Palo Duro Canyon

Day off in Amarillo!!! Here are some pictures from our hike in the second largest canyon in the US.

Amarillo to Dalhart, Texas

Today I was Rhys. I chased seven snakes and caught six fish with my bare hands. I beatboxed like a champion and danced until the cows came home. In all seriousness, today was awesome. Our challenge of the day, given to us by our lovely sweeps, Colleen and Morgan, was to imitate another rider on the team. I was paired with Rhys. A guy that is easy to imitate due to his many talents and hobbies. Everyone had a lot of fun with the challenge, but Angela took the cake with her freestyle rap about a day in the life of Josiah (with me pretending to drop some beats, while I was actually gasping for air trying to say boots and cats for 2 minutes).
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> We started out in Amarillo around 7 o'clock, and arrived in Dalhart, TX by four, the majority of the day felt like exploring more than riding our bikes. The beginning of the ride was hilly and I loved it! We had some of our longest hills so far this trip. Despite the highway traffic, the views were incredible. I felt extremely safe riding the entire day with Megan and Molly M and we had a blast singing and flying along with great tail wind.

A couple memorable stops along the way included first lunch with horses and chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone in a local diner for $1.38.
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> One of the funniest things to happen today was around mile 60, we saw a large obstruction on the horizon. It was directly in our line of vision and in Florida we saw some bridges that looked like walls, so it was not out of the question that a very large bridge was ahead. It took us at least a mile to determine that the bridge was actually a giant grain elevator and not a draw bridge.
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> ALSO! There is a joke amongst the group about the size of my overnight bag, about how it is slightly larger and heavier than everyone else's overnight bag. But everyone borrows my stuff all the time. I've lent out my sewing kit, chacos, sunglasses, pedals, spare tire, thermarest, food, etc, so there is a reason for the size, my bag is basically a second community bin. I might be a little over prepared. Same goes for my overly stuffed but full of essential items camel back. No shade Texas, no worries, I have an umbrella. Powerful tail wind and don't want to pedal... Umbrella for the win! Bike and Build, bike sailing west!

And lastly, Abs with Colleen!!! We are the strongest route without a doubt!

6 days, 487 miles

Amarillo Texas!! How did I get here!? I still can't believe that my legs have pedaled me this far and are going to keep going for another 40 days.

Here are some thoughts and photos from the last 6 days:
Dallas to Boyd Texas; 100 miles, still recovering from being sick and not able to eat food, so I sustained myself with Naked protein drinks from gas stations. We passed thru Justin, and had there not been another 20 miles and being sick I would have stopped at the boot shop. But just outside of town there was an amazing field of sunflowers!!

Boyd to Witchita Falls; 92 miles, Wichita Falls was a ghost town. It would be a great town for filming a zombie apocalypse movie. A tornado in the 80s wiped out the city and most folks left instead of rebuilding. We stayed in a YMCA and over night our van and trailer were assaulted. Someone slashed 4 tires and our leaders had to spend the morning finding a tire shop to come out and fix them on the spot.

Wichita Falls to Lawton Oklahoma; 57 miles, Marlee and I were sweep and had a blast riding with amazing views if the OK sky and flying kites in the casino parking lot. And meeting the mayor of Cookie town!

Lawton to Altus; 58 miles, 4$ breakfast at a random diner on the side of the road!! Biscuit and gravey with eggs sausage abs hash browns!! Beautiful ride thru the Wichita Mountains.

Altus, OK to Memphis, TX; 73 miles, ran into 3 guys riding across the country Connecticut to Las Vegas Nevada. It was awesome to ride with them for a few miles and trade stories. Seeing their bikes loaded down it made me really appreciate our beautiful van and trailer.

Memphis to Amarillo TX; 107 miles, Today we were joined by Paul. He is a church member from our host in Amarillo and has ridden with B&B the last 4 years. We definitely took the cake with our ride though. Had an amazing morning riding the hills from Memphis to Clarendon and then had a terrifying few hours riding thru huge lightning strikes. We did stop during the worst part for shelter in an abandoned house that actually may not have been abandoned. The final 40 miles of our ride was beautiful and sunny and warm and there was even the occasional tail wind. I enjoyed riding with Paul for the entire day and learning extra tidbits about the area.

Each picture below represents each ride day.

And now for an awesome day off in Amarillo!!!

