6/24/09
So we just finished our last day in Kansas, I'm not going to lie, it was a lot better then I thought it would be. The impression that I had about Kansas was that it would be the flattest land I had ever seen with incredibly strong wind blowing so hard that if we stopped pedaling our bikes would blow backwards. One person went as far as to describe it as a sort of purgatory on earth I am glad to announce that Kansas is in fact no t hell on earth. It has been super hot, but it has consisted of a constant landscape of rolling hills which are awesome for cycling. You can get momentum going downhill and then use that to carry you back up to the top for the most part, though sometimes the hills are a bit longer and require a bit of effort to get up them. What's interesting is what people will do to help the hills go by, some people sing songs or do math problems in there head, one person went as far as to count trash as it passes by in the road. One game that we played today was that you talk about a topic for 1 miles and then at the next mile, you start a new topic. A good way to pass the time especially if you get some good topics, what's really fun is when you start talking about people's most embarrassing moments and they're forced to share.
Jumping back a bit, the ride into St. Louis was really awesome. We started in Greenville, a really cool host where they had an electric drum pad that Steve and John went crazy on, the best way to describe a drum pad would be like a keyboard compared to a piano. You can have any sound associated with each pad so you can have a typical drum sound or you can have crazy techno sounds or silly sounds, and since those guys are really good drummers they could make some really funky beats. This place also had a grand piano and the most intimidating saxophone I had ever seen. It had a silver mouthpiece and with an acrylic reed with the largest reed spacing I had ever seen. The only way to make noise was the wail into the thing, when I picked it up and gave it a blow it was really loud and a lady came out of the office and gave me a look so I quickly stopped that. We also played disc golf in the front yard, there are several of us who have been wanting to get some disc golf in but no courses have really showed up so we had a makeshift one in the lawn which was fun. Since then we've managed to find two disc golf courses, both in really tiny towns. One being in Clay Center, KS and it was 9 holes with the average hole length being about 100 feet and the baskets looked homemade. But it was a lot of fun because we had been playing to bike pumps before that, Justin managed to get a hole in one as well which was amazing. He launched it and I remember thinking to myself, wow that's looking pretty good and then you hear the ring of the chains and it was a celebration. Then a really good one in Beloit right next to the pool, a full
Monday, June 22, 2009
6/22/09
So it seems like after my posts about being so happy that I've been writing so much, I proceed to take a several week break from actually writing anything down. Oh well, I'm been managing to get lots of good pictures, a few of peoples pictures have been surfacing on facebook (B&B website) but I don't think I'll ever actually get around to posting any of mine until the end of the trip.
Current we're in the heart of Kansas, during our first lunch we were 14 miles south of the geographic center of the US which is really cool to think about. It's pretty fun to think about all of the states we've passed through now. Kansas is not nearly as bland as I've heard it to be, sure it's not exactly a bustling metropolis but we've got lots of nice parries to go throug
h and so far it has been not very flat at all, lots of nice rolling hills which at the top of them you feel as though you can see for 10 miles which is really cool.
So I have some catchup to do, so I'll just starting jumping around writing about whatever comes to mind. But in Bloomington the home of the University of Indiana, when we were coming into town they had this great fountain at the edge of campus. We all proceeded to jump in or ride in, whichever you prefer, for a nice cool down. I've decided that jumping in fountains are just the best way to end (or start) a ride. I highly suggest everyone give it a try sometime. But in Bloomington Jen had mentioned about how there was a quarry that was well known from a movie called Breaking away, I had heard of neither the quarry of the movie but apparerently it's a famous cycling movie. Either way I knew that we had to visit the quarry and it being only 5 miles away, we were going to ride since the van was in use for laundry. On our way we ran into some college aged looking guys on bikes and we stopped them asking of they knew where the quarry was, they mentioned that they were on their way so we just followed them which is really good, because it was a fairly complicated route to get there.
