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.

Last day

New Orleans build day #5

Today was a wonderful, fun day! We woke up at 7:30 and prepared for the day ahead.  Everyone rode their bikes to their build sites today because we needed to ride downtown for a safety presentation in the evening.  We split into our build sites and were on our way!  Half of my group got to the site before the other half, so we decided to play a game with Nathan, our site supervisor.  We each put on a name tag, then introduced ourselves as if we had never met.  We had to tell the other person 3 facts about ourselves, then switch name tags and identities and repeat with a new person.  It was kind of like the game "telephone," but with a twist.  It was really fun seeing what the facts became after a few rounds of introductions.  I went from having had 14 cats and a dog (fact) to loving cats and hating dogs (fiction!).  When the rest of the group arrived we got back to the projects that we had been working on all week.  I had been doing siding, but we had run out of siding the day before.  I ended up cutting "soffit," a roofing type material for the porch.  I was too short to help install it, but Brettly, Sonja, and Josh E put it up on the front porch.  I went to the back porch and did prep work for the next round of soffit installation in the afternoon.  When lunch rolled around a few of us crossed the bridge to go to an amazing BBQ place, The Joint.  I had a great beef brisket, then headed back to the site with Kristina and Galen.  When we got back it was time to get to work. Unfortunately, we ran out of soffit, so we only put up two pieces.  We were also out of flooring materials as well, which caused a lack of jobs for the last hour-ish.  So we did what we do best and entertained ourselves!  We had handstand contests in the big bedroom.  Alyssa won every single one, but Josh and Josh did very good as well :)  We cleaned up and I took some "after" pictures to go with the "before" pictures that I took on Monday.  The differences are amazing!  16 Bike & Build'ers working for 4 days can make a big change.  When we arrived the rooms where nothing but drywalled walls with unfinished floors.  We left today with walls and ceilings painted, flooring 90% finished and all of the window sills installed and painted.  Plus, Brettly and I did awesome work and finished lots of siding during the previous few days.  We had a quick debriefing with Molly and Sarah from the St Bernard Project, then headed out for a safety lecture and discussion.  To get to the place, we had to bike through the French Quarter and downtown New Orleans, which was a lot of fun.  I really enjoyed seeing all of the touristy sites from my bicycle seat.  On the way we also stopped at the "Before I die..." wall.  On a street corner not far from the French Quarter, there is a condemned house with a wall painted black.  Stenciled in white is "Before I die..."  and a bunch of lines.  People take chalk and write their dreams on it.  Some of our Bike & Build dreams ranged from "looking back and smiling" to "riding with the A team" to "making the world a brighter place." We made it to our lecture/talk at 5:45, where Peter, from Wisconsin, who happens to be a League of American Cyclist's licensed instructor, talked to us about safety on the road.  We went over some situations that we have encountered on the road that have made us uncomfortable and how we can make our rides as safe a possible.  We headed back to Camp Hope for dinner, but first I stopped back at the wall with Prachi, whose group hadn't seen it before the lecture.  We took some photos, then found our way back.  I've only been in this city for 6 days, but I already feel like I know my way around the place, which is kind of strange to me.  We had hamburgers for dinner, which were delicious!  While I was eating my dinner, Noelle surprised me with an early rendition of the the Birthday song and 3 cakes!  My real birthday is tomorrow, but they decided that it would be better to do the cakes tonight so they wouldn't melt in the hot van tomorrow.  They were super cute and tasted amazing!  Thanks so much to Noelle for making them!  Some people headed out to a bowling alley for a little while and the rest of us stayed to clean bikes, do laundry, and gather our very spread out stuff into bags and bins. We have an early wake up in preparation for our first century (100 mile+) ride tomorrow, so every one is turning in early and heading to bed!  I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Levees

