Palmdale Build Day.

Today was our last build day, but by far the best!

We worked alongside with youth builds from Palmdale and East LA. Palmdale was working on a housing complex for homeless youth build students including a wing for teen moms. In the center was a community center for the surrounding neighborhood. We split into teams, some people were tearing down drywall in the housing wing, some were painting the outside. I was framing and sheeting the walls for the community center. When we started, two walls were up. We framed the remaining two and then put up sheeting on almost the entire building. I felt like we knew what we were doing, and the leaders seemed to trust us to get things done right. We worked and I got a nice blister to prove it.

When we got back from the host, we were surprised with one of the Bike & Build directors biking in to meet us. He flew into Santa Barbara the day before and cycled the 120 miles to Palmdale with all his stuff to meet us. Later on one of the other directors, Natalie also made it out. We were glad to have them back. Our host grilled up hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner which was also awesome.

We had final discussions on who would be the recipients of the money we were allotted. Bike & Build has 4 ways of distributing money one of which being competitive grants which the riders help choose who receives the money and how much. We had a very democratic process that was relatively painless.  It was nice to be done with that and be able to enjoy the rest of the night and trip not having to worry about it. We watched a lot of videos we made this summer partially to show Natalie and Justin and also because it had been a long time since we watched ,most of them.

Our last week of riding was all pretty short so we made the most of our nights knowing we could sleep in the next mornings.

Wrightwood-> Palmdale, CA

Finally the day we had been long awaiting: PROM!!

Naturally I had to ride with my prom date today, so Sarah and I took off back down the hill. We backtracked down the mountain past yesterday's lunch stop and then some. It seemed silly because yesterday and today could have been combined no problem but I'm sure there was a good reason for it. Anyways, we took off down the hill and set a record average of over 30 mph. We got to lunch first in record time, most people stopped for coffee.  We almost didn't stop but, we decided to go for a soda. As we were drinking, we got a message that Andrew's mom was bringing us all kinds of goodies. By the time we left everyone else had arrived at lunch. We went from not stopping to staying for well over an hour.

Sarah and I still didn't have proper attire because there were practically no thrift shops the past week. We bypassed the host and headed for the Goodwill. The ladies working there were more than amazed by what we were doing. One kept saying she couldn't wait to get and tell her kids to stop being so lazy. Sarah and I decided to dress as an old couple and found the appropriate attire.   We made it to our host eventually. 

We stayed at a youth build. We had mentioned Youth Builds a lot, but no one really knew what they were. Basically its a charter school for 16-24 year olds at risk. Usually they are high school drop outs looking to get their diploma or GED. Alongside the education they are taught skills to get them into the workforce. Most schools build houses to teach construction but this one also included business, nursing, and wild fire fighting. The students do a lot of volunteering in their community and it teaches them the proper way to behave in society. They also don't have tests but rather must show they understand what's taught to them in real life applications.

Our prom was held at a bowling alley bar, all that within walking distance. Everyone looked awesome. E very couple had a unique theme and no one half-assed it. We sat in the bar for a while but some of us ended up bowling for a while. It ended up being a really fun night. Our host, Danny even came out with us the whole night and even dressed the part.

Victorville ->Wrightwood, CA

Today was my last sweep day with Daniel! We started off the day right with a 7-11 stop to try some Shaq Soda.  Apparently Arizona now has branded soda for Shaq, it wasn't terrible, but I probably won't be purchasing it again. It was a short day, so people stopped for coffee.  We waited with them till they left and rode along behind them . the next group we stopped with were waiting at a gas station.   Daniel and I decided to get some lunch at Taco Bell partially because it's delicious, and also to kill time so we wouldn't have to wait for everyone. 

Eventually we made it to lunch and caught up with people again.  The rest of the trip was going to be uphill so we wanted to give the group ahead plenty of space so we could make the whole trip in one go. We chatted with Ellie and Kristen for a while, packed up the trailer and headed up the hill. We kind of took it each at our own pace. Daniel did it all in the big chain so he was a bit slower so I would hang back and at least stay in sight of him in case anything happened.

We made it up the hill and found a nice little town where everyone was hanging out in various shops. I went to the coffee shop and got a sandwich and hot apple cider. It was cool up there so a hot drink was actually really nice. We were supposed to camp at the very top of the mountain and the forecast called for rain. I wasn't looking forward to sleeping in the cold rain.  Everyone finally left but the girl at the coffee shop began calling potential places for us to stay. There is a church  in the area that also runs a camp. They agreed to let us stay there in their cabins. By the time word got up the hill, the trailer was unpacked and some tents set up. People were reluctant to come back down but eventually everyone came. Daniel and I, as sweep, should always be the last people to the host, but this time we were first. I found that very fitting for me.

The campsite ended up being really cool. I chatted with the directors while waiting for everyone to show up. They gave Daniel and I some blueberry cobbler which was amazing! Dinner crew made tacos which was better than the usual spaghetti and way better than the original plan for chili. After dinner we did town hall and discussed all our grant applications we received (I'll explain later). This took a long time but we got through it. There were a lot of places we wanted to give money but we had a limited amount to give.

