout the entire house. Anyway, after two days, we had fixed the one big crack in the floor, but in order to do so we had to take out three doors completely and the entire floor. So we left a bit behind where we started. We also may or may not have ruined some of the doors (which were caulked, sealed, and painted) because there was no other way to reinstall the interlocking laminate flooring. But I think the two of us learned a lot, and now, in New Orleans, we are applying that knowledge and being much more careful with our work.

After our stay in Mobile, we biked to Long Beach, Mississippi, which is just south of Gulfport. I think it's appropriate now to bring up the oil spill. I have seen oil. It's here. When riding on Satan's Island (Santa Rosa before Pensacola), we stopped on the beach to talk to contracted clean up crews (and dip our tires in the Gulf. Only trip with 3 coasts!) Some of the clean up guys had big tar balls, but the beach and ocean were very clean.

Riding (and driving) into Mobile, we saw a LOT of the floating booms they're using in the clean up process. I learned that the oil, for the most part, rests on the top of the water. The booms sag about a foot and half into the water, so they use them to funnel the oil into specific locations, where boats are rigged to skim the oil off the top of the water. This oil can actually be reprocessed and used.

The booms are everywhere. They've got really long ones, and every body of water since Pensacola has had them somewhere. Riding over a bridge towards Mobile, I saw an island/sand bar in the middle of a bay that was absolutely drenched in oil. The sand was brown. You can see the oil in the water - it looks brown and... well, oily. It's murky and streaks through the water. There are clean up crews just about everywhere - poor souls wearing orange vests and long pants in the dire heat. Every beach has been practically deserted other than sporadic tents for the clean up guys. Other than that, however, the beaches seem clean. When you hear the governors of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi saying it's clean, it is. But the oil is there, and I'm sure it's wreaking havoc on the ecosystem. I have a shirt that says "Save Louisiana Seafood." I'm not sure if it's possible.

At Long Beach we stayed in Colin's parents' friend's beach house. In the evening we walked around the corner to Darwell's pub/grill for some famous Shrimp Creole and live music outside. It was amazingly delicious and a really good time.

The rest of the block we were staying on was either nice new houses, or empty lots, with stairs leading to nowhere: remnants of Katrina. Some houses were abandoned and had FEMA numbers spray painted on the walls. While many of the communities we had visited before this along the coast were affected by Katrina, this was the first real encounter with the horrifying destruction of news headlines. It got worse in New Orleans.

We had a 69 mile ride into New Orleans and I decided - along with the bros I've been riding with - to totally crush it. I got my first flat, we endured 4 flats as a group, as well as blistering heat, but we crushed it. For a stretch of newly paved highway, we even rode at 30mph for a few miles, which is really like, Lance speed. It hurt. But we dropped the hammer and got into NOLA around noon, which was perfect because our goal was to arrive in time to watch the World Cup game at 1:30. We ended up meeting with some other riders in our group and looking for a place to eat and watch the game. With 5 others, I helped get some hot wings and sodas donated and we sat in a nice restaurant on Bourbon Street to watch the game. We then rode to our host location in the Lower 9th Ward - a former Walgreens that was gutted and unfinished except for one room which was being used as a worship hall for a church. Not good. The L9W was hit the worst by Katrina - it was under 13.5 feet of water, and it shows. Now, people are poorer than they were (we saw signs for businesses that were clearly written by illiterate people. Seriously, the letters were written incorrectly, much like a 4-year-old would write an "e" backwards). It's dangerous because people are driven to steal, and a group got their belongings stolen out of that church. So we resolved to move across town, which is where I am now. I've been out on the town a few nights - Bourbon Street is a giant party, Frenchmen Street has great music, and there's delicious seafood all around. We've built for two days now - I'm working with Justin and Hans on building and installing a kitchen cabinet set for a hard-to-work-with woman in Treme whose brother wrote and performed the title track for the HBO series of the same name. We're going to watch him on Saturday.

Anyway, I've written a ton so far, so I am going to bed. I'll try to update again before I leave New Orleans, but we have to move again tomorrow so I have no idea of the internet situation. It's been very spotty, but I am taking mental notes and promise to update as often as possible. Thanks for reading, don't forget to send me cookies!

Alex