Manhattan to Clay Center

Miles and miles of miles and miles:

Was still working out that stress thing when we left Manhattan, so I busted it for the first 15 miles before finally settling in to a group. Since our mileage was super short that day, this meant that I got into town close to noon. We took few breaks and hardly even stopped for lunch.  On our only real break, we were at one of the highest points on the road, so we could see Kansas for what it really is according to some post card: miles and miles of miles and miles. 

In Clay Center, I finally got out of my funk after some good conversations and a weird experience at the pool. Clay Center has a public pool that allowed us free entry under one condition- we had to put on a synchronized swimming show for them. Apparently, all the CUS routes that have come here have also participated in this tradition that we stumbled upon. It was a blast. At the end of our little swim that Borch, Sunny, and Athena choreographed, we did the cheer we do each morning in the pool. This involves standing in a circle swaying/jumping. This caused a huge whirlpool to occur in the middle of the circle. I totally thought I would drown. 

We got back to host, I journaled for maybe the second time in all of trip, ate dinner, fell asleep at the dinner table, drank coffee, and then did AH presentations. I'm always pumped for presentations because it's awesome to have the whole team together talking and learning about the whole reason we're here. It puts a lot into perspective. (I had to miss the last presentations when I was in urgent care, so blerg). Pope and Joyce incorporated rap in their presentation. It was glorious b

The Other Manhattan

Sorry for the delay, as many things have been happenin. As I mentioned toward the beginning of this summer, in "real life" I have spread myself too thin and allowed stress to dictate my life. One of the goals for this summer was to spend these seventy-something days worrying less and stressing less. Somewhere in this week, I lost that and allowed stress to kind of take over in Manhattan. Good times were had, but there was a constant cloud of thought around every word and action.  It was frustrating to see that no matter the environment that we place ourselves in, stressors are still stressors and I still have a lot of work to ease that out.  Done with inner thoughts, on the what happened those days:

We left Lawrence on Friday morning after a fun night exploring the town. Lots of stereotypical Kansas landscape of plains and fields and such. Just before we left, we realized we hadn't printed enough cue sheets, so Dan hand wrote a few.  Knowing I would be spending some time alone on the road, he drew a pretty cool friend onto my cue sheet. 

There were scattered storms with lightning throughout the day, so everyone came in with huge gaps between groups. I had to wait with the van until the last folks came in (at 6:10pm) and so many riders made it a tad more humorous how antsy/anxious I was to go more than 2 blocks from the van. After realizing certain (less than quality) questions only made the situation worse, Blake headed up a round of "asking even dumber questions than we would ask in real life." I threw a water bottle at him. We laughed. It eased ma tension a tad to be around folks who could make light of my stress. Good friends indeed. 

The next day, we split into three groups for a build day. The group I went with built and painted a shed and pulled out cabinets from a house that is about to be torn down. I got to use a table saw (a new favorite task). 

When we got back to host, we waited to meet some other cyclists staying at the same church. 4k for Cancer is another group that bikes cross country for philanthropic reasons. It was cool to spend a night with them, see what we have in common and what we do differently. Before they got there, Ashton and I had some fun with chalk:

Kansas City MO to Lawrence Kansas

First, the good news: today I rode into host on my bike. 

This morning I played leapfrog with different groups for the first 4ish miles before I finally settled in with Hannah, Pope, Jay, and Joey. Just after crossing the state line, we passed the REI that I had given a large portion of my day off to drive folks to so I laughed a bit at the irony of how much that trip changed my day and how naturally we were now passing it. Woot. 

Soon after, we found ourselves facing a gravel road when Dan drove up and told us that lunch would be about 12 miles past where we were expecting the last possible option to be. We nommed on some snacks and hit the ground running. (By "hit the ground" I mean the literal form). Just after Jay and Mike got over a hill, my bike tire hit a huge rock that caused me to fall pretty hard. I came out unscathed and no one saw it so I caught up to the guys and went on out merry way. 

