Boonville-Palermo where am I???

Another day of biking, today was much shorter..coming in at 65 miles...but the last 5 were a doozy. I was riding with Craig, Quang, and Lindsay. Craig and I pulled ahead during the last 5 and saw a billboard for 'Quick Lique' an slushie place which clearly said 2 miles ahead.  After 2 miles we got to the United Methodist Church where some of our group had already arrived and we were staying for the night.. "Where is the Quick Lique?!!?!!" Craig said peeling into the parking lot on the bicycle and making the entire group crack up for his enthusiasm for slushies.  We recruited another member to our Lique group and eventually found it, much further away than 2 miles. 

When we got back to the church a great majority of the people were back and very asleep all over the place. 

you may shimmy but do you Chamois?

So chores this week for my group are loading the trailer in the morning and doing laundry. Laundry = bad smells.   The laundry rundown for Bike and Build is as follows.  2 large tarps get put on the floor, one for regular clothes and one for bike clothes.  Then laundry crew Michelle, Sharon, Craig, Ian and I roll up the tarps like a nasty clothing burrito and stuff it into the van to drive to the laundry mat.  Next we put everything in the washers.  Picture a minimum of 60 diiiiirty chamois (bike shorts that you don't wear undies under and then wear all day with some form of shammy cream on it to prevent saddle sores) that we have to touch and load into the washers.  It is soooo gross!  Once laundry is done we make a clean laundry burrito and then put it back on the floor and everyone piles into the room to dig through the matching clothing to find their own.  I'm glad chores rotate every week...

By now we are in boonville, NY which is tiny...we rode 80 miles today to get here and the church prepared a nice dinner.  We all cleaned our bikes which were gross after all the rain...and then it started raining again, sooo....

Say NO to camping in Downpours.

Cruising directly to town Kristen, Kathy and I only faced 8 miles of torrential downpour..thus far it has rained everyday except one that we biked. But we were greeted by Katrinas family when we got there! In the morning the sun was shining so we took a long time sitting at lunch and enjoying the view of the bridge and river...sadly the weather changed quickly but that was even more unfortunate for some more than others.  When we left Sliver Bay in the morning Zack got 1 flat tire...after lunch another...in the rain another..and another and then one more..which brought his flat tire count for the day up to 5..in the rain.  He knew how to change tires to begin with and is now highly proficient in doing so.  (in case you are wondering why so many..its because the tires are the original tires that came with the bike) He now has new tires and they haven't been flat yet..knock on wood. 

Rochester, VT- Silver Bay, NY

Some things don't occur to you until you are on the road...for instance, Rochester is in a valley and how do you get out of valleys? OH!  You climb..and climb and climb... Eventually the climb out of the valley was over and the road toward NY was AMAZING!  We all got to 37.9 miles and then waited for the entire group to catch up so that we could take the ferry as a group into New York.  Woot! we are officially out of New England. We were told that we were staying at a YMCA and had heard through the grapevines that we might even have beds, but we never expected that when we arrived we would be given not only beds, but access to the entire YMCA.  And this YMCA was wonderful! It resembled more of a resort or a summer vacation destination rather than a regular YMCA.  Although we were already tired we all took advantage of the tennis, kayaking, swimming, shuffleboard, sailing, archery and stuff like that.  And of course the free bagel policy...aka when bagels are free, eat them..and save some for later.

have you ever seen Bethel Mountain?

And in late breaking news...is me.  My picture was in the Valley News Today (June 26).  Since I haven't posted any photos of me on here...you can find it there and perhaps when I have access to a scanner can add it.  

Today we rode our bikes from Lebanon, NH to Rochester, VT which was about 50 miles...and up Bethel Mountain.  Which is steep and loooong (and when I say steep, I mean steep).  I challenged myself to ride up the entire 6 miles of it without stopping or getting off my bike and succeeded.  Yay! 

Sadly it was pouring almost the entire trip except for when we were in Queeche (where I took the pictures) which prevented us from flying down the other side of the mountain too fast because it would've been to slippery (but still managed 51mph) 

Lebanon Build day- Part 2

Today was our last day in NH! The rain stayed away and we all worked really hard to finish up all the projects that we were expected to do.  Half of the group worked on roofing in Norwich and the rest finished putting insulation on the Lebanon house.   

Later that night we all went back to the church, had an amazing dinner and then cleaned up our mess (I'll leave you to imagine the impact and smell of 30 riders) and then all worked on our bicycles together to prepare for the long ride the next day.

Dartmouth Sponsored Habitat Home (Day 6)

Today we split up out group of 30 and 12 of us went to the Dartmouth sponsored Habitat build site.  It was a really good idea to break up the group so that we all had something to do during the day.  Some of us were in charge of painting tar onto the foundation while some smacked metal hook things off the foundation.  I was involved in smacking the metal hooks which took most of the morning.

Eventually once all the metal hooks that could be smacked, were smacked I moved on to cutting pieces of styrofoam insulation with Dan, Jessie, and Sharon.  This was probably a one person job, but since there were enough of us we all pitched in and finished the days work by the time lunch was over.  It was hard work..

New London to Lebanon

Yay NH! Its pretty funny that we spend the longest amount of time in NH because it is one of the smallest states we go through.  But I just arrived in Lebanon today, we rode here through pouring rain which was incentive to ride faster.  We all covered a lot of ground in a little bit of time, we will be in Leb for the next couple days because there is a Habitat For Humanity build site that we will be going to.  I think this is very cool!

Concord to New London

This is the NH statehouse and some of us riders in our awesome jerseys, we look so good! Concord is really a pretty happening place, later that night there was a concert on the green and one entire street was shut down for a cultural awareness fair which was a lot of fun to walk around.

