I'm Alive and in Texas!

Howdy y'all!

Wow its been a whirlwind the past couple weeks. We have had about 1% internet which makes posting blogs difficult, but I will try to update the entire trip since NOLA. I'm going to do this in bullet point form with highlights from each day. Here goes!

New Orleans
- I got to build some Custom Boutte Cabinets for Ms. Lynete Boutte. Her brother is John Boutte, who wrote the theme song for the HBO show, Treme. We went to see him play the night before we left and he gave us 3 shout outs, lots of CDs, and people at the bar bought us drinks. Pretty cool!

- Big shout out to John and Elaine, who graciously offered us their home for 4 nights in New Orleans. They also cooked us an incredible dinner the final night, including a bathtub full of fruit salad and a kitchen sink full of guacamole. Truly amazing people.

Baton Rouge
- It was over 90 miles to Baton Rouge, but a beautiful ride out of the swamps of New Orleans and into the woodlands. We also had a build day in Whitecastle, just outside of Baton Rouge, were we got to work on finishing up the framing of a house and putting up the roof trusses. It was fun to get some serious building done and we were fortunate to work side by side with Frances, the homeowner, who was so nice and such a great person to wor with. Also it was about 100 billion degrees and we sweat a lot.

Melville
- From Baton Rouge we had another long ride to Melville, the bustling metropolis of 1100 people. There wasn't much to do except cook dinner (part of my dinner crew responsibilities for the week) - mac and cheese with hot dogs, salad, and leftovers from Baton Rouge, and watch Emanuel's Gift on the projector. Check out the movie, it's a docmentary about a one legged man who rides his bicycle across Ghana to gain awareness and support for Ghanaian disabled people. Good stuff.

Alexandria
- Alexandria is a much bigger town than Melville, but we were unable to enjoy the fruits of the town because of a massive rainstorm. I actually got caught in the rain on my way back from writing my Southern US Journal for our website. I got lost. In the pouring rain. It was great to get everything I had completely wet (not). But like always, arriving back "home" to 32 other Bike and Builders brightens any spirit. We had a knockout binge in Baton Rouge - which had a full basketball court - so felt pretty nature to play knockout again in Alexandria's church's tiny gym/dining area/play room with a bouncy ball and a 3-foot-tall playskool basketball hoop. Chris won, as usual, so we piled on top of him to celebrate.

Nachitoches
- Pronounced "Nack-ah-tish." We stayed at the local university there, Northwestern State, so we got to play some more knockout in the gym. But we also visted historic downtown, which was founded in the 1700s, and we had breakfast in a church with an awesome man whose name I can't remember. He was a big, barrel-chested man who wore an apron all morning as he cooked us dinner with bare feet. Mind you, this is 6am. He had great stories and a vast knowledge of Louisiana which was awesome, and he was also a soccer enthusiast, so he let us use the youth center to watch a world cup game. The ride to Pelican was only 35 miles, so we got to chill a lot longer than usual in the morning.

Pelican
- We stayed at a Baptist Camp, and they fed us catfish until we exploded. They also let us use their pool, and we slept in dormitory-style bunk beds. It smelled pretty bad when we left because of all of our sweaty gear, but sleeping in a bed was surreal.

TEXAS
Carthage
- An 82-mile day with our first sets of rolling hills. This was one of my favorte rides so far. In the morning I set out with Hans, Luke, and Z and we absolutely crushed the first 35 miles to lunch. Riding in a pace-line at an average of 23mph on rolling hills fried my legs and burned my lungs, but it felt amazing to go so fast. These guys are seriously strong cyclists and have pushed me to the limits on many occasions, but this was definitely the fastest, most sustained push I have ever ridden on my bike. It felt awesome getting to lunch just after 9am and being able to loung for 2 hours before setting off on our way.

We let some of the girls go ahead of us and played a little cat and mouse the rest of the way to the host - no small feat considering some of the girls on this trip are very strong riders. We'd ride as hard as we could until we got them in sight and then coast. Our plan was to wait unti the last 6 miles and then burn past them at a blistering pace, but it was foiled when Z and Luke combined for 4 flats in the last 20 miles. We still managed to catch the girls, but only after emptying the tanks of gas and running out of water in the last 2 miles. It was a grueling and tough day, but we all got into Elaine and Rick's house in Carthage at 1:30, just in time to watch the US blow it in the World Cup. They cooked us a delicious meal though and the buckets of beer more than raised our spirits from the US loss.