After parking the bikes and walking and talking with the locals, we finally walked on to it. It was pretty amazing, I would uplo
ad a picture but unfortunately I took a lot of pictures during the trip in raw format which is going to require some work to get them in a nice .jpg format. The best way to describe it was imagine woods, that have a huge block cut out of the ground going down about 80 feet, on one side was a bunch of loose rock that you could climb up or down to the water that had filled the bottom of the quarry. The water was a really cool color of blue, I believe due to mineral deposits of the rock in the quarry, but it was very scenic. What this was known for in the movie was the characters jumping off 35 foot cliffs into the water below, we even saw the exact spot where they had jumped. So we proceeded to jump off our selves. I was so excited to, it was definitely the highest jump I had ever taken before, I'm not going to lie. Right before I went off the edge I had a very big “oh sh!t” moment where I questioned where all my rationality had gone, but 2 seconds I had hit the water and it was amazing. The water was brisk but very refreshing and a sense of accomplishment. Everyone ended up jumping off, some required more convincing then others but everyone went eventually.
So while I'm on jumping into water stories I'll talk about one that happened out of Washington, MO so a few weeks later. Tony Bell came and surprised me t
hat morning in washington to come ride with us which was really awesome, Tony is the guy who first told me about bike and build and here I am in some church in a random town in america right in the thick of my own Bike and Build adventure. It was nice chatting and during our ride we decided that it was important we find a good spot to jump in a creek, about 25 miles in we found it. There was a bridge with a pretty large looking creek below it so me and Tony decided to get in. Tony got in first and I told him to check the depth below the bridge and he did saying it was too deep for him to touch the bottom, so I proceeded to jump off the bridge through the metal supports. Justin, another rider came up behind us and walked up to the top of the bridge to see how that looked for jumping off. After decided it was a good decision, several of us walked up and then after a few moments of hesitation we all jumped off. Here is a snap of it, quite the blast. Probably for the next hour more riders filtered in and proceeded to jump off, I'm sure B$ jumped off with everyone twice. It was a lot of fun because I think almost everyone in the group did it and really enjoyed it. Some after more convincing and some with none at all. Good times :)
So it seems like after my posts about being so happy that I've been writing so much, I proceed to take a several week break from actually writing anything down. Oh well, I'm been managing to get lots of good pictures, a few of peoples pictures have been surfacing on facebook (B&B website) but I don't think I'll ever actually get around to posting any of mine until the end of the trip.
Current we're in the heart of Kansas, during our first lunch we were 14 miles south of the geographic center of the US which is really cool to think about. It's pretty fun to think about all of the states we've passed through now. Kansas is not nearly as bland as I've heard it to be, sure it's not exactly a bustling metropolis but we've got lots of nice parries to go throug
h and so far it has been not very flat at all, lots of nice rolling hills which at the top of them you feel as though you can see for 10 miles which is really cool.So I have some catchup to do, so I'll just starting jumping around writing about whatever comes to mind. But in Bloomington the home of the University of Indiana, when we were coming into town they had this great fountain at the edge of campus. We all proceeded to jump in or ride in, whichever you prefer, for a nice cool down. I've decided that jumping in fountains are just the best way to end (or start) a ride. I highly suggest everyone give it a try sometime. But in Bloomington Jen had mentioned about how there was a quarry that was well known from a movie called Breaking away, I had heard of neither the quarry of the movie but apparerently it's a famous cycling movie. Either way I knew that we had to visit the quarry and it being only 5 miles away, we were going to ride since the van was in use for laundry. On our way we ran into some college aged looking guys on bikes and we stopped them asking of they knew where the quarry was, they mentioned that they were on their way so we just followed them which is really good, because it was a fairly complicated route to get there.