Twentynine Palms ->Victorville, AZ

What's best to come after a 120 mile day? How about another 90 miles.

We got up early again for another hot day through the desert. Most people were a little more tired than usual due to the long ride the day before.  I rode with Sarah, which was good because that kept me at a slower pace.  Everything was fine until we encountered a huge hill.  It was kind of the last thing we wanted to see, but we made it to the top and enjoyed a nice downhill.  The rest of the morning was rolling hills and a nice tailwind.  I think after yesterday we were all pretty confident in saying we've biked across the country instead of being still in the process. There wasn't much to see except Joshua trees and at one point an emu!

After lunch we hit nice vast stretches of nothing but sand and headwinds.  I pulled most of the way which was fine because I wasn't nearly as tired as Sarah was. We passed a road side bar-b-que stand, where the lady yelling "cold water" had no problem convincing us to stop.  They gave each of us a bottle of water and we shared our story of what we were doing. It's so nice to be met with such friendly people along our trip. We continued on to the town of Apple Valley where we were originally supposed to stay.  It was a nice place with all kinds of shops along the main road.  Unfortunately we were were staying in the next town of Victorville. It seemed nice at first  with Route 66 signs greeting us, but quickly turned south when we realized all the businesses were boarded up and some people witnessed a fight going on.  We biked as fast as we could to get to the host, but first had to stop at a 7-11 for some slushies! Upon entering the door, the cashier made sure we had our bikes locked up.

We got to the church to find out we missed the shower shuttle, and the showers would close before any other groups could make it.  We had to end up using a wrench to open up the spigot outside to take a hose shower.  Tonight was our last Olympic challenge: the no smile dance off.  Basically you dance, making constant eye contact, and if you smile, you're eliminated.  Most people didn't stand a chance.  It ended up coming down to Sarah and Matt. They danced for probably 10 minutes, before ending in a draw.  Somehow my team got deducted 10 points, but we still ended up coming in overall at first. We chose trailer crew as they typically only have to load the trailer in the morning.

It's hard to believe we only have a week left! 

Parker,AZ->Twentynine Palms, CA

120 miles through the Mojave? sure, why not. 

We got up at 3:30, and left at the still very dark 4:45. Of course I had no headlight, so I couldn't see more than maybe 5 feet ahead, couldn't read the cue sheet, my computer, or even street signs.  I was fortunate to be following a group with a light so that got us out of town with relative ease.  We stopped at the first gas station we found to get Ice water because the water at the campsite sucked.  We crossed the river and entered California when it was at least light enough to get a picture with the sign. I was very tired from waking up so early that I thought I was pretty close to falling asleep on the bike.  Usually I get over this in the first 5 or so miles, but it wasn't happening today.  Fortunately, we came across one more gas station and I chugged a Monster to get going again. that did the trick.

Since there was literally nothing between these two stops,  every 20 or so miles Andrew set out water stops usually in plastic jug-bags on the side of the road for us to fill up if necessary.  We got to first lunch and were surprised when Jake's parents surprised him.  This was the closest they would be to their house, so they brought up Gatorade and M&Ms.  It was too early to be hungry, so I ate my M&M's and took off.  The sun was out at this point and it was getting pretty warm, we were also going into the wind and slightly uphill making it seem like this was going to be a very long day.  We got the next water station, took a short break and took off again.  Fortunately, things turned around from here.  It started getting overcast and the winds turned and were pushing us at times.  There was a point where we didn't even have to pedal because we were going downhill for 4 or 5 miles.  The ride wasn't as bad as we thought, and Casey and I made it to the milage where  second lunch was supposed to be. Of course we were ahead of the van, so we picked a nice spot atop a hill with a nice cooling wind and waited for the can to arrive.  We waited probably 30-40 minutes before the van came and we could eat. 

Of course Andrew had to jinx us and say the rest of the ride was downhill with a tailwind....As soon as we left lunch we were greeted with a downhill and miserable headwind.  We were pedaling hard and still only going maybe 14mph.  Eventually we turned and had the wind on our back again.  We were able to cruise along easy going 20-25 mph.  A Yale Bike Challenge (the original B&B) alum and friend of Kristen met us at mile 100 with more Gatorade and snacks.  We were chatting with him, but realized there was a storm starting to roll in.  We took off just as it began to rain. As we were riding off to one side we saw lighting and could hear thunder but I was never really under it.  The last 10 mile were annoying just because we were basically in town, but still had a pretty decent chunk left to ride.  Eventually we made it to the host. I don't remember the exact  time, but it was surprisingly early, maybe 2 or 3. I settled in for a nap expecting to be waiting for a long time for everyone else, but they were all in well before I expected.  Most people got stuck in the storm which resulted in flash flooding. Some people had to walk through knee deep water in the road to get through some flood rivers.  We had to cook our own dinner tonight, which was fine, and then my chore group went and got ice cream so we could discuss grant applications we were given. 

Mohave Valley-> Parker, AZ

Today started off hot, and wasn't going to get any better.  People were expecting to ride along the Colorado, right along the California border, but that ended up not happening.  Casey and I rode quickly trying to beat the heat.  Lunch was at Lake Havasu at a gas station. We ate quickly, filled up and took off.  We passed signs for the London Bridge and I remembered reading about how the original London Bridge had been moved somewhere in America. Casey didn't believe me, so we stopped checked Wikipedia, confirmed my thoughts and grabbed a  couple pictures. 

