Best Birthday ever

New Orleans to Baton Rouge 112.2 miles!

Ahhhh! We had our first century today! And I made it...in one piece!!! Ahhhh!

The day had a rough start. Summer woke up and didn't feel good, so she wasn't able to ride with me for my birthday :( but we have plans to ride together at later times, so it all works out. Waking up at 5 was extremely difficult. We had planned a 4:30 wake up in light of our first 100 mile + ride, but the leaders decided that 5 would be better, since various circumstances prevented a majority of people from going to bed until midnight. I think it was a good decision since I didn't actually wake up until the route meeting. I have now rotated to trailer crew, so we have to prepare Contessa (our trailer) every morning. It's interesting to see how 34 people's stuff and enough food to feed 34 people can fit in a relatively small trailer. We managed to make it fit, then headed over to the route meeting that we have every morning. We decided that we would dedicate our ride to Christina and chalk for her along the route. On B&B trips, chalk is a vital source of info. We chalk every turn so people don't get lost, chalk every donation so we don't annoy managers, and chalk to encourage each other. Today we drew pictures an wrote messages for Christina.  The pictures of chalk are going to be sent in for her memorial services.  We also learned that Noelle, a member of our trip would have to return home for at least 3 weeks. She is hoping to rejoin us as soon as possible, but it was very hard to think of losing a member of our team. It may have only been 3 weeks and 2 days since I first met any of these people but now they have become family. A pretty sad morning. I did get a really sweet pin from Christine C for my birthday :) it said MVP and is blue. I wore it with my "happy birthday" lei from Kristen. We rode to the front of Camp Hope for a picture for Denise, our host. Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" then I led the way out of town. It took us about 15 miles to get out of New Orleans. We were trying to be in smaller subgroups, but the traffic lights kept forcing us together into a giant posse. Nate and Collin, B&B alumni and our SBP build supervisors were able to get the day off to ride with us.  They met up with us right before we rode through the French Quarter.

After we got out of town we got on a levee bike path for 20 miles. It was smooth and fast! Most of us have progressed to the same level of biking-ness over the last 3 weeks, maintaining speeds of 17-20 mph. We were able to keep the groups really tight which was fun. I always like when I can look up and see 20 people rounding a corner a head of me. Only the extremely fast and the sweeps were out of sight. I love group cycling such as that! It makes me realize the amazing impact that 34 can have. But 34 people in a line, no matter how close to each other we ride would be extremely dangerous and stupid. So I have to enjoy moments like this where we can ride side-by-side with out a care in the world. It was also very nice because every time some one passed me or I passed them they would yell "happy birthday" Kenan and Mel had particularly good birthday songs :) at the end of the trail we had first lunch. Today was destined to be special because we were having three lunches. Most trips only have one lunch with two on long or very hot days...all but two of our days have been hot enough or long enough to warrant two lunches. And technically one of the two was hot enough, but it was only a 50 mile day and Chipotle donated 34 burritos at the end. Anyways, I digress. A beauty shop that I can't remember the name  let us use their restroom. Thank you beauty shop! We sat in the shade of the fire station and enjoyed our pb&j's. I got my second birthday present of the day. Galen found me two golf balls at a golf course that he had stopped at! I practiced my juggling for a little bit, then continued on my way. I rode with Kelsey, Alyssa, Eddie, and Noelle. I was glad that I was able to ride with Noelle, since this will be my last chance for a while. We stayed pretty close to the Mississippi, but we could never see it because of the levees. We did see so many factory, storage containery things that smelled funny. Second lunch was at a courthouse. We were able to use their drinking fountains and restrooms. Summer took photos of us as we pedaled up and Grant sprayed us down with a super soaker. By now we were at mile 68 and getting used to the idea that we were only just over half way when we would normally be almost there. We hopped back on the road and went past some beautiful Southern plantation houses. Around mile 88 I ran out of water so we pulled into a gas station. They only hot water coming out of the tap and their ice machine was down. However, the guy in the front went outside and opened up a bag from their ice chest and gave me a few scoops to cool my camelback. It was so nice of him. Louisiana people have been very nice so far. They always ask politely where we are from and are genuinely interested when they find out what we are up to. We stopped for directions at a bank and I walked out with $20 in donations! Even their honking is nicer than other places. I generally detest people honking at me. I try to see it in a positive light, but when you have spent the last 7 hours on the road and are sweating to death as you exhaust every muscle to inch your way up a hill, a jolt (honks are ALWAYS out of the blue!) from an air conditioned vehicle that will get to your destination 3 hours faster than you is not always appreciated. Please don't honk at cyclists, it's hard to read your intentions and motivations and can be taken the wrong way. But in my optimistic opinion LA has friendlier and more enthusiastic honkers than any other state. They be-be-be-beep instead of laying on the horn. In my opinion they are so surprised by us that they want to show their support by honking! We made it to mile 90 where we took an extend break and learned that the van was still back at second lunch. We set out, stopping only briefly at third lunch to fix Noelle's brakes. We powered on, celebrating as we reached 100 miles on our odometers. Yay! We really did it! We caught up with the first group and rode into Baton Rouge with them. We passed LSU and a small hike shop on our way to the church. I made it in eighths first group which was really exciting. We played some knock out in the church gym and laid on the cold floor while we waited for the trailer to arrive. I got another "side of the road present" from Galen, a very nice knife.  We unpacked, then went outside to cheer the sweeps home after a 12 hour day. Dinner was provided by St James Episcopal Church, a delicious beef brisket. We went back to the gym where we sat around and recovered from our ride. Summer gave me my birthday present, a bubblewand, which i proceeded to play with for a very long time! There were a few good massage trains, a hardcore tetherball game, then lots of sleeping for our build day the next day.