After parking the bikes and walking and talking with the locals, we finally walked on to it. It was pretty amazing, I would uplo
ad a picture but unfortunately I took a lot of pictures during the trip in raw format which is going to require some work to get them in a nice .jpg format. The best way to describe it was imagine woods, that have a huge block cut out of the ground going down about 80 feet, on one side was a bunch of loose rock that you could climb up or down to the water that had filled the bottom of the quarry. The water was a really cool color of blue, I believe due to mineral deposits of the rock in the quarry, but it was very scenic. What this was known for in the movie was the characters jumping off 35 foot cliffs into the water below, we even saw the exact spot where they had jumped. So we proceeded to jump off our selves. I was so excited to, it was definitely the highest jump I had ever taken before, I'm not going to lie. Right before I went off the edge I had a very big “oh sh!t” moment where I questioned where all my rationality had gone, but 2 seconds I had hit the water and it was amazing. The water was brisk but very refreshing and a sense of accomplishment. Everyone ended up jumping off, some required more convincing then others but everyone went eventually.So while I'm on jumping into water stories I'll talk about one that happened out of Washington, MO so a few weeks later. Tony Bell came and surprised me t
hat morning in washington to come ride with us which was really awesome, Tony is the guy who first told me about bike and build and here I am in some church in a random town in america right in the thick of my own Bike and Build adventure. It was nice chatting and during our ride we decided that it was important we find a good spot to jump in a creek, about 25 miles in we found it. There was a bridge with a pretty large looking creek below it so me and Tony decided to get in. Tony got in first and I told him to check the depth below the bridge and he did saying it was too deep for him to touch the bottom, so I proceeded to jump off the bridge through the metal supports. Justin, another rider came up behind us and walked up to the top of the bridge to see how that looked for jumping off. After decided it was a good decision, several of us walked up and then after a few moments of hesitation we all jumped off. Here is a snap of it, quite the blast. Probably for the next hour more riders filtered in and proceeded to jump off, I'm sure B$ jumped off with everyone twice. It was a lot of fun because I think almost everyone in the group did it and really enjoyed it. Some after more convincing and some with none at all. Good times :)
6/3/09
Wow, I’m actually doing a decent job of writing things down it seems. Hopefully this trend can continue. Right now I’m sitting at lunch, it’s my day to drive the trailer and we’re going into Cincinnati, the road seemed ok for the first part but have turned very busy and are crowded with strip malls which are much less pleasant then some of the more secluded mountain passes. So the host we had last night have been by far the most generous with donations, they donated cases of peanut butter and jelly, granola bars, snacks and the funniest of all was 2 huge boxes of hair products and lotion, everyone was able to stock up on conditioners and moisturizers but we were forced to leave a vast majority of it behind. I don’t know if bike and build has ever had such a generous hair product donation before, if so that would be impressive. We have lots of nice leftovers from dinner last night included lasagna, more fruit then is comfortable to lift by yourself.
Wow, I’m actually doing a decent job of writing things down it seems. Hopefully this trend can continue. Right now I’m sitting at lunch, it’s my day to drive the trailer and we’re going into Cincinnati, the road seemed ok for the first part but have turned very busy and are crowded with strip malls which are much less pleasant then some of the more secluded mountain passes. So the host we had last night have been by far the most generous with donations, they donated cases of peanut butter and jelly, granola bars, snacks and the funniest of all was 2 huge boxes of hair products and lotion, everyone was able to stock up on conditioners and moisturizers but we were forced to leave a vast majority of it behind. I don’t know if bike and build has ever had such a generous hair product donation before, if so that would be impressive. We have lots of nice leftovers from dinner last night included lasagna, more fruit then is comfortable to lift by yourself.
June 1, 2009
A new month of the trip, exactly 2 left. Today we entered Iowa making the total number of states that we have traversed to 2 now, pretty exciting. The cue sheet for today had a million different directions and made for some confusing turns but everyone did a good job chalking directions and we talked to plenty of locals for help. I learned that it’s called a “crik” and not a “creek” in this territory. Ohio is a nice change of pace from the mountains, it was an easy rolling day with only a handful of hills and mostly flat spans of land which were still very scenic. Right before lunch, we came across a great lake that seemed perfect for jumping in. I’ve enjoyed the idea of jumping in any bodies of water we run across, weather it be the Atlantic ocean, a river that we were passing over or now this new lake. Jumping in was great, the water wasn’t too cold and it was a great cool down. I was able to convince a few other riders to jump in with me. Then we had a nice lunch of cheese sandwiches a few miles later. Though during the last 5 miles there was a pretty intense climb, kind of like a last ditch effort at spoiling our ride but we went right up it and finished up nicely. Tomorrow is supposed to be a lot of climbs and 75 miles, so not quite the flat 50 miles we did today but I guess they all can’t be easy.