The rest of the day was hot.  We were in the desert going up and over hills.  We got to a good second lunch stop, but were way ahead of the trailer.  We decided we had enough water to make it the last 20 or so miles, so we just stopped for a couple snacks before proceeding on. I yet again got another flat. Fortunately I found the source, and removed it. We followed the cue sheet to where our campsite was supposed to be, but it was no where to be found.  We went to a restaurant and got some food and prepared to wait there for a while until other people started showing up. 

Not too long later, Sam showed up.   She was set on finding someone with a boat and getting them to give us a ride.  She walked to the dock/bar and went up to the first people she saw and sure enough they agreed to take us out.  Things turned bad pretty soon.  Rather than having a nice speed boat, they had a pontoon they rented for the weekend and clearly had no idea how to drive.  We rode down to some sandbar and hung out there for a while.  By the time the boat-drivers decided to leave, they were all plenty intoxicated.  The ride back was not the most exciting, we stopped for gas and it took them at least 5 minutes to find where the inlet was.  When it came time to dock and drop us off, they couldn't maneuver the boat into the space and ended in a heated family argument.  I was glad to get off of there and get to our campsite.  Turns out we were 2 or 3 miles away still.

Since we had to get up way early tomorrow(3:30) we decided to not use tents and just sleep on the ground.  That made setting up easy!.  Dinner was provided by an almost-alum(he signed up but couldn't ride due to getting a full time job). He took us to a restaurant within the campgrounds.  Apparently they focus on serving drinks to boaters rather than dinner, as their menu had maybe 20 items on it and they ended up running out of pasta for one person.  We went to bed as early as we could because we were getting up way early to beat as much heat on our longest ride of the trip! 

Kingman-> Mohave Valley, AZ

Today was a unique day for me.  I had a phone interview scheduled for 11:30AM.  I wanted to avoid having to do it on the side of the road so I planned on riding out by myself and getting done as fast as possible.  Fortunately, it was a short day, and was overall downhill.  I think most people stopped for coffee, but we were also expecting it to be hot so people wanted to get done before it got too hot.  Lunch was up and over a mountain pass.  We didn't gain a whole lot of elevation, but the climb went on for a long time.  It was really cool to wind through the mountains on the way up.  I got to lunch and realized I was well ahead of schedule and it would actually be downhill the rest of the day.  I hung out and waited for the next group to show up before I took off. 

The downhill after lunch was awesome.  Usually they're pretty straight and fast, but today's was windy and had sharp banked turns. Even though I had to brake a lot more, it was more fun than just sitting and going straight.  The route rolled through the old mining town of Oatmen.  When the mines shut down, they set the burrros free, and now they just wander through the town aimlessly.  When I went through they weren't actually in town, but I found a pack of them on the opposite side.  I thought one got hit by a car in the middle of the road and was dead, but turns out they just lay down and take naps in the middle of the road whenever they want.  When other people got to town, the burros were actually in the town hanging outside of shops hoping to catch a free meal. 

Once I got into Mohave Valley, the cue sheet had us turn down a dirt road.  I quickly looked at the map and found a reroute that was actually paved. It ended up being further than the cue sheet had listed, but I still made it into town with enough time to find a restaurant, eat lunch, and relax before my interview.  We were staying in a school, so we didn't have access to where we ere staying until 2.  I stayed in the restaurant for a while and then went over to a little park to take a little snooze.  Eventually we got in, took hose showers, and then host provided us pizza for dinner. Some people went and swam in the Colorado, or set up a slip and slide, but I was content with taking an extra nap. 

We had two Olympic challenges tonight: bag weight and Therma-rest rolling.  Bag weight was simply the average team weight of bags. I think we came in 3rd. We're supposed to be limited to 50 pounds, but there were a couple people over that limit.  I think the overall average was around 35 lbs.  Matt and I had been practicing Therma-rest rolling to see who was faster.  We were both down around 30-35 seconds, but I was slightly faster.  I knew I could get it under 30 seconds, so that was my goal.  I ended up winning with a time of 28 seconds again beating the other team by a solid 20-30 seconds.  At this point we pretty much had enough points to have the victory regardless of the last challenge. 

Seligman->Kingman,AZ

Since we were camping out, most of us were awoken in the middle of the night to strong winds.  I wasn't sure if it was going to rain or not, but since I was laying closest to the tent door, I grabbed everyone's stuff outside and brought it all in.  There was a tent that got set up but no one slept in.  I looked out to see Chris desperately taking it down so it wont blow away in the heavy wind.  This was hilarious to me, but apparently I was too tired to get out and help. It never did end up raining, thankfully. 

