Today we rode from Spearman, TX to Dalhart, TX for 86 miles. Here is a picture of the flatness of the terrain and us being ridiculous:
I rode with Katie R. and Craig the whole day. It was our flattest terrain so far in the trip. It was an overcast day with a northwestern wind. The wind was at our backs for the majority of the ride and we actually got a tailwind for about 50 miles. It was a great day to just cruise across Texas and enjoy the company of Katie and Craig. We arrived in Dalhart at around 1:00 and got ice cream at Dairy Queen. After that everyone basically came back to the church and took a nap before the Central United Methodist Church came to cook us dinner. They were extremely friendly and excited about what we were doing. It is always nice to see the hospitality of people across the country. After dinner we had another round of our Affordable Housing Curriculum and Karen & Preston taught our group about how education affects housing (or vice versa). It was one of the best presentations so far and they actually had the group do an activity and the results came out how they predicted. The activity was great because really helped show the need for adequate housing options so a child can more easily attain a good education. After dinner 10 of us broke into teams of 5 and played volleyball in the church gym. My team had lots of morale, but sadly lost two games. Everyone is getting much better at volleyball every time we play. It's interesting to watch people excel at everything from cycling to off the bike activities. Then Melissa, Ryan M., Michael Carroll, and I all walked down to the United Grocery Store and I got some chocolate milk. I finally had a chance to clean my bike tonight which The Octagon (my bike's name) really appreciated. Anyway.. tomorrow we are riding into New Mexico and it's going to be awesome! The day before that we rode 94 miles from Arnett, OK to Spearman, TX. Technically all of the riders rode that far, but to be honest it was another one of my van days so I drove 94 miles. We got up early and ate an awesome breakfast provided to us by the United Methodist Church in Arnett. After breakfast I filled up on gas and headed to meet the riders at the Texas state line at mile 12.5. When I got there the front group was just arriving and starting to take pictures. I got in a group photo with all of them and then proceeded to stand around at the state line for about an hour taking pictures for everyone that came through. After the majority of the group had come through I drove up to another little rock/Texas state marker that was about 200ft from the state sign.
I took pictures of people there and then saw Jillian riding up to the state sign alone. I decided that I should go take a picture of her with the state sign so I pulled my bike out of the van, put on my helmet (very important), and rode back to the actual Texas sign to take her picture. I saw sweep a couple of miles out on the road and decided that I should ride out to meet them. Before riding out to them I stopped at the Oklahoma state sign and got a few pictures of The Octagon leaning against my state sign. 
After taking pictures for sweep, I loaded my bike up and headed to the first lunch stop at mile 33.3. When I got there most of the group was just arriving. I sat there about two hours before leaving for the second lunch stop. On the way there I got a call from Paul telling me that Craig's chain had broken on his bike and he couldn't fix it. I picked Craig up in the van and it was nice to have company during the drive. We arrived at the second lunch at 66.6 at around noon. We had not seen a gas station the whole day so I let all of the riders in the front group use up all of the water we had in the coolers. I left the food bins and Craig to guard our lunch stop and then I made a 17 mile trek to Perryton, TX to get water for the rest of the group. I filled up all 5 of our water jugs and drove 17 miles back to the lunch stop. When I got to the lunch stop, Craig told me he had only seen 2 or 3 of the 13 riders that had still not made it to the second lunch. I could see a storm growing in the distance where I thought sweep would be riding so I took one cooler in the van with me to make sure the people riding had enough water and weren't getting demolished in the nasty looking storm. I caught up to sweep and called my dad to see if I needed to give them a ride to the next lunch stop to help them avoid the approaching storm. He told me the storm was moving the opposite direction and I let them ride to the next lunch stop. I finally left the lunch stop at around 4:45 and drove the rest of the way to Spearman. It was interesting to see the amount of flooding that had happened