Somewhere along the way (around the 20th mile) during lunch break Christopher lured a butterfly to him by singing beautiful melodies...for a very long time. (and there was defiantly no jelly on his nose..)

The Tire Dip

The first bicycle ride from Portsmouth to Concord felt like a really long one...probably because it was.   We woke up at 5:30am today to get out on our bikes and head to the ocean to dip our tires.  The weather was really nice for a first ride and the day went really smoothly.  

The First Build Day

Today we went to our first Habitat For Humanity build site in NH. 

We were in charge of a lot of landscaping (spreading huge piles of dirt) and building a shed.

Although we didn't finish the shed in the one day that we were there we did make quite a dent in the project.  

We got to meet the families who live in a couple of the habitat houses in the area which was really great, they were very nice.   Habitat in this area only works on Saturdays when the local contractor can donate his time.  I learned that it takes about 1 year to build a habitat house in this area for that reason.

Our FIRST ride together as a group.

Thanks again to all my sponsors and donors, you guys are amazing and Bike and Build is such an amazing cause and this summer is going to be soooo amazing.

I'll start with yesterday.  Thank you Michelle Erhard for driving me to Portsmouth, NH.  We are staying at Holy Trinity church in Newington.  The church is awesome and fed us pizza and BBQ (22 pizza's actually! Which is almost 1 pizza

 per rider.  I think that is a little much...so we've been eating the leftovers since then.  

A lot of the riders are Dartmouth students and many New England locals, I think its a pretty great group.  Chucky-Cheese's is right next door to the church and they donated tokens to our group so that we could go play some games.  

This morning... we woke up at 7:30am (this is a day where we got to sleep in, holy moly...looks like I'll be a morning person by the end of the trip)  

We were taught basic bike maintenance and then we went for a 10 mile practice ride around the mall as a giant group of 30.  I think we were a little intimidating for traffic.  This is the only time that we will be riding as such a large group.  But we looked really snazzy all riding as a mass in the same jerseys. 

Later that day we went over some safety and rules.  Then we started to paint our trailer in our own special way for the trip.  It hasn't been finished, but I think it will be cool!  For dinner we went to another church that cooked us spaghetti and then we talked to a lady who works for Habitat around this area and will be assisting us at out first build site tomorrow.  She seems really nice and I am excited to work tomorrow.  

My first 'recent' tip over.

Finally the spider bite blister thing on the arch of my foot has gone away enough so I can wear shoes again...Yay!  Its really quite humid out, so obviously the correct choice is to go for a bike ride. We rode from Claremont to Newport, then back home through Unity which makes a 28 mile loop.  Its a really nice ride, but there is a lot of road construction and many, many, many up hills!   The reward however is a long downhill.  

The other day while I was at some consignment shop in Newport I found a 2003 Prouty Jersey that I am pretty excited about.  My Dad thinks its kind of lying to wear it but I think its pretty, plus I wouldn't have been very old in 2003 so there isn't a chance I would've ridden in it.  I decided to sport the jersey today.  It didn't give me any superpowers like speed or agility (like my spider bite did, clearly now I'm like spiderwoman) .  I know that I didn't gain agility because I tipped over while I was standing with my bike under me. 

The cool part of that is...

The cuts on my leg which are borderline really bada** if you ask me.

The lonely tandem bicycle.

So yesterday I found a tandem bicycle looking very lonely in a free pile on the side of the road.  I decided to bring it home to meet my family.  As I was sneaking the rusty but wonderful find into the garage, my father came out "what is that?!"   clearly it was a fixer-upper but would be wonderful if it worked. My mom came to check it out and offered to plant flowers all over it and use it as a decoration in the garden. 

.........THE NEXT DAY..... I get home and my dad comes cruising up the driveway "I pumped up the tires!" I knew he would love a fixer-upper! Everyone got a turn on it, riding back and forth to the farmers market, and gaining a lot of good laughs.  Needless to say I think that it is now a new member of the family.

$4,000 and Riding Baby!

Thank you so much to all of my sponsors!
Green Mountain College- Make-A-Difference thank you for all your help with school and with this trip! People like everyone in this group are very special and should be really proud of all the good they do!

Mr. Christie- Thanks for letting me do some work with you and your building guys!oh yeah...I'm good at making particularly stupid faces...eep!Benjamin Mansfield-Thanks so much!

Evelyn Cummings/Dean Hill Pet Center- Thank you for your donation and giving me a place to work when I am home!
Paul Pappas- Thank you for your donation!
Uncle Mike and Aunt Sue Maki- Thank you for your donation and it was great seeing you up at the farm, I hope you have a good summer congrats on being grandparents!
The Aldrich Family- Thank you for letting me borrow your trainer to have at school and for your donation!
Theresa Kline- Thank you so much for your donation!
Jason Webber- Thanks so much, My dad said I may ride through your home town? If you're a cyclist you should catch up with us and take a ride!
Desilets Contracting- Thanks you for your help!
Tina and Bob Webb- Thank you for your donation it was really nice of you guys!
Grammy and Papa- Thanks for your donation and for checking up on my blog and all the rider status' I'll keep them more updated throug the summer I promise!
Keith Druhl- Thank you so much for your donation! Hopefully I'll make something to share with CCTV when I get back!
Gail and George Warmke- Thanks for your donation, It was really nice to see you the other weekend! I loved laughing with you guys and thinking about false teeth sewn to the front of prom dresses!

Today I mailed some donations that will put me at my goal of $4,000 AMAZING!!! Its hard to believe that in 8 days I'll be in Portsmouth for training and then hitting the road in 10 days, WOWZA!

Thank you all!!