Before leaving town in the morning, almost everyone stopped for breakfast.  I waited with them for a while, but eventually took off with whoever else didn't order any food.  The ride was pretty boring.  Rt.66 didn't have the best pavement but for the most part was pretty flat.  I rode with Casey and we were out in front.  Kingman was the first In-n-Out we encountered and the west coast people had been hyping it up for the past week or so.  Casey and I got into town early enough that we weren't hungry so we went straight for the host and planned on going over there later.  We walked into the office of the church and began talking to the pastor there.  We quickly realized he didn't know we were for sure coming, so it was a little messy trying to get everything set up.  Turns out all the plans were made through the youth pastor, so there was just a lack of communication, so it all worked out.  I took a nap while waiting for other people to show up.  Most people bypassed the church and went straight for In-n-Out.

Eventually the van showed up,  so we unloaded it and got everything set up for the night.  The van dropped Melissa and Ellie off at the hospital so Melissa could have her shoulder looked at earlier in the day.  The hospital was conveniently right across from the In-n-Out, so we convinced Kristen to give us a ride over there rather than forcing us to bike.  I finally got In-n-Out for the first time in many years. I still don't see why people make a big deal out of it, but it's still fun to get things not found at home. 

Tonight's Olympic challenge was the laundry burrito. Each team had to roll up the laundry tarp, load it into the van, close the door, then open back up, unload the van and run the burrito back to the starting location.  We had Melissa on our team who was master burrito wrapper on our trip. We had a great strategy planned, studied other teams flawed and were prepared for battle.  I don't remember our exact time, but I do remember that it was at least 20 seconds faster than the second place team.  Our team remained in first tonight and even got bonus points for cheering on other teams. 

Williams->Seligman, AZ

Today was a short day. In the morning we rode on I-40! Apparently that's legal in AZ? I hung back to help Sam fix her bike, so I rode by myself for a while.  This was really fun because it was mostly downhill so I was able to speed along and get a fast average for the morning.  I passed a couple groups as I flew down one of the hills, and then began passing groups of people stopped changing flats.  Soon enough, I got a flat of my own. I had a tube to replace this one, but if I remember correctly I got another flat and had to wait for another group to pass so I could get another tube from them. I ended up riding with people the rest of the day in case something else happened.  We got into town pretty quickly. 

Seligman is another historic Rt. 66 town.  We explored the town for a bit before settling in at a burger  and shake place and managed to get food donated to us.  We continued to check out all the little shops.  They all pretty much cold the same things. There were a ton of tourists here, and a lot of them spoke very little English.  Apparently the movie Cars is based on this town as one of the old shop owners fought to keep the interstate from running through there and instead tried to preserve Rt. 66. We stayed at a KOA.  There was a pool that we hung out in and around waiting to see if it was going to rain or not.  It ended up not raining so we began setting up camp. Being the barefoot enthusiast I am, I was walking around sans shoes not knowing there were a million goatheads all over. What's a goathead? A tiny little piece of plant that has all kinds of pointy ends on it that love to get stuck in your foot, shoe, and even give you flat tires.  After getting at least 20 of these in my feet I gave up and put shoes on.

Tonight was opening night of Bike&Build Olympics!  We were competing as chore groups in 5 different challenges for points to decide what chore each group would have for the last week. For opening ceremonies, each team had to come up with a creative entrance. Ours involved painting chests and doing Michael Jackson moves(we were team MJ, based on first names).  Somehow we managed to get the most points for this. The challenge of the night was to change the tube of a bike wheel the fastest.  I was selected as competitor in my group.  I didn't have much practice trying to do it quickly, but somehow managed to get a good jump on everyone else.  We had to use small road pumps to inflate the tires which is incredibly exhausting.  We had to inflate to at least 110 PSI. As I was eclipsing this, going for a  full 120, my tube exploded. This delayed me enough to only come in second, but since I was above the minimum I was credited with a complete change.  The first place team somehow cheated so they were deducted half of their points, so essentially we tied for first in this challenge.  

Williams Build day

This Habitat is also a small chapter.  In their 10 or so year history they've only built two houses,  They're at a point now where they have funding available to build new homes, but they are currently in search of a new family to build for.  They are now doing Brush With Kindness projects so we were split into two crews each painting the outside of houses.  One was a one story and the other, two.  I chose the two stories since I don't mind heights. 

We got to the house and they had us set up scaffolding.  Now this being Habitat, not everything was exactly as we were expecting. They didn't have enough of the right kind of scaffolding to reach the very peak of the house, so we had to get crafty and devise a platform to put a ladder on to reach the top.  I'm sure it was by no means safety approved, but it got the job done. I'll post pictures of it when I get home. 

By the time we got the scaffolding all set, breakfast arrived, so we took a break to eat.  We got back to painting, a nice dark blue color.  We made a lot of progress quickly, but hit a wall when we didn't have enough ladders or long paint brushes for us to all work on the high parts.  We broke out the trim color and some people began working on that.  The trim was a dark purple. The house quickly turned from nice, to kind of circus/clowny.  At one point, the homeowners daughter came by and was complaining to us about how bad the color choices were, but there was nothing we could do about it.  Again we reached a point where we couldn't reach any more areas to be painted.  Around this time, a storm started rolling in, and we decided there was no point in painting in the rain as it would just wash off.