recently in Texas. There were entire fields that were underwater and at first I kept thinking, "What an odd place for a lake of this size." Anyway.. a group of us went to the Headquarter's Cafe in downtown Spearman and ate some of the best food ever. After that I finished making my cue sheet for the following day and went to bed at a halfway decent hour. The day before that we rode from Watonga, OK to Arnett, OK for 85.9 miles. I started out riding with Katie R. for the first 5 miles then we picked up Michael Carroll, Katie, Lizzy, and Kelsey when we had stopped at an old bus on the side of the road. The morning was full of some small rolling hills and went by extremely quickly into lunch. At lunch we ate the donated ham and other goodies that my mom got us donated from Jumbo Foods in Enid, OK. It was awesome to have some fresh food and a change from the peanut butter. After lunch we were busy talking and missed a turn with a group of about 10 people. This added a couple of miles onto our day but we used our phones to route back to the correct road. When we got on the right road we rode 19 miles to Vici. I was pretty tired when we got there so we decided to stop at the Vici restaurant and get milkshakes, fried okra, and mozzarella sticks. Well, that's what I got anyway. The group at the restaurant:
We only had about 27 miles left into Arnett, but I could not wake up after that lunch stop. I was riding with Katie R. and Karen when I suddenly started "bonking" (as they call it in the bicycling community). I could not stay awake to save my life. I was completely hydrated and full of food, so I didn't know why I couldn't stay awake. Katie R. decided that I was electrolyte deficient so she gave me one of her Nuun tablets to put in my waterbottle. I drank the entire bottle of water/Nuun and chewed gum which gave me the energy to stay awake. I enjoyed the rest of my day with Karen and Katie. When we arrived in Arnett, they had a sign that said "Welcome Bike & Build" on a community center lawn. We showered at the high school and then the church provided us ribs, chicken, fish, and a ton of other stuff at a potluck dinner for our group. I am seriously eating way better on this trip than I would if I were at home. We are so spoiled. After dinner we had a bicycle clinic in the park. I'm glad my first bicycle clinic to run went well. The day before that I drove 70 miles from Oklahoma City, OK to Watonga, OK. I started out the day by driving to the Habitat Office to drop off the keys to the vans that they let us use while we were in Oklahoma City. After that I followed the route to around mile 7 where I had to pick up Scott in the van because of a strong thigh pain that made him unable to ride. He rode with me down Ok-3 through Okarche and we stopped 5 miles away from Kingfisher for the lunch stop. The riders actually had a tailwind so they all arrived fairly quickly to the lunch stop. As Natalie left the lunch stop, I told her to go get Donation Magic from the Walmart in Kingfisher. She ended up getting $25 worth of food donated and after the lunch stop I went to pick it up. When I got to Walmart, I picked up the food sacks and had to pack them in the coolers in the trailer. As I was packing the trailer back, I picked up a cinderblock that apparently was also housing two bricks inside of it. As I moved it to it's spot in the trailer, both of the bricks fell out of the cinderblock and one landed on my left big toe and the other landed in the middle of my right foot and cut my foot. It felt awful and even today (4 days later..) my feet still hurt. Oh well, that's why I'm young and I'll survive. After that I drove by all of the riders and we all got to Watonga at around noon. We hung out in Watonga until 4:00 when my mom and Jo Ann came to see me for the second time. She came with the donation from Jumbo Foods and also took me out to eat. After dinner we drove to Roman Nose state park and walked around for a little while before my mom drove back home. When I got back to the church we had our town hall meeting and then an Jeopardy themed Affordable Housing Presentation by Melissa & Sebastian. After that I went to the couch that I had claimed to get ready for bed. Karen and I hung out talking for awhile in that room before we both went to sleep on couches in that room. It was a good nights sleep. I should also mention that the ride into Watonga was the last day for my dad to ride along with us in his VW bug and set up his Money Stops. Thank you so much dad (Mr. Money) for helping our trip out and doing that for us. Everyone in the group kept saying that they couldn't thank you enough for setting those up and we definitely appreciate everything you did for us. Thanks.
