Kittery,Maine -> Andover, Mass.

I'm posting this a day later, and I'm already blanking on what all happened.  We had two state crossings during the day, Maine to New Hampshire and New Hampshire to Massachusetts. The first part of the trip was great, we were chugging along comfortably at a good clip. We had it marked on our cue sheets where the borders were, but there were no signs into either state.  We were also told ahead of time about a rive/pond to go swimming about 20 miles in. Everyone stopped and at least got their feet wet.  Some of us went swimming, it was a little cold at first, but also refreshing.  From there it was a 10ish mile leg to get to lunch.  The streets were busy coming into town, and it was hilly so navigating to finding the trailer was a little hairy. 

After lunch I joined in with two different people, both architects, who wanted to see a library at a boarding school nearby.  As we were coming up on the building, it was completely unmarked, dark red brick, maybe 6 floors,  with some wood trim around the windows.  We locked our bikes along the side and had to almost walk completely around the building just to find the door.  When you go up the stairs to the lobby, the inside was completely open with huge concrete circles on each side that were probably 40-50 feet in diameter.  I have a couple photos of it I'll try to post. 

We got back on the road and figured there were two or three groups ahead of us, but there were no chalkings from  them to help with directions. At some point I reset my computer so it was a little bit of a struggle to know where we were on the cue sheet. Fortunately we were following the same St. Route until we hit the Mass. border, so I just kept my eye out from there.  The hills started getting bigger it seemed as the day went on.  As we were climbing one, I saw a group ahead of us at the top waiting at an intersection.   They went straight, but we were supposed to turn right.  At that point, I finally figured out where we actually were on the cue sheet, so I began marking intersections with chalk. At some point, we came across another group taking a break. They thought we were leading the way, so they weren't chalking.  My group took of first, cruising along hoping to find a good state border sign. We were disappointed; the best thing they had was a big sign entering the city.  As we were taking pictures,the van and trailer was passing by so they stopped to take pictures and hang out as everyone else rolled through.

We took off again, there was about 10-15 miles left at this point, so we thought it would be a nice cruise.  I think we were met almost immediately with hills and more hills.  We were going downhill as we were approaching Andover, which was obviously great, but also a little nerve wracking to be watching traffic and stop lights and trying to find the right streets to turn on.  Out of no where, we see some construction, which then became torn up concrete. You know, when they rip off the asphalt and its becomes super rough. Yeah going over that on a bike certainly rattles a lot of bones. Apparently somewhere in there we missed a turn, but got lucky and ran into the next street we needed anyway.  Turns out, just about everyone missed that turn.  We finally hit the last 3-5 miles, except it was up huge hills to get into Andover.  And I mean huge hills.  We finally made it to where we were staying,  a private school that was really nice.  We managed to beat the trailer there, but it arrived not too long after us. There was one person who managed to get 3 flats today.   My bike was still really gross from being on the beach and bike trails the other day, so I spent some time cleaning it before dinner.

DINNER WAS AWESOME! We went to a Bike and Build alum's parent's house.  He did several trips, but unfortunately was killed in an unrelated cycling accident several years back. His parents still wanted to share his passion for B&B so every year they have our route over and serve a full Thanksgiving dinner which even included a cooler of beer!  One of my trip mates painted a picture of Chris as a gift for his parents. They were very happy to see that, and explained that even though it makes them emotional, they love to have us over year after year.   They then turned the tables and had us go around and talk a little about ourselves and what makes us want to do B&B.   It's cool to me to hear of all the different people, each with different majors and backgrounds and how they all relate to affordable housing.  

Earlier in the day, one girl's rear derailleur snapped off her bike.  Apparently this has been a common problem with the bikes we get, but no bike shop is ever prepared to fix it.  She got a new one somehow, so I helped her get the new one installed before going to bed.  

day 1-4

My trip started Thursday morning with a drive to Boston.  It made so much more sense to me to drive there with my bike rather than worry about buying a plane ticket and shipping my bike and all that jazz.  Of course it rained at least 70% percent of the way. We did stop at Niagra Falls which was kind of along the way, and totally worth it.  I spent a few days in Boston, doing touristy things so that was awesome. Sunday morning we left for Maine, picking up a couple other riders along the way.

First two days were orientation, so lots of talking and presentations, pretty standard somewhat boring stuff.  Its fun to me to watch people meeting for the first time because I watched it all the time working at camp. It's also somewhat annoying to me to be on the "camper" side rather than the leadership side. the second day, we took a bike tour of affordable housing in Portland.  It was really cool to hear all of the stories and the different types of developments going on.  I think  I could stand working with affordable housing some day. Day three was a build day out in the burbs of Portland. We worked on a triplex installing windows, installation, and strapping.   I was on strapping, basically attaching wood strip to the outside of the house so the siding has something to attach to.  We stayed in the same church for 3 nights, so that's different than what we will experience for the rest of the trip.

This morning was our first riding day! On paper, it was 60 miles.  What they didn't tell us was that we had a 5 mile ride to breakfast and then a 5 mile backtrack to the beach. We had a rear wheel dip in the ocean with an eventual front wheel dip in the Pacific at the end of August.  We break into groups of about 5 during the day so that we're not all bunched together. We get a cue sheet everyday that has a list of directions, where to turn, how far to go on each road, and other important information on it.  There were a couple turns that were poorly marked, so within 10 miles we had already missed a turn and had to do some backtracking. the majority of the first part of the ride was on a bike path, which would have been nice except it was gravel, or packed dirt; basically not  a very smooth comfortable ride.  Then there was a portion where we were on the road working to reconnect with the trail later. Thanks to wonderful New England roads that have way too many roads meeting at an intersection, we took too much of a slight right and again missed a turn.  By this point, my group had caught up with several  other groups who too were lost.  It took us a while and several phone calls but eventually we made it back to where we messed up so we could get back on track.  We got back on the bike trail again, which was a flat packed dirt 6 miles. This would have been great, except I was annoyed with being lost, and knew lunch was coming up soon, so I just wanted a break. 

Bike and Builders are notorious for the great act of Donation Magic. Basically at random stops along the way, we stop at businesses and try to get free stuff. Today we stopped at a DQ hoping to get some free mid-morning ice cream.  NO Bueno, but the manager was nice enough to donate $20 towards our cause.  Later after lunch, we stopped to try and score some free mini golf.  We were able to get it half off, that was another good break, but sadly I lost. 

After lunch I was mostly just wanting to keep moving and get done. Most of the way were rolling hills. All of the houses were really nice, and occasional views of the ocean were a nice sight.  the types of trees in Maine are also really nice, it seems much more green than in Ohio.  One of our trip leaders had a friend who met us about 20 miles from the finish with Popsicles and water. From there we rode straight to our host site.  I was in the first group to get to our host, so I had time to get a shower before dinner. Yay!  Since a lot of our host sites are in a church, we usually have to go somewhere else to get a shower. Today we had about a mile walk to get to a school to take showers.  It was weird because there was no one there to meet us, and we had no instructions on how to get to the showers so we ended up wandering around to find an unlocked door and then walking around inside until we found the showers. Dinner of course was great. All of the hosts have been excited to have us, and have had more than enough food.  It's nice now that once dinner is over we're pretty much free to do whatever until curfew(11).

One last piece of great news, at WalMart last night I picked up a BopIt.   Hopefully that will provide ample amount of entertainment this summer. 

Tomorrow we have another 60 mile day, and we get to cross two state lines! I've made it my goal to play the lottery in every state, so hopefully I'll be lucky tomorrow.