It was nearly lunch, so we took a break inside the porch as the rain began to come down.  Lunch was delivered, we ate, and it was still raining.  We napped for a while before the site leader decided to just call it quits for the day.  We gathered everything together and cleaned up what we could before walking back to the church.  It was probably another hour till the other group got back.  Apparently their leader wasn't phased by the rain and had them continue paintiing despite the downpour.  I later heard stories of how they would paint a section and then come back a minute later and the rain had washed it all away.  They were also working in water puddles, on ladders, and with power tools while in a lightning storm; probably not the most safe thing.  We walked to the local commiunity pool to take showers. We had time before dinner so some of us went back out to explore the town.  After dinner we were surprised with Ellie's return!

While it's disappointing to not be able to finish a job, it;s nice to know we got a huge chunk of the project done in just one day. Tomorrow will start our longest stretch of riding, 8 days, including a 120 mile ride through the Mojave.  I don't think many people were hugely concerned with this as we were all pretty confident in ourselves at this point. 

Grand Canyon ->Williams, AZ

After taking down tents and loading the trailer, we decided to do our cheer and route meeting at the rim.  We rode out of the park and stopped for breakfast/coffee just outside since our coolers had been pretty well picked over.  In an exciting twist of events, we rode the same road out of the park as we did to get to the park. After backtracking 20 or so miles, I rolled into the same gas station we had lunch the last ride day.  I knew lunch was going to be randomly on the side of the road so I loaded up on lunch aka Mt. Dew and a bag of peanut butter M&Ms.  I rode by myself today, I guess it was because everyone I normally ride with was sore and tired from hiking so much the day before.  I hung out at lunch for a while, played some guitar and nose flute with Tessa waiting for other people to show up.  eventually I took off, to finish the ride. There appeared to be another storm looming over Williams which I was both excited for and dreading.  I never got hit with any rain, but I did get to watch lightning going off in the distance. 

On the way into town,  I passed this place called Bearizona.  We have Bearizona stickers on our trailer from previous years, so I looked up their website to see what it had to offer.  Turns out its like a drive through zoo where the animals can literally walk up and touch your car if you want.  Of course the name Bearizona means they have real bears along with wolves and other dangerous animals.  When the website warned cars to keep windows closed and doors locked, I figured it would be unsafe to bike through to I continued on.  Williams is a really cool nostalgic Route 66 town.  Since I got there so early, I met up with Steve the other rider out front at some restaurant for some wings.  Eventually we made it to the host around the block.  Rather than traditional on site showers or hose showers, we were shuttled to various people's houses to shower.  Dinner was provided by the host and we were briefed on what we would be doing at the build site the next day. 

It was finally our last laundry night!  We somehow managed to get stuck doing it 3 times this week, which isn't really that awful, but the fact that everyone else got to explore the town and we were stuck in the laundromat was a bit of a bummer.  The Habitat crew also wanted us ready to go bright and early the next morning which was also a bit unfortunate as we normally count on build days to get a couple hours of extra sleep. 

Grand Canyon Day Off!

We awoke before sunrise anticipating hiking down to the river and back in one day.  We mounted our bikes and took off.  Of course none of us knew where we were really going, so we were unable to find the trailhead we wanted to hike down. We made it to the rim in time to watch the sunrise, totally awesome!  We decided that it was too late to make it to the start of the trail we wanted and decided to just hike the Bright Angel Trail as far as we could and then turn back. Since it we were no longer in a time crunch, people decided they wanted to get breakfast at the cafe.  We spent time in there gearing up to go and then finally took off. 

The trail we were on was a maintained path. There were bathroom and water stops every couple miles.  When I got down about 3 miles to the second stop, I decided I would rather spend my day wandering around the rim than hiking in the canyon, so Casey and I turned back. The remaining group hiked out to Plateau Point, another 4 or so miles total I think.  I got to the top around 10 and was pretty hungry.  Unfortunately, they didn't start serving lunch foods for another hour, but we decided to just sit in the restaurant and wait for it to be time.  We told the waiter we were fine with waiting for the kitchen to be ready, but he still came back every 10 minutes or so and apologized for not being able to serve us yet.  We spent the afternoon wandering around the various places on the rim, and rode the bus around for a little while to see other parts of the park.  We got back to the campground just as it began to rain. Most of our tents weren't the most water proof, so we moved things into safe places and then took cover in the van for a nice nap. 

I had been to the canyon before, but it was many years ago.  For me, the initial experience of seeing the canyon wasn't as dramatic as it was for some people, but the fact that we got here by bicycle from Maine will make it a memorable experience for sure.  

Flagstaff->Grand Canyon, AZ

GRAND CANYON!!!! I BIKED TO THE GRAND CANYON! It may be a month later, but holy crap, that's still amazing!

Most people went to get coffee, but Casey, Sarah, and I decided to forgo that.  We went to visit Ellie in the hospital since some of us didn't have time to go last night.  She was waiting to talk to the doctor to see what would need to be done.  I think at this point she knew she fractured a vertebrae, and was waiting to see what needed to be done. We left when the doctor came in, but turns out she would have to have surgery and get some screws in her back, but she was able to walk and everything and rejoined us a couple days later. 

