Baton Rouge build day
The day began at 6:30 with an early wake up. We had an amazing breakfast provided by St Johns Episcopal Church. I had grits for the first time and enjoyed the orange juice! We were shuttled to the build site around 7:30 where we dove right into the work. My van load started working on framing prep. We cut and nailed together lots of pieces. Soon we had door and window frames of every size and shape assembled. The other van load started the day laying sod at a house across the street. When they finished they joined us at the framing house. It was a lot of fun getting to wail away at the nails. Thanks to all of my time working on framing in Jacksonville, I've gotten pretty good at hammering. I can usually get the nails in straight and quick. It's nice to see the improvements not only in biking, but in other aspects of my life such as construction skills. We worked really fast and got a ton done by lunch. We were able to into an almost finished house and enjoy the air conditioning while we had our customary post-lunch nap. After lunch we went back to framing but we had a small problem. We had worked so quickly and efficiently that there was nothing left to do. All of the wood at the site had been cut, all os the landscaping on the other site had been done, we even cleaned up around the framing site. Van-essa came and picked up a load of people to go back to the church. Christine C, Galen and I decided to wait outside instead of in the very cold A/C. We settled in for an outdoor nap, but were quickly awakened when the sewage truck came to empty the porta potties. We headed across the street where we spied a hose. A nice splash party later we were all feeling much cooler and cleaner! It was so nice to rinse off. It is so hot that I was nearly dry before it was my time to get in the van. We returned to the church and decided that we needed to explore Baton Rouge more. Sonia, Bwalsh and I headed to the root beer float place and had...you guessed it....root beer floats! Yum! So good after a build day. Next, I headed to the bike shop that we rode past yesterday with Will and Eddie. They were awesome at the shop. I got my cable housing replaced because it was starting to break. While we were there it started to downpour, but I didn't want my bear to get wet. So I got a big bag from the shop, cut the arm whole larger and wore it over my camelbak. It looked pretty ridiculous. But it did the job!
We headed to LSU's campus where we found the stadium and Mike the Tiger. They have a real, living, breathing tiger on campus! He was sleeping but we took lots of pictures with him. Dinner was going to start soon, so we headed back to the church with a quick stop at CVS. Sonja had donation magic'ed us some pizza and others got us doughnuts, rice and smoothies. Sounds strange, but it was a really nice combination. When we finished we got out our bouncy house and took "action shots" of us running and jumping over the side. Absolutely hilarious! Check out the Facebook photos if you are able. They are great. I don't know if Alyssa posted them, but my favorites are the "mistakes" where the person is halfway out of the shot. Sonia, Summer, Kristina and I had a nice chat/nap session in the bouncy house, then put it back in the trailer and went to sleep for real.
i did see and love the bouncy house action shots! you are going to have so very many skills when finished with b&b, who needs grad school?! yay root beer floats! yay tiger! being in michigan is so weird. but i think i like it. i certainly like being closer to your time zone!
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