Athens
- Another grueling day with even longer and steeper hills, hotter weather, and tired legs from the day before. Unfortunately I was unable to ride to lunch because I had a broken spoke, and riding on it would have risked complete destruction of my rear wheel. Luckily though I was able to get a wheel from Allison at lunch; she got into the van after having an asthma attack in the first 35 miles. I only rode 60 of the 90 miles, but man was it tough. Thats why our second lunch stop at a former B&Ber's family residence at mile 69 - complete with cold water, gatorade, ice cream, cookies, home made venison jerky, and a swimming pool - was amazing. I was riding with Justin, one of my best pals/partners in crime on this trip and a source of much laughter, and Chelsea whose grunts while riding up hills crack me up. We were refreshed body and soul after second lunch and made it into Athens without too much difficulty.

Athens is deserving of a lot of words because it was definitely a noteworthy host site. We were hosted by the Methodist church in Athens, but each of us went home with a family for the night. I was with Justin and Brandon, and we stayed with Weldon and Carol Stone, an elderly couple who lived on a lake. That night I slept on a queen bed. It was heavenly. But before I went to sleep, indeed before our late-night snack, Carol informed us that her neighborhood friend, Rick, was hosting 2 Bike and Builders and would be taking them out on his boat. Would we like to go? Absolutely! So Brandon, Justin, Kate, Christina, and I all got on Rick's boat and went tubing and waterskiing for 4 hours. It was amazing, and they were so incredibly nice to drive around and be so patient teaching us all how to waterski. It tired us out, but we went back to Carol's and had some snacks, told them about our lives, did some laundry, and THEN went to sleep on heavenly queen beds. Amazing.

Dallas/Garland/Sunnyvale
- So the cue sheet says we were going to Dallas, but we actually stayed in Sunnyvale and worked with Habitat in Garland. Go figure. Texas keeps getting better and better. We slept in the Sunnyvale Middle School, but we spent the vast majority of our time at Sally and Pete Muhl's house. THey let us use their pool, hot tub, beer, burgers, chips, candy, soda, water, cookies, tacos, brownies, pancakes, french toast, fruit, veggies, spare beds, spare couches, spare floors, television, puppies, dogs, backyard, frontyard, sideyard, cars, trucks, trailers, and anything else you could ever want or need. They are the Bike and Build SUS Hosts of the Year so far. Absolutely incredible people. So nice, so much fun to be around, so helpful. Wow. Anyway, Pete manages the Habitat construction among many many other things, so we worked with him for 2 days framing a house. Awesome work to do - we saw more progress in those two days than any other part of the trip I think. AND they drove us into Dallas to visit the JFK museum AND took us out to steak dinner the last night. Amazing. Really amazing.

Decatur
- Decatur is another small town that we rode through, but they were very welcoming and supportive of our trip. They cooked us burgers from a cow raised and slaughtered (only days before) by one of their church members, and we got to give them a presentation. As part of breakfast crew responsibilities, I was part of the presentation team, along with Brandon, Jenn, Justin, Christina, and Allison. I think we did an awesome job because one of the girls there, who had just graduated high school, wants to do Bike and Build! Yay! It's nice seeing the positive effect we have on people in host communities.

Wichita Falls
- We stayed at a YMCA in the city which was very nice because we got to use the facilities - a gym, pool, hot tubs, saunas, steam rooms, and just a lot of space in general. We've spent so much time in small spaces that a large area like the YMCA is almost weird to us. Naturally, 80% of the group slept in the smallest room we were allowed to sleep in.

The ride into Wichita Falls was actually one of the most fun rides I've had. I rode with Jenn, Josh, and Scott most of the way which were some new riding partners and we had a blast playing stupid games like GHOST. We also had some serious chats which is awesome because I feel like I'm really getting to know everyone on this trip so much better, and it's getting to the point where deep life-chats are pretty regular occurances. Spending 24 hours a day with 33 people for 75 days will make best friends out of most, and I'm loving that aspect of Bike and Build.

OKLAHOMA
Altus
- We dipped into OK for a night in Altus, a small town with a giant methodist church that opened its doors to us. I spent the previous afternoon riding with Hans, and we had an awesome ride with a lot of good conversation. We also crushed the last 7 miles at 27mph (Lance speed - though we had a tailwind) which was good to loosen the muscles. I bought a bunch of American flags immediately after arriving in Altus and spent the rest of the night eating and cleaning my bike before passing out.

TEXAS (AGAIN!)
Memphis
- That brings us to speed! Memphis is a tiny town of 2000 and we're staying in another Methodist church. They cooked us a bunch of lasagna and pasta for dinner which was delicious. The ride today was a wash in the morning - absolute downpour with a strong headwind, while the afternoon opened to a partly cloudy sky with a stiffer headwind. My bike computer doesn't like to work in the rain so I didn't add many miles to the odometer, but whatevs. Tomorrow we head to Amarillo with a day off. We've almost conquered Texas already in a short amount of time - we're putting in some serious miles from here on out! I will try to update more often, but until then, this should be enough. Please leave comments or email me if you want to hear more!