Somewhere along the way, we picked up Connor, adding lots of humor to our trip. When we realized how stereotypical Kansas our ride was, we busted out some Wizard Of Oz tunes. Wondering about stereotypical Kansas? Here:

Miles and miles of fields. Yippee. 

Once we reached Lawrence, we hit a hill that I believe could be the steepest hill in KS, and then when we learned of a bike shop in town and all chose to face the hill again. 

At the bike shop, my life completely changed. I talked with a genius about my rotated femur woes, and she talked me through a solution. Now my leg can kick out to its naturally rotated state rather than stay abnormally straight all day. I rode all around town testing it out, and I'm already noticing a difference. On my ride around, I ran into Tennessee street, so now I can say that I biked through TN as well (and be completely lying, but whatever. It was fun). 

Build Day: Kansas City

This morning, we woke rather early for a build day as our host was far from the build site. We worked with Habitat KC at two different sites, one was a concrete house and one a home renkvation where some did yard work, put together a shed, and some put siding on the house. I was fortunate enough to snag a spot on siding crew. Siding will always have a special place in my heart as it is the first thing I ever did working at any Habitat, and have almost always ended up on that project at random sites since. This time it was concrete siding though, so things were a tad different. 

At some point in the day, our build site turned into CSI as Borch found a bone (she believed it to be a clavicle) while digging in the yard. Police came to investigate, who then called animal control on a neighboring home (all turned out to be well there though). We shuttled to the office to eat our lunch, but they had to keep Borch while more folks came to investigate, so we took many a funny photo of her and Katie getting into the back of a squad car. Good times. Turns out the bone was not human, and we were allowed to return to work. Yippee for happy endings and exciting days. 

In the afternoon, then other leaders and I had to run errands to pick up donated food and stuff from a bike shop. While we were at the bike shop, we got to all try riding a pennyfarthing bike (which Dan had wanted to do forever). I could barely reach the pedals, but everyone had a blast. 

We relocated to the lobby and giant lawn for the evening as our host site needed us to vacate during youth group hours. We had to push back out town hall night to this evening because of our free day, so we got to do it outside on a fairly beautiful evening. 

I don't know if I've explained town hall or not, but each week we get together and each share our highs and lows of the week with each other. We then discuss whatever important issues need to be addressed and then riders bring up any pressing issues they want to discuss. Finally we close with our snaps box, which is basically a box that people drop snaps, kudos, compliments, shoutouts, silly jokes, whatever into throughout the week. Through the highs and lows as well as the snaps box, it's really fun to hear stories you've missed throughout the week or to hear awesome things that our teammates are doing. 

Overall, it was a good day. I've been fighting a migraine since noon, and town hall nights are always draining for me because I can see all the gaps I need to fill as a leader and all the mistakes I ever make become very apparent during town hall. With that said, I must sleep. Tomorrow is only 56 miles, and I am determined to not let my calf/knee talk to my brain (aka I'm finishing the day on a bike no matter what). 

Sedalia to Kansas City and KC day off

Double post: ride day and day off. Two for one!

Yesterday started out with fears of closed/flooded roads as big storms had passed the night before and locals were passing along news of road closures. After Dan and I headed out before the first group, we soon learned that roads were fine and that we were back in the land of rolling hills.  

At our first lunch, the returning pain in my leg convinced me to make and appointment with an orthopedic doc in KC, which turned out to be smart as I had to van just before second lunch. I was not the happiest to have to quit and have been really down on myself the days that I've had to take care of my leg, but Dan cheered me up by playing in a cornfield with me, and Jay cheered me up with some sweet jams in the car and a cup of coffee at second lunch. Speaking if which, at second lunch there was a really cool bike/coffee hybrid shop in a town that looked otherwise dead. 

We got to the host and learned of an alarm that would go off if we came in or left after 9, so we embraced the possibilities of going stir crazy and watched Almost Famous and Space Jam while many played cards. It was a good reenergizing evening. 