I know I am breaking order now.. but the 2 days before that we were Building with the Oklahoma City Habitat For Humanity. Because I am summarizing two days, in order to keep the story straight, I will tell you about the first build day and then the second. The first day we woke up at 5:45 and went to the Lake Hefner boathouse for a breakfast cooked by Habitat for Humanity volunteers. Lake Hefner was beautiful in the morning while eating breakfast on the patio of the boat club. It was the perfect way to start our first morning there in OKC. At 8:00 we headed over to the "Hope Crossing" neighborhood that Habitat for Humanity owns. It is amazing that the OKC Habitat has an entire neighborhood that will be all Habitat Homes when they finish it. Fortunately for our group Habitat had planned for us to frame a house, which is the best job to do on a Habitat site. We all took walls and they had a color coded system that made it extremely obvious for how we should assemble the walls. Everywhere you looked while on the build site there were walls being built. Whether it be out in the road, on the driveway, or on the foundation, there were walls! After we had assembled the walls, we took an hour long lunch break to eat our donated Chipotle burritos. When we came back we all got together to actually raise the walls of the building. Once the walls were raised, we put pieces of OSB board on the corners and started putting up blueboard. It was an extremely hot day but we still got a lot done. After the build site, Habitat provided dinner from Johnny Carino's at their offices for the riders. My mom, Sarah, Amanda, Addison & Huxley, all came to see me that day so instead of eating with the riders I forced my mom to take me to Teds. I love Ted's. Now that I am biking every day, I can eat more chips/salsa/queso than anyone. Then we went to Penn Square Mall to walk around and spend time together. Finally we all went to Braums to finish the night off with ice cream before my mom, Amanda, and the kids headed back to Enid. Sarah stayed with me up in the church gym at night so she could build with me the next morning.
OKC Build Day #2: In the morning we got up to head back to the boat club to have breakfast. After breakfast we went to the build site to do landscaping. We were going to sod one house that was going to be dedicated on Friday and also finish blueboarding/wrapping the house we framed the day before. I guess the OKC Habitat had a group of 30 volunteers in a few weeks before we arrived to sod 3 houses in an entire work day. Apparently these volunteers only got two of the 3 houses done and did not finish everything they were supposed to that day. It is always incredible to watch us on the build site because the 32 of us all sodded the house in less than an hour and a half. It was completely finished in that time. The Habitat people were impressed and sent us to work on other projects in the 7 or 8 different houses they were doing at once. We eventually took a lunch break for more Chipotle burritos and then went back to the build site to try to get work done in the 100 degree weather. It was really awesome to have Sarah come work with our group and really see what we do. It was extremely hot and we did not leave until the job was finished. Sarah's family came to watch us finish building and invited me to dinner with them. I got to skip the shower line at the gym after the build and go to Emily's (Sarah's sister) apartment to shower. Sarah's family took me to Olive Garden where I ate like a pig and scarfed down an entire plate of chicken parm and a ton of salad. I didn't notice that I had done anything extraordinary until I finished my plate and everyone else there still had over 2/3 of their plate in front of them. Thank you the Dupuy's for taking me out to dinner and not shunning me for eating 10x more than everyone else. Bike & Build definitely increases the appetite. After that Sarah left me and I had to go back and do some work to make sure my cue sheet was correct on the way to Watonga the next day. And.. Thank you so much everyone who came out to see me in Oklahoma City. I'm definitely glad I traveled through my home state and got to see everyone. It was great. Oklahoma City was also great because it was an extremely productive set of build days that we got a lot done on the work site. The Habitat said we ended up putting them over a day ahead of schedule on their houses and seemed to enjoy working with us. I think it was the perfect build site to have before our Blitz Build in Colorado Springs. It shows us that building an entire house in 1 week is not impossible and I am ready!
The day before that was a very long 96 miles from Henryetta, OK to Oklahoma City, OK. The day started out great with a provided breakfast from the Methodist Church in Henryetta. With a hearty breakfast in my stomach, I pedaled vigorously for about 4 miles until I got to the worst road I have ever seen in my entire life. The road, as one of the riders put it, "Looked like someone did abstract art with concrete and potholes." It was the absolute worst road I have ever ridden on during Bike & Build and I am sad that it was my cue sheet that tortured the riders for 7 miles. At mile 11 the Oklahoma DOT decided to give us the most perfect road we could ever imagine for some miles before getting mediocre the rest of the day. I don't really remember when the lunch stop was, but this day was the longest day of rolling hills/extreme heat/extreme headwind of our trip so far. We would be climbing a small hill and the headwind would make it feel like we were climbing a mountain. It was intense. I'm pretty sure I rode most of the day with Katie R. and Zac but I think I also moved around the group a lot. When we finally survived the ride and got into the May Ave United Methodist Church around 4:30. We had dinner that night at the family's home that owned Dane's Design. Their house was beautiful and extremely stylish. They cooked us an Enchilada dinner and it was excellent. After that some people went out and I don't actually remember what I did because it has been awhile since that day. Sorry, it is getting late and my memory is failing.