We rode the day pretty anxious to get to the canyon.  It's always fun to stop somewhere different than everyone else in the morning because you have no idea who's ahead or behind you.  Turns out we were pretty much the front of the pack.  Sweepstakes for the day was best practical joke.  The ride was pretty boring, so we were stumped on something good to do.  Eventually we checked our phones to see if anything was going on, and we got a message from van driver Chris there was a surprise up ahead.  I had figured it to be a downhill, or maybe an ice cream shop, or someone meeting us with water and snacks, so we rode several more miles and found nothing.  Sarah then had the brilliant idea to chalk "SURPRISE"randomly on the road even though there was nothing there. At lunch we heard that some people stopped and searched forever looking for anything unusual. One person even called Chris because they couldn't figure it out, and apparently we caused a collision between two riders(it was low speed, no one was hurt). I'd say mission accomplished.

We got to lunch at a gas station.  Nothing terrible exciting, however, when I was inside, someone came up and started talking to me as if he knew me.  It took me a second to process, but it actually turned out to be someone I was talking to yesterday at the top of the switchbacks going into Flagstaff.  He said he knew we would meet again, and this time had a mini Bible ready to hand to me.  It was a totally bizarre experience, even if I may not believe God works in  the same way as he does, it was really neat.  I had a gas station roller dog for lunch as nothing seemed terribly appetizing in the cooler today.  

We took off after lunch for the last stretch into the canyon.  Casey had a flat or two, which was unfortunate because there was no shade to be found and there were a lot of tourists and tourists whizzing by on their way to the canyon.  We made it to our meeting point outside the park.  Unfortunately, we were unable to bike in due to how the park charges entrance fees.  We waited at the IMAX theatre, grabbed some food at the Wendy's next door, and just hung out waiting for the first shuttle into the park.  Chris took us in and drove past the canyon so we could catch the tiniest of glimpses of the big hole before heading for the campground.  This was our first time camping, so it was an experience figuring out which tent parts went together and sorting all of supplies so we could cook dinner and all that good stuff later.  I was a little bummed we were unable to bike all the way to the rim, and most people never ended up seeing the canyon that day, but we had a day off the next day.  We had a good time around the fire tonight trying to figure out just how much hiking we would want to do on our day off. 

Cottonwood -> Flagstaff,AZ

This is the day people have been talking to us about for a wee at least.  We kept being told how bad the climb was up to Flagstaff, how no one ever makes it without walking, how there was no shoulder and the cars had no tolerance for bikers.  Now personally, I like to discover things as they come up. There are some people who compare elevations from start point and finish point, and people who read up on previous years blogs, but I would rather be surprised around every bend. 

After our late start, we rode the 10 or 15 miles in Sedona. People decided to stop for coffee and other things, so rather than get way ahead, I decided to hang back.  We found a Panera-esque place and talked to the manager to see if we could get any donations.  Turns out the future owner of the house we worked on yesterday worked at this place and was even currently working. The manager gave us all(around 10 of us) free coffee and drinks, each of us got a pastry, and then  they even brought out eggs and hash browns(so good) for us! We took pictures with them. Its pretty common to meet the owners when we work on their house but this was so cool to randomly find them at work the next day!

We knew Slide Rock State Park was coming up soon, so we left for that.  The scenery the whole day was incredible! We did some research the day before and aside from the slide rocks, we discovered there was cliff jumping to be done at Slide Rock, something we had been searching for for quite a long time.  We paid to get into the park and immediately found  the group ahead of us had discovered the cliff and had jumped several times.  It was a bit intimidating, but I wasted no time jumping in.  It was an awesome experience.  I've jumped out a barn window into a pile of mattresses before, so this was a little less dangerous, but still came with a great adrenaline  rush.  The water was really cold, so unfortunately wasn't conducive for swimming. I ended up jumping 3 times.  We walked past the slide rocks on the way out, but we were hungry, and didn't want to get back in the cold water, so we ended up heading to lunch. 

After lunch I was tired of hearing all the locals tell us about how horrible the hill was about to be and I just wanted to get it over with.  I ended up leaving by myself.  The switchbacks were not bad at all, there were maybe 5 or 7 in total, and there were maybe 3 cars that passed me the entire way up the hill. There was a scenic overlook at the top, so I stopped there for some pics and a little break.  I ended up talking to a lot of locals up there because they were amazed we were able to ride this far and up that mountain.  The rest of the ride into Flagstaff was probably worse than that mountain, because it was getting late and I was just tired of being out in the heat and was ready to be done for the day but there was a miscalculation on the cue sheet and there was another 3 or 5 miles extra that got left out.  We had dinner donated to us by Chipotle, so we stopped by there on the way to the host.  This provided the boost I needed to make it the last little bit to the host.  We had a nice cold shower at the host that night and it was again our turn to do laundry.

We found out that Ellie had hurt her back jumping off the cliff, but she was able to walk and was in good spirits so I didn't think it was anything too serious. 

Cottonwood Build Day

Verde Valley was hoping to have us work on constructing a new home, but because of permitting and other issues they were behind schedule on even starting it. Instead, we were going to be painting the doors and outside of a house that was nearly complete.  Because it was a stucco house, we got to use spray guns, getting the job done much faster.  We were done painting before lunch.  Verde Valley provided us an excellent lunch at a nearby neighborhood community center.  At this point we were given the opportunity to either go to Sedona or a small town called Jerome.  Seeing as we were biking through Sedona the next day, everyone chose Jerome.