Today, I woke up 4 times before finally allowing myself to get up at 8:30 (my body really has gotten used to this early schedule. Since I had a doc appt in town, I took up the role of shuttle driver for the day. We checked out a local bike shop and then headed into town to drop off some folks, pick up mail, detour to REI, and suddenly it was time to be at the doc. I was 15 minutes late, but they were super helpful and understanding when I looked really frazzled coming in (I got really lost). 

I was calmed down by cheesy/inspiring quotes that Natalie (boss/friend) sent, as well as free coffee at the doc office. The doc took X-rays and pictures and tested my range of motion and asked countless questions. I learned that I have a tear in my calf , close to my knee. It's something that will remain painful throughout the trip, but isn't detrimental to keep biking on. Only forceful injuries could make it worse, so after fatigue-ing it out on a bike I should be more careful walking/limit walk/run related activities and get it re-checked when I return to real life where walking sometimes will matter more than biking. But for now- we ride! 

I finally started my day off after the doc let me go close to 4:30. I picked up some folks and we went to meet the rest of the team at the World War I Memorial Park.  It was huge and a tad mind blowing. I fell asleep on the lawn in front of the pillar while awaiting teammates with BBQ. Half the team then went to a baseball game, and many of us returned to host to play pool, ping pong, and watch Toy Story. The security guard was kind enough to offer to disarm the alarm from 11:30-11:45 for those who wanted to stay out late. My nap convinced me that I should probably take the opportunity to sleep. 

Tomorrow is our next build day! Woohoo! 

Jefferson City to Sedalia

Today was supposedly 88 miles, and our final day on the Katy Trail. We left the capital and made our way across a pretty sick pedestrian bridge to start out our day. After crossing the bridge we went down a cool ramp which circled several times allowing us to shout across at teammates who had left earlier and later than us. Finally on the road, I had my second fall of the trip while simply standing still and talking to someone at a stop sign. Only my pride was hurt, and is gained a large bump on my elbow. This wasn't my only fall of the day though. About 20 miles in, we noticed that part of our group had stopped and we hadn't waited. So we stopped on a bridge on the trail. A storm had passed the night before, and the wooden bridge was super slick. As soon as I clipped out and put my foot down, I completely ate it. Again, only pride. 

The great thing about the Katy Trail is that it has no cars and allows us to ride next to each other when no one else is passing/near - perfect for conversations. My group of six rode in a tight cluster, and played hot seat, where one person rides closer to the middle and we get to pepper them with questions. I ended up learning a lot about my teammates and it was fun to get to dive a bit below the surface with folks I hadn't interacted much with yet. 

The storm I mentioned earlier did more than make the bridge slippery. We later learned that this storm had knocked several trees down into the trail making it impossible to pass on bikes. More than 6 times we had to stop and pass our bikes over or walk our bikes around the debris.

After we finished our first lunch of the day, we rolled up on some chalk art on one of the bridges that had a poem and a portrait of our very own Mike Pope. Rumor is that Dan drew it, but no one has confessed. 'Twas a good pick me up when we knew we still had over 45 miles left. 

A little further up, we crossed our second river. Since Sunny was riding with us, we couldn't resist a selfie to document this awesome riding crew and the water. 

Got into the host fairly late and it started storming during dinner. Laundry crew were champs and did a full load f laundry even though they wouldn't be back until way past bed, and Jay was a champ for bringing them back on their own and finishing out laundry alone. 

Flood warnings abound in all the counties we ride through tomorrow. Lightning, thunder, and pouring rain made for a good night of deep sleeping. Hoping for good weather, though the radar shows this next ride as a wet one. 

Washington to Jefferson City

 While many mistake the capital for MO as St. Louis, it's actually found in the town we rode to today - Jefferson City. Also, Missouri looks exactly how I have always expected non-St Louis Missouri to look:

We had a pretty amazing breakfast of coffee, smoothies, fruits, and animal shaped waffles this morning. 