New Orleans build day #4
Some of us began the day with a rather unique opportunity.  We met up with Jamie Wine and Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis for a biking tour of NOLA bike infrastructure. We rolled around town and learned a lot about the different neighborhoods and parts of the city.  Jeremy is part of Bike Easy, a cycling advocacy group operating out of New Orleans. I wish I could have had much more time to talk with both about cycling and policy, but we needed to get back to the build site.  I  started out the day working with the last few bits of siding for the side of the house. We finished that pretty quickly, then moved on to unfinished bits of the roof. That lasted us until lunch. I planned on stopping by La tacoria de coyote, a taco truck on St. Claude, but I left my wallet up on the roof and didn't feel like getting it. Instead, I went with Sonja, Alyssa, Eddie, Coleman and a few others to check out the "make it right" community. This group of houses were sponsored by Brad Pitt and other donors. They all have crazy architecture which really interested me. We rode around a little bit in the area. The houses are right by where the Levees are that broke during the aftermath of the hurricane. we returned to the site, where we went back up onto the roof. We prepped the area, but there was no more siding left to put up, so we helped with the soffit on the front porch. We biked straight from the site to Global Green's headquarters in NOLA. They let us all take tours of a prototype house they created for the lower ninth ward. Only half of us could fit in at a time, so when we weren't touring we walked up the levee and looked out at the Mississippi river. The house was very interesting, but it seems cost prohibitive for such a poor area. We returned to Camp Hope where a delicious meal from P.F. Changs was waiting for us! We stuffed ourselves, then had our third family meeting. I love listening to everyone's highs and lows for the week. The majority of us had the same low; Monday night. People's highs were much more varied. I think mine was something about the 3 states in 3 days thing :) Anyways, it was late when we finished and we all went to bed.

Yay construction!

New Orleans build day #3

We biked to our build sites again this morning. We were given the option to go or not to go to the build site after the difficult news the night before. Most people chose to continue what they had started and jumped right back into work. After finishing the back of he house, I thought I would be done with siding... not so! We set up the scaffolding and did the side of the house. This went much smoother since we knew what we were doing and we didn't have to deal with any angles! Brettly and I sided for the most part of the  day with a break for a fast moving thunderstorm. We figures standing on a large metal structure wouldn't be prudent :) I went inside and primed all of the window sills, so that they can be properly installed and painted soon. By the time I finished that the storm had let up, so I quick finished the last strip and we took down the scaffolding. Ohhh! Random siting!  A whole bus load of people stopped by to tour our site today. They were there for a national volunteer conference and Danielle and Shauna just happened to be there! It seems so strange to run into people I know while I'm here in the south. After building, Lama, Kelsey and I set out for Walmart. It's a little sad how excited I can get about non-chocolate chip flavored cliff bars.  Just sad... We had dinner provided by a cafe/eatery in town and it was delicious. I went to bed early because I had had an late night the day before.

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!

Why I Build

New Orleans build day #1

We had a late wake up of 7:30 am this morning, which caused some confusion since it had never actually been announced the day before. Some poor people got up at 6:30 (our normal build wake up) and got ready, only to realize they could have had another hour of sleep. We had an orientation by another B&B alumni who also works for the St. Bernard Project. She told us about the story of the man from whom they lease their offices. He had stayed to wait out the storm. When he went out to assess the damage, he saw a little water trickling his way. Just to be safe, he decided to take his dog and leave for a few hours. In the time it took to grab his dog and a change of clothes, the water was over his knees. He retreated to he second floor of his apartment building and stuck a t-shirt out the window. Someone came by with a boat and brought him to a bank roof for a real rescue. He and the others on the roof set a deadline in their minds... It shouldn't take longer than three days to be rescued. As Molly said, "how long does it take to reach America from America?" Three days stretched into four, four into five and five into six. They waited on the roof, in August Heat, for six days with minimal food and water, before they were finally rescued by the Canadian Mounties. I thought I knew all of the facts and the figures about affordable housing and I thought I knew why I was here. But when Molly was talking it really hit me. She talked about his experiences and why he let's them keep their offices in his building. After waiting on a roof for six days, he thought nobody cared. And to have groups coming down six years later to help him and his community shows that people do. I didn't see that impact in what I was doing until she said that. 