A-puke-alypse hits SUS14

We have left the bumpy, cracked roads of Louisiana for the chip sealed roads of Texas. The transition into Texas was unreal, it was flat and windless and then immediately a head wind hit and we got to ride on these beautiful rolling hills into Carthage.

Oh and that afternoon, we randomly road past a home with a zebra and I almost got to ride one!!

Our next day was my second favorite ride day on the trip... Endless rolling hills in the company of great friends. There was lots of chalking, yelling at the wind, laughing on the downhills, and peach juice running down our cheeks... Here are some pics

Emma!!! Loving or yelling at the hills.

Then castrophe hit. We got to Athens and found out that our group was falling like flies and within the hour our new host site was full of folks with their own trash bins and running for toilets. 3 days later our current count is roughly 17 riders having gotten the plauge and hopefully we are on the rebound.

Lucky for us, we happen to have a 3 day stay with Sally and Peter in Dallas and lots of beds for people to sleep in if needed. Our first build day was very sparse on rider builders but we still got an incredible amount completed on the home. We built with Habitat for Humanity for Garland, on a build site at a high school. The high school has a trade class that allows the students to learn to build a home and when they finish, Habitat trucks the home to a lot where the foundation has already been poured. I would have jumped at the opportunity to take a class like this in high school. Here is a before pic of all the work the high school students completed and all the work we completed.

Now it is time to pack up and get ready to pedal our bike the next 100 miles into Boyd, Texas! (Last minute reroute)

nach yo cheese or natchitoches or nak-e-dish, LA

What a week it has been making our way north thru Louisiana, hot sun, sideways rain, lightning, thunder, and humid fog.

We left New Orleans for Baton Rouge and tackled our first 116 mile ride day. I was sweep with Ashley and right off the bat I got a nail thru my tire.

 It was wistful thinking that this incident would be the worst part of the day. There were a few flats before first lunch, but after first lunch was when it started to get really exciting. Let's just say flats on flats on flats on flats. Elle, Molly M and I had a exciting and difficult next few hours.

By 4:45 we had only reached mile 82 and second lunch. Upon arrival I asked how far behind the next group of riders we were and turns out flats really slow you down. We were back a whole hour and I might have started laughing menicically. It was 100 degrees and 49% humidity and I was really struggling with the heat and flat tire frustration. Since it was so late, we were unable to complete the last 40 miles but on the positive got hosed down with chilly refreshing water. It was quite the day of biking and though I was really disappointed that I didn't complete all 116 miles, I did enjoy our ride along the leave confining the mighty Mississippi river.

While in Baton Rouge, we enjoyed a build day with Rebuilding Together and painted the entire exterior of a house in less than 6 hours. Its amazing how much work a group of 32 can do with enough tools for all of us.

We had another day of epic riding from Baton Rouge to Opelasous. We got to cross the mighty Mississippi and then the Achafalya rivers, both with Police escorts since the bridges were narrow with no shoulder. I only jav pictures from the second bridge because the first half of the day was spent riding/hiding from sideways rain, thunder and lightning.

Yaya, rain while waiting for the train to pass for one hour...

Police escort!

And then we road to Alexandria along beautiful amazing country roads. Probably my favorite ride day yet but for some reason I didn't take very many pictures.

Found a toad sign with my name!!! Well at least my initials.

And now we are in nach-yo-cheese. We had a beautiful ride day and got here and gave a bike clinic to some local kids. It has been an amazing rollercoaster of a week.

And we hit 1000 miles!!!

Building building building in NOLA

Build day #3 in NOLA

After spending the previous build day swimming in sweat inside a tyvex suit, it was a relief to spend the day painting and mudding with the entire group. The folks I was working with focused on reskimming and priming the giant kitchen-dinning-living room.

After the work day, we were all invited to a Welcome Home ceremony for another home in the neighborhood. A few staff from the St. Bernard Project told us about the process Ms. Vera went through to be accepted into the program. She first applied in August 2009 and now 5 years later her home is complete and she can move back in. It was amazing to see all the americore volunteers at this event and many of them she thanked by name.

The photos below are pictures of Ms. Vera's rebuilt home.

Wet chamois for days

We are somewhere around 700 or 800 miles and in the last couple of days have learned to embrace the wet chamois. We have left Florida, blasted our way through Alabama and are leaving Mississippi for Louisiana today. 4 states in 4 days!