After breakfast, I spent a solid hour fixing things and cleaning my bike. It still makes me extremely giddy when I figure out that I can do stuff with zero help to fix problems with my bike. Also, bike cleaning is surprisingly therapeutic. There were some pretty major random burrs just hangin out in my cassette that I got out, and now everything is as clean as a whistle. (Dan made fun of me for documenting this momentous occasion). 

After everybody headed out, I swung by a pretty rad bike shop just by the host to pick up some items I had been in need of /broke/lost throughout the trip. Another giddy moment- when I can hold full conversations with the folks at bike shops and actually know what we're talking about. While I used to feel like all I did was ride bikes and be ignorant about the bike itself, I'm kinda knowledgable now (but have a ton to learn). 

With grease covering my hands, I headed off to set up the first lunch spot. Found a shady pavilion, hung a hammock, and had time to spare so I bike a bit up the trail to chalk notes to oncoming riders about how far lunch was. My knee had been super stuff since I woke up and it was kind of surprising that riding felt better than resting today, so I randomly hopped on my bike whenever I was waiting for riders throughout the day. Oh, and at lunch, Blythe randomly decided she wanted to cut her hair...so she did. 

After first lunch, I realized my habit to forget filling gas in a car has carried into this summer as I found myself in the middle of nowhere with little gas. I barely made it to where I had promised to set up second lunch, dropped the trailer, and adventured to the only gas pump (note: not a station, but a pump) anywhere near our route. I returned to our lunch site, where the heat had once again gotten to my head, and dunked my head under a water spicket several times while riders came in and out to finish up the day. Twas a hot one and a long one, and tomorrow will only get longer. Jazzed to be riding full days again.

St. Louis to Washington

Today I had the pleasure of sweepin with Drew on the Katy Trail. As previously mentioned, sweep is the last two riders who carry brooms and sweep up the tracks that we leave. Jokes. In reality, sweep is the last two riders who stay a bit behind with extra tubes, tires, and a med kit. While normally a 54 mile day would not take very long, a 54 mile day as sweep, on a gravelly trail, waiting for each stop every rider ever decides to make, ends up taking the full day. 

At only mile twelve, we found several folks at the entrance to the Katy Trail where there was a lake with kayaks and paddle boards. We played at the lake for about an hour before everyone headed out.

We waited a few minutes to be behind them, and after catching up and slowing down with the last group a few times, Drew got a few flats and had to change his tire. So we ended up rolling into lunch pretty late (some of the first riders were pulling into the host at the time we arrived to lunch). 

After lunch, all we could see were corn fields and then...the world's largest tractor. The tires were bigger than I am. Just before walking down to get a closer look/play on the tractor, I jinxed us by asking what we would so if the owner drove up. Sure enough, as we were creeping around the machine, a big truck pulled up. Before he could get angry, I played ignorant/ childish wonder card and said "I've never seen tires so big!" And Drew added "and I've never seen so much corn in one place." The man was unimpressed, but also wasn't visit angry and must have thought we were total idiots as we biked away, so all was left unharmed. 

At the end of the day, we caught up to another group who had let the heat get to them a bit too much while changing flats. We spent about 30 minutes laughing at their strange accents and silly moods only 5 miles from the host. I started coxing them in and couldn't catch my breath from laughing at myself. I think it actually may have been the heat. We then were stopped less the .3 miles from the host as the group in front of us spotted a sonic. I slowly lost my composure sitting on the table at sonic laughing at all of the accents and stories shared. Finally, we made it back to the host, where there was coffee, a huge taco bar, and a bunch of friendly community members. I fell to the floor and layed there for possibly an hour laughing, zoning out, and chatting with Dan about our days. 

'Twas a good day indeed. 