We split into two groups and went off to our build sites.I spent the rest of my day working to correct he mistakes of earlier volunteers. The original French doors on the second story had been salvaged, but the group that had been asked to paint them  had really done a number. Not only did they miss massive spaces and leave lumpy bits in the paint, they painted the glass. They didn't tape and the didn't seem to care. Josh A, Kristina and Christine C worked with me all day to scrape, tape and repaint the door. It was a little frustrating, but I am glad we were able to save the doors. We left a little early, as we were having dinner with our build supervisors (and B&B alumni) and they needed to go home and cook. We went over to Nate and Colin's house, where we had fried chicken and spaghetti. They have a very interesting style of house, which seems to be popular in New Orleans, a shotgun house. There are no hallways, only rooms that you must walk through to get to other rooms. We had a lot of fun meeting their co-workers from the St. Bernard Project. SBP works out of St Bernard Parish adjacent to NOLA. St Bernard Parish is the only county in the history of the US to be declared 100% uninhabitable after a national disaster. Every single house was condemned. They are working to rebuild homes and are currently building their first ground up house. They are a great group and I'm fad I've gotten a chance to work with them.

Day off :)

New Orleans day off

Today was our first day off! I celebrated this fact by waking up at our normal time (stupid internal clock!) then rolling over and going right back to sleep. So satisfying! I slept in until the ripe old hour of 9am, then went downstairs to coordinate plans for the day. A hearty breakfast of lucky charms, lots of discussion and waiting for people to grab last minute things and we were on our way. We took the #88 bus from St Claude street to Canal. The bus ride was very fun and seemed so fast compared to our ride into the city the day before. Debarking on Canal, our big group split up and we went our separate ways. My group headed down the street where we found something we all had been missing: McDonalds. It may seem strange, but we spend our days riding past McDonalds's but rarely ever stop there to eat.  I got some fries and a glass of water which were quickly eaten. Then we set off to do our touristy best to see everything. With this trip I decided to deviate from my usual pattern. Normally, before I go anywhere remotely interesting, I will Wikipedia, googlemaps, and research as much as I can before I go so that I can have the best touring plan for the day. I made a very impressive itinerary for our trip to DC last year, but for this trip I decided not to do that. I figured that I would follow recommendations, go with a group and see what they saw. I can come back to New Orleans again if I don't feel satisfied, but I can never do it again with these people! We started out the day walking down Canal until we found a map... Then we turned around and walked back the other way when we realized that we had already missed the French quarter. We strolled around, looking at shops, artists and the sites. We even found a giant oyster festival in the square. I admit it, I didn't try the oysters!  Looked at all of the varieties, but nothing really appealed to me. So I had a snowball! They are a southern specialty that may even beat out sweet tea. Like a snow cone but with finer shaved ice, more flavors, and a bigger cup, that are everything you need when wandering around a strange city for hours at a time. I had a "wedding cake" flavored snowball which was vanilla-ee and wonderful! Later we found a gelato place and enjoyed paninis  in their store. It made me laugh to see my first true B&B takeover. Between Alyssa, Kelsey, Sadie, Summer, Prachi, Lama, Dre and I, every table was taken by a B&B-er. Granted it was a rather small shop, but it was still fun to watch. We wandered and shopped more. We ran into other B&B-ers which shuffled our group a little. Eventually, we ended up on the trolly heading back to canal. We had some bad luck waiting for the trolly, but managed to get on it with only one incident! We rode to Canal where we decided to go back to Camp Hope where we could shower and prep for the rest of the night. We had a relatively uneventful trip back, where Steph made friends with everyone else on the back of the bus. We showered and met up with other groups. Eventually 12 girls set out for NOLA and a good dinner. We caught the bus and headed for the French quarter again. The Gumbo shop was our destination and it was wonderful! I had some chicken gumbo...mmmm! So good! Not too spicy, very flavorful, and perfect amount of soup. I highly recommend them. Because of the 50 minute wait forthe next bus,we decided to take a cab back. Christine and I had a great conversation with our cabbie. I don't remember his name, but he worked in the Pakistani police when he was younger and farmed. The last 3 years he has driven for NOLA. It was very interesting to listen to him tell his story. After we got back we crashed and went to bed!