After my last post, I got hit with a super bad cold. I knew I was getting sick, but I didn't anticipate feeling like every last drop of energy would be sucked out of me, but that is essentially what happened. Unfortunately, this lead me, and my friend Jamey (also sick), to have to be 'vanned', which is about the worst thing that could happen to a B&B'er (also, another goal I had was never to be vanned - no more goals). Jamey and I spent a day in the van as we rode 90 miles into Rochester, NY where we could recuperate on the RIT campus. It wasn't the worst timing for a sickly like me, as our intended Build Day the following day turned into a day off when we were unable to make connections with affordable housing projects in Rochester.Therefore, I was able to use my day off of the bike to get back into riding condition.
After Rochester, we biked into Lockport, NY, home of the Erie Canal. The group enjoyed a nice tour of the Lockport Cave with some interesting town history. Later that night, we enjoyed one of the best 4th of July's any of us could have hoped for. Local fireworks were taking place about a half hour walk from the church we were staying at. All 32 of us walked to the park and took it by storm... seriously.
Once we arrived, we made sure our presence was known. That's not hard with 32 people, but within minutes of arriving we were dancing to some of our team favorite songs, chanting, and just having an overall blast. The fireworks were amazing!
The next day, we got lucky and only had a 20 mile day into Niagara Falls, New York. The temperatures have been ridiculously hot over the last week, so once we arrived, we were down to our underwear spraying ourselves with the hose. I don't even think I know what modesty is anymore! :)
I have been on trailer crew (each of us was assigned to a 'crew' when we got to orientation, and those crews switch jobs every week) for the last week, and one of our jobs is laundry. That is a huge job when you have 32 stinky cyclist's laundry to do. While everyone else hurried over to the falls, the Humpless Camel is a Horse (our team name) crew laid out a giant tarp and collected over 10 huge loads of laundry and drove it over the nearby laundromat.
After we finished up, we walked over to Niagara Falls with passports in hand to check out the falls. Everyone was anxious to ride on the Maid of the Mist and get a close-up view of the amazing falls. Even though everybody else had already been at the falls for a few hours before us, it made my day to find out that they had all waited for us to arrive so we could do the boat ride together. That's just another great example of how much respect this team has for one another. Knowing they were waiting for us just over the Canadian border put an extra bounce in all of our steps as we made our way over to the falls in nearly 100 degree weather.
After a fun-filled day of hanging out in Canada, we returned to the wonderful church we were staying at. Lucky me, I was able to meet up with my uncle Eric (who lives in Buffalo) and his wife Susan for ice cream. It was a great way to end a great time in Niagara Falls.
I went to bed satisfied, but was nervous for the 85 mile day we had ahead of us. Temperatures were predicted to be in the mid-90s. I don't usually like being outside and sedentary in that temperature, so you can imagine how much I was looking forward to physically exercising in that temperature for eight hours. But! Things couldn't have gone any better!
The miles flew by. We got our first experience of urban cycling as we pedaled through the heart of Buffalo. Before I knew it, we were already 35 miles in and at our first lunch conveniently located right on Lake Erie and also next to an ice cream stand. 32 root beer floats were demolished in record time.
Bike & Build adheres to the the 90/90 rule. If the temps are above 90 or the mileage is above 90, we get two lunches. Lunches are great ways to break up the days, and since this day happened to be a scorcher, we were set to have another lunch 30 miles down the road. I couldn't have anticipated how fun that lunch would be. We arrived at John and Kathy Berner's beautiful home right on Lake Erie. As soon as we arrived, we were given amazing food and a great view of Lake Erie right from their backyard. All of five minutes later, we were submerging ourselves in the warm lake water. Sometimes, I feel like I'm living an 8-year-old's summer, it's that good. After an hour of swimming and eating, we just relaxed in their yard. It was wonderful - thank you John and Kathy! We finished off the day with 15 miles left and arrived in Westfield, New York - our final destination in the great state of New York.
The next day, we would bike just 75 miles (strange how that now seems like no big deal to me, when only a few months ago, 25 miles seemed like a long ride) and cross two state-lines. Again, we had two lunches that were top notch. One of our teammate's, Nolan Wildfire, brought us all the fixings for chicken fajitas. Having fresh vegetables is a godsend these days, so I ate and ate and ate just because I was that excited to have such wonderful food. By the end of the day, we were in Ohio. This is the first time where I actually feel like we're finally making progress on the trip. I felt like we were on the east coast forever!
Yesterday, we had another build day in Ashtabula, Ohio. I worked at two different sites. In the morning, a crew of us worked at a Habitat for Humanity build site pulling roots out of the ground so the building could commence. After lunch, we traveled to the Community Action building in Ashtabula and painted a fence. The temperature was still high, but we were lucky enough to have members of the Trinity Presbyterian Church bring us to their homes for showers.
Today was supposed to be an 80 mile day through Cleveland and into Avon Lake. We awoke at 5 am to thunder and lightning. After 3 hours of waiting out the storm, the leaders made an executive decision to shuttle us to Avon Lake instead of biking. Bummer! Another day in the van, but we still had fun and we're safe.
Now, I'm just one week from Janesville and I am SO SO SO SO SO excited!
Okay, promise never to write a blog post this long ever again, but I also do this for my memory down the road, so I fear leaving out details.
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