Build Day: St Louis

One of the cool things about all of the build days that we've done so far is that none of them have been anything alike. Today we worked with Rebuilding Together for the first time in St Louis. There were two houses across the street from each other and plenty of work for all 30ish people who were there throughout the day. One of the unique aspects of today was that we got to interact with the homeowners, which hasn't been the case in the past builds. It was cool to our faces and stories to a cause we've devoted our summer and more to. 

After spending some time in the morning shuttling folks to doctors (surprisingly, some folks get injured/ill when doing something as simple as cycling cross country), I found myself working on scraping wallpaper off of a wall. Later this summer, a different B&B team will paint the walls we cleared. It was seemingly impossible to complete the whole room in one day, but it was encouraging to see how determined our team was to complete the task (and to see how all the other tasks folks worked on). 

At the end of the day, I went to pick up doc folks and got stuck in the worst traffic ever. A bike would have been handy in that moment. After all had returned and showered, we visited a local bike themed bar, Handlebar, with some Rebuilding Together folks and local B&B alums. It was rather far away, so while I was driving our 15 passenger van back to pick up our second shuttle of folks before bed I had the opportunity to chat with our program director on the phone.  We spoke little of work, and lots of life, and I found myself thinking about how thankful I am to have guidance/mentorship from such solid folks like her. Again with the cheesiness. I guess this means I should head to bed. 

Tomorrow is Joyce's birthday! And I sweep with Drew. Woot. 

Greenville to St Louis

We're doing it! We're biking across the country!

I said that about 90 times today because, as I predicted, it finally hit me when we saw the arch in St. Louis, the gateway to the west, that we are actually going from coast to coast. Okay. Cheesy rant - over. 

Started out the day in a weird mood because leader stuff and personal stuff and blegh, so I just wanted to ride my bike and not think all day. Hopped in a group that was riding rather fast for a day with such strong winds, and dangerously fast for the recovery my leg is going through, so about 12 miles in I decided to pull off and wait for another group. I ended up riding the rest of the way to lunch with Ashton, Joyce, and Julia. I don't have favorite folks to ride with, but these three are angels. We went the perfect pace, had some meaningful conversations, laughed a lot, and made it safely to lunch. 

Throughout the ride, we crossed paths with a bunch of Race Across America folks. They're biking across the country too, but from West to East, with far less sleep, at far higher speeds, and in far fewer days. They're pretty crazy folks. Anyways, as they passed we would cheer them on and make a scene. A few of them would wave and cheer for us in return (as well as the folks in the support van behind them) and it was cool to see everybody lovin on everybody just because we like riding bicycles. 

Right when we got to lunch, my injured leg was starting to fatigue out. I stayed about an hour icing and resting my leg decidingif I could finish the day.  (One of my big goals was to ride across the Mississippi, but a bigger goal is to make it all the way to the Packfic, so a huge inner debate was going on in my head about what was best). Dan and Christine offered to ride with me in the back, the sweeps for the day were super patient and let me ice my leg a bit longer, and then we headed out. 

Riding with Dan and Christine was awesome because I knew they would prefer for me to have rested and stayed healthy, but they seemed to understand how badly I wanted to finish the day so they helped me through it. It's the most supported I've felt all trip and I had super sentimental and cheesy feelings we won't go into. Additionally, it's the first time the three of us rode together since the leader shakedown ride, so it was fun to hang out and just have some leader time together. (I love our whole team, but ever since the riders showed up, I've kind of neglected my leaderfriends). 

Again, my leg fatigued out about two miles from host. I made it all the way back, but had to crutch the rest of the evening to rest it/avoid putting too much weight on it. It's a weird balance but I guess you've got to ride before you walk? (Crawl before you run? Baby steps?) 

After a delicious Olive Garden donated dinner, a bunch of us went downtown to see the arch (we all lined up and licked it. See picture of pre lick), and play around. Our host is super far away so we used the metro system, and I relied on piggy back rides and got a great shoulder workout as we adventures blocks on blocks on blocks of the city. 

I didn't realize how jam packed the day was until just now. Crazy. Building tomorrow with Rebuilding Together. Woot. 

Til then.