Siding shmiding

New Orleans build day #2

We started out the day on our bikes, a very strange concept for us on a build day. Everyone was a little apprehensive about biking to the work site, but it ended up being really close to Camp Hope where we are staying. We showed up to a shell of a house. It had been framed, drywalled and (partly) sided, but not much else. Nate warned us that this was going to be a great house to get some before/after shots from. I took a few before shots and hopefully I will take some after shots at the end of the week!  I ended up working on finishing up the siding. Brettly and I were charged with finishing the small triangle that made up the top of the roof. Sounds easy, right? Nope! It was exactly the opposite of easy! First we assembled the scaffolding, then reassembled it when we realized that we had put the top pieces in the middle. We fixed that up, then set to work on making a template so we could quickly and easily trace the angle onto all of the pieces we were working with. We definitely made it past lunch without making any tangible progress... We cut lots of siding, but every thing was too short, or the angle was off or something else! Ahhh! It was a little frustrating, mostly because of the heat. Working so meat to the hot roof and the extremely reflective siding really increased the ambient temperature of the work space. We managed to finish up just as it started to pour and as the work day came to a close. We tore down the scaffolding and put everything away in the house. In the time that we had been working on siding that little chunk, the rest of the team had painted a ton! The place looked so much better. I cant wait to see how it'll look on Friday. After we biked back in the rain( first time of the trip!) we piled in the van to visit a local bike shop. We first stopped at Plan B, a bike co-op. They have tools and knowledgable experts, but you do your own work. They have a ton of old bike that you can buy for super cheap and fix up for free with used parts. They also sell a bunch of higher end stuff at cost, so the bar tape that was $16 in Tally was $10 in NOLA. We talked with Cory, a volunteer at Plan B. He works for the Coast Guard in real life, but spends his free time volunteering with the group. He even shoes us around the backroom, where they store bikes, frames, and parts. Try and find pictures on Facebook or our photo bucket account because this place was awesome! But it didn't really have everything we needed, so we walked to another shop. People stocked up on supplies and we headed back home. On the way back we passed the "before I die" wall. I really wanted to stop, but I hope to go with Alyssa thursday. It's just the wall of an abandoned house which was painted with the chalkboard paint. The top says "Before I die..." and there are a bunch of lines for people to fill in. Sonja found it and told us about it online a few months before the trip, so it would be really exciting to see it for myself and write my plans on the wall. After we got back we had a great dinner of red beans and rice provided by Mark's parents. 

Later that night we had the announcement about Christina's passing. Bike & Build is truly like your road-family and to lose a member, even one I've never met, hit me hard. I am very sorry for her family and for her teammates.  I don't know what I would to if it were one of my teammates in trouble. In the three short weeks that we have known each other, we have become very close. As has been said before, B&B days feel more like a week than a day. It seems like I have known everyone on my trip for decades not days.  I would he devastated if anything were to happen to any of my teammates. I sat through the meeting, then called a a friend to chat. I watched a few episodes of Friends with Sonia, then went to bed!