The day before that we rode 106 miles from Ft. Smith, AR to Henryetta, OK. This was supposed to be my van day, but Travis switched with me so I could ride across the Oklahoma state line.
Did I mention that I love Travis for switching with me? Zac, Katie R, Kelsey, Lizzy, Karen, and I started riding around 6:30. When we got to mile two, we saw a group of cyclists standing at the edge of the road at an intersection with a police car there. When we rolled by, I asked if everything was okay, and Natalie told me that Scott had been hit by a car. Apparently Scott had been riding about 22 mph trying to catch the group in front of him and the car did not see him, ran a red light, and Scott t-boned the car. The car was only moving about 5 mph when it hit him, but Scott hit the front left corned of the car, flew off of his bike, and smashed the car's windshield. Scott only had some scrapes on his elbow and a swollen knee. Scott's bike on the other hand had a bent frame, his fork snapped off, and his wheel was bent. This meant that his bike was nearly ruined. After the accident, an ambulance checked him out and said he didn't need to go to the hospital. He decided he wanted to keep riding and rode Travis' bike for 100 miles after the accident! (He's crazy.. really.) I am impressed that he was able to do that, but it is crazy. Anyway, back to the ride, after we heard about Scott's accident, I think everyone was a little shaken up for the rest of the ride. When you ride bikes as much as we do, you definitely forget about the dangers associated with riding cross-country. It was definitely a reality check for all of us and hopefully it will be a constant reminder of how safe we need to be while out on the road. We arrived at the Oklahoma state sign and took a bunch of pictures then rode on throughout the day. I remember it was a long really hot day that was hilly, but I don't remember many specifics about the ride. It was great to be in my home state and Sarah came to visit me that night in Henryetta. It was also nice to talk to Okie's and know that when you say "I'm from Enid, OK" that they actually know where that is located. And finally, the last day I remember would be the 83 mile ride from Russellville, AR to Ft. Smith, AR. I remember riding with Zac, Paul, Katie R in a paceline leaving Russellville. We rode alongside the Arkansas river for most of the day and kept crossing it and seeing beautiful lakes that had formed because of the damming of the Arkansas River. As we rode throughout the day, we picked up riders on the "Money Train". The "$ Train" is what I call the pacelines that I am up front blocking all the wind for everyone behind me. At one point I had about 10 people in my paceline. It was awesome. Sometime after the lunch stop, a group of riders were stopped on the road and got us a discount at a paintball field along the route. I decided to join in the paintballing and we played for almost 2 hours. It was awesome to be able to let loose in the middle of the ride and do something I had never done before. None of us wore padding other than the facemasks that we were required to wear and all of us ended up with some good looking paintball welts on our bodies. It was a great time though and I would definitely do it again. When we arrived in Van Buren, AR (a suburb of Ft. Smith) we stayed at the Woodland Memorial Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Apparently this church is a small congregation of 30 people of which all of them were out of town except for one extraordinary woman named Linda Joyce. Because everyone else in this church community was out of town, she had spent the last two days before we got there preparing dinner, breakfast, and other snacks for the arrival of our group. It is amazing that someone would dedicate that much time and energy into helping others and her compassion is really inspirational. Because she thought what we are doing is so beneficial to others, she was willing to spend 2 days cooking food for us to make sure we were well taken care of while in Ft. Smith. She was one of the most good hearted and nicest people I have ever met. It was just awesome to see her generosity.
Anyways.. it is very late, and I am adding pictures now.. so sorry for this novel. I will definitely be updating more often because my week of host locations end tomorrow. This means I will have a lot more free time! Well, tomorrow we ride into New Mexico and then the day after that we'll be in Colorado! Can't wait!
No comments:
Post a Comment