We loaded up the vans, and took off up the hill(quite the hill) for Jerome.  Jerome was an old mining town that became a ghost town.  More recently it has become a tourist attraction for being haunted as well as having all kinds of little shops.  We wandered around town for a while.  Some people climbed further up the hill to find the haunted hotel, but most people wandered through the small shops and restaurants.  I stumbled upon a shop selling University of Jerome apparel.  They had everything imaginable branded with the logo making it very believable. Now Jerome is a small town of only a couple thousand people, so I had a hard time believing such a University existed.  I asked the shop owner about it, and turns out, she had made it up, and was just selling apparel about a fictitious school.  I loved the story so much I ended up buying a t-shirt from there at the bottom including the phrase "minor in gravity."

We made it back to Mago in time for dinner(they don't allow meat on site) and then most people went to a yoga session.  I didn't go, but it turned out to be some weird meditation/yoga/random dancing session. As a thank you gift from Habitat, we all got a t-shirt, card, and a lotto tickets(since we were all "worth a million bucks").   We once again laid out and watched for shooting stars.  We got to sleep in the next morning because we have to wait for breakfast to be served at Mago and then it's 25 minutes back to get our  bikes out of the ReStore and get ready to leave. 

Payson, Az->Cottonwood, AZ

Today was a  day of surprises to say the least.  We started off doing a lot of climbing, We wound up the side of a mountain. It was really beautiful, each turn provided better and better views.  I rode by myself and got into a really great climbing mentality and was able to just push out the whole thing no problem.  At the top we rode through a pine forest before turning onto a new road! I was surprised yet again by a 9 mile downhill sign.  Although it was mostly straight, the views the whole way down were incredible, and I loved every moment of it; I even contemplated turning around and riding back just so I could come back down again.  Lunch was near the bottom of the hill. I rolled up on Andrew changing out of his normal driving clothes into his cycling gear; he wanted to experience the downhill himself too.  Lunch was nothing special, and there was only a short stretch left before we were almost done. 

We were being hosted by the Verde Valley Habitat and they pre-arranged to give us a police escort into town.  We had our cue sheet arranged to have us all meet at WalMart before being escorted the leg.  We had a couple  hours to kill so we wandered around before settling into the McDonalds inside the store.  We were never told where we would be sleeping that night, just that it would be a surprise and was actually in Sedona.  While we were waiting a man shopping at WalMart came up to us and seemed to know everything about us boing in town and a lot about Bike&Build itself.  He mentioned something about us staying at some retreat center and told us he read all about it in the newspaper.  Naturally we looked the article up and turns out we were indeed staying at some spiritual Retreat center way out in the middle of no where.

Eventually it was time to leave so we all grouped up and took off for the Cottonwood ReStore.  The end of our route was lined with people holding signs and cheering us on.  They were clearly very excited to have us stay there.  We had to stash our bikes in the ReStore and be vanned to where we were staying.  It ended up being about a 20 minute ride out some dirt road outside of town to get to where we were staying, We basically stayed in hotel rooms, had our own beds and everything!  It weren't any typical night before a build day activities.  We swam in the pool and hot tub for a while and then we realized it was the last night of the big summer meteor shower, so Sarah, Casey, and I laid out and watched the start for a long time.  In more exciting news I was walking back from the pool barefoot and managed to step on a nail and get it shoved about half an inch into my foot; that was fun to pull out.

Payson Build day

The Payson Habitat was not currently building any houses, but instead doing projects called "Brush with Kindness," generally what this means is they find people in need of small repairs to their homes and help them out.  Usually this is for a disabled or elderly person, and often involves paining and other minor works.  We worked to paint the outside of a garage.  This sounded like an easy task at first, but the garage was much larger than anticipated, and there was a lot of detail and trim work to do.  I think we ended up running out of paint and time and were unable to totally finish, but the amount of work 20 people are able to get done in one day is definitely a huge benefit to any project. 

Once I got back and cleaned up, Diane Hillwig was able to come up from Pheonix to take me out to dinner.  It's always nice to see familiar faces in such far away places.  We first went to the bike shop so I could get a new tire as mine had been routinely giving me flats.   I can't remember where we went for dinner, but I had fish and it was most excellent.  The waitress was very intrigued by my tan lines, so I gave her  the quick rundown on what I have been doing all summer.  I had to get back to the group because it was my groups night to do laundry.

We had to first stop at WalMart to stock up on detergent which took longer than expected. I guess they were unable to process our non-profit info so they ended up giving us a $25 gift card instead.  We got to the laundromat and began loading the machines.  One of the machines ate our money, but we could hear the quarters dropping into the bottom of the machine.  We ended up moving the machine to  retrieve our money before moving it to another machine,    

Heber-Overgaard ->Payson, AZ

I purchased an American flag a couple days ago with the intent of flying it somehow on the last day of the trip. Since today was a short day and was supposed to be mostly downhill, I decided to see how it would work.  Most people started the day off by stopping at the coffee shop, I don't drink coffee, and I didn't want to sit around, so I waited to see if anyone else was going to bypass the coffee.  I ended up riding with Sarah and Ella V and we eventually found Sam ahead of us.  We took a relaxed pace knowing we had a big gap ahead of everyone who stopped for coffee.  Going downhill at one point, my flag got ripped off my bike at the pole got run over; guess that method didn't work.

Lunch was at the top of a hill at another lake.  Tessa went to the grocery store that morning meaning we had a whole new selection of foods to choose including lunch meat and an assortment of chips.  We took our food and ate next to the lake, again another beautiful stop.  We ended up spending almost 3 hours by the lake.  the water was really cold so most people just napped on the rocks at the shore. 

On the way out of lunch we passed the official 3,000 mile mark, how cool! We turned back onto the main road and found the most amazing view.  There was a drop off that looked into the valley for what seemed like forever and it was just filled with pine trees. We grabbed all kinds of pictures before taking off to yet another amazing surprise. What could be better than a long downhill? I can't think of anything.  My average speed must have been close to 40 going down it; it was so much fun.  The rest of the ride had a mix of ups and downs, but for the most part it was fresh pavement, making it bearable. 

Payson was more settled than we had expected, so navigating traffic and getting stopped at red lights and such was a little annoying.  We were told to stop at the Habitat ReStore as they were feeding us while in Payson and we would be working with them the next day.   Casey and I found the place, and stopped by.  They weren't expecting us to be as early as we were,so they didn't have snacks or anything ready yet.  This was funny to me, because we slept in an extra hour today, and spent a long time at the lake-without these distractions we could have easily been there before noon.  Either way, they sent us off to the church we were staying and said they would bring snacks and dinner over shortly.  I was still nursing a leaking tire, so by the time we rolled into the church I was all but flat. Dinner was great, and the local Habitat board was very engaged in talking to us and getting to know us each individually.  Needless to say it was an  incredible experience.

Seeing as we had a build day the next day, our whole group wandered down to the closest bar to see what kind of trouble we could get in to.  We walked into the bar and heard a live band and a large gathering of seniors line dancing- I guess it was senior night. Anyways, we were expecting to feel way out of place as we usually do in these scenarios, but the locals embraced us with open arms, taught us some line dances, donated some money, offered their houses to stay if we're ever in the area again. It ended up being a really fun night. 

Springerville, AZ->Heber-Overgaard, AZ

At this point in real life, I'm in the van on the way home.  So these posts will be based on what I remember, what pictures I've taken, and what other people have blogged about from these days. Forgive me if some of these posts lack detail. 

As we left the dome, the morning had some fun climbs. At one point I took off on my own so I could climb at my own pace.  When I got to the top of the most significant climb, I took a break expecting to be a good distance ahead of most everyone I left behind.  After just a minute or  two, Casey and Ellie came up the hill so I rode with them for a while.  We stopped at a gas station about halfway to lunch to take a short break and refill gatorade and water.   I had a slow leak in my tire, so I was filling it up just about every time I stopped.  The ride was really pretty, we were surrounded by mountains, and everything was still very green.  Lunch was at a pull out on the side of the road and didn't have a lot of shade, so we didn't stay for very long. 

The next town was called Show Low. I asked a local where that name came from and he said that at one point, two landowners shared a water well, but there wasn't enough to support both of them, so they left it to a game of cards.  Whoever showed the lowest card won the water.  Apparently we passed a street also called deuce of clubs; that must have been the winning card.  There was a state park there with a lake, so we stopped by there for a dip.  It was really pretty, I guess a lot of people from Pheonix have vacation homes in the area, but it was late in the season, so not many people were there.  The water was cold, so we didn't swim for very long, but we still relaxed and enjoyed the day. 

After this stop, there was another big hill to climb.  We took a break at the top and continued on looking forward to  getting to second lunch.  Chris passed us in the van at one point. We saw him pull into a side street at the bottom of a hill so we assumed that was the lunch stop.  As we got a little closer, he backed out and continued further up the road.  At that point I had assumed we were breaking for lunch, so the thought of climbing another hill was not pleasant.  Eventually we reached Chris and he told us about a crawfish festival happening in the town we were staying.  I only ate a couple snacks expecting to  get food at the festival in a couple miles.

We got to the festival and of course none of us had money and  the wait for crawfish was over an hour long.  We wandered around for a while, tried DMing a couple things, but eventually got bored.  One lady donated us a pie, so I took off for the host while balancing a pie on my handlebars.  There were a couple instances where I almost lost it, making me wonder if something were to happen would I sacrifice the pie to save myself or sacrifice myself to save the pie.  Eventually we got to the host and the school was all locked up and the host was unreachable.  We waited for at least an hour if not 2 before almost anyone else showed up. Matt was riding sweep and he ran over a razor  blade shredding his tire which delayed the trailer from getting to the host.  I think the sun was setting by the time we got access to where we were staying and for the host to let us in.  Turns out there was only one shower, so we set up shoes to mark our place in line; It was probably 10 or 11 by the time everyone got done showering.  Someone managed to secure some crawfish which were great to munch on. We cooked our own dinner and had town hall.  After dinner a couple of us walked back into town to get a drink and burger. We were pretty crammed into the room, but we were only there for a night, so it was not big deal .