I think I’m going to sleep outside tonight, over the past few weeks I’ve been trying to sleep outside whenever the weather will permit. I think I’m going t
o try and sleep outside tonight, even though ti’s a 30% chance of showers I think I’m going to try it, maybe sleep under and an awning. I did once at the farmhouse we stayed at in marlington, Aaron came to me with a stroke of genius and mentioned sleeping in the trailer so we did. We had the back of the trailer open and just slept under the stars, it was awesome. It rained during the night but we managed to stay dry in our nice vehicle. It was nice being able to be in the rain and listen to it without actually getting wet and sleeping in the fresh air. Speaking of Marlinton there was some fun activities before we went to bed that night, the girl we stayed with had a 20 gauge shotgun that she showed us how to use and let us play with. It was really entertaining seeing a bunch of city/suburban kids get so worked up over shooting a really low
powered shotgun. She mentioned that her dad got the gun when he was 8 years old, even though we looked like a bunch of dorks it was still a blast. The absolute best part was the next morning, Mark, our host came into the room while we were all doing our morning routine and he sets down what looks like a pair of rollerblades with large plastic ovals on the bottom. I immiediately inquire if what I'm looking at is a pair of moon boots and he responded that they were. So I grab them up right away and start lacing. I jump up and probably get a good 2 extra feet then I normally would, the best way to describe them would be like walking on a trampoline but on any surface, amazing. I feel that Bike & Build has opened me to so many new things, moon boots now being one of them, I need to get me some of those.
A new month of the trip, exactly 2 left. Today we entered Iowa making the total number of states that we have traversed to 2 now, pretty exciting. The cue sheet for today had a million different directions and made for some confusing turns but everyone did a good job chalking directions and we talked to plenty of locals for help. I learned that it’s called a “crik” and not a “creek” in this territory. Ohio is a nice change of pace from the mountains, it was an easy rolling day with only a handful of hills and mostly flat spans of land which were still very scenic. Right before lunch, we came across a great lake that seemed perfect for jumping in. I’ve enjoyed the idea of jumping in any bodies of water we run across, weather it be the Atlantic ocean, a river that we were passing over or now this new lake. Jumping in was great, the water wasn’t too cold and it was a great cool down. I was able to convince a few other riders to jump in with me. Then we had a nice lunch of cheese sandwiches a few miles later. Though during the last 5 miles there was a pretty intense climb, kind of like a last ditch effort at spoiling our ride but we went right up it and finished up nicely. Tomorrow is supposed to be a lot of climbs and 75 miles, so not quite the flat 50 miles we did today but I guess they all can’t be easy.
I think I’m going to sleep outside tonight, over the past few weeks I’ve been trying to sleep outside whenever the weather will permit. I think I’m going t
o try and sleep outside tonight, even though ti’s a 30% chance of showers I think I’m going to try it, maybe sleep under and an awning. I did once at the farmhouse we stayed at in marlington, Aaron came to me with a stroke of genius and mentioned sleeping in the trailer so we did. We had the back of the trailer open and just slept under the stars, it was awesome. It rained during the night but we managed to stay dry in our nice vehicle. It was nice being able to be in the rain and listen to it without actually getting wet and sleeping in the fresh air. Speaking of Marlinton there was some fun activities before we went to bed that night, the girl we stayed with had a 20 gauge shotgun that she showed us how to use and let us play with. It was really entertaining seeing a bunch of city/suburban kids get so worked up over shooting a really low
powered shotgun. She mentioned that her dad got the gun when he was 8 years old, even though we looked like a bunch of dorks it was still a blast. The absolute best part was the next morning, Mark, our host came into the room while we were all doing our morning routine and he sets down what looks like a pair of rollerblades with large plastic ovals on the bottom. I immiediately inquire if what I'm looking at is a pair of moon boots and he responded that they were. So I grab them up right away and start lacing. I jump up and probably get a good 2 extra feet then I normally would, the best way to describe them would be like walking on a trampoline but on any surface, amazing. I feel that Bike & Build has opened me to so many new things, moon boots now being one of them, I need to get me some of those.
Monday, June 08, 2009
6/8/09
We finally crossed into IL, it’s crazy because we’re going to be in St. Louis in 2 days from now the home town awaits. I am once again driving the van, it seems like the only moments when I have enough free time to write things is when I’m waiting on riders for lunch during my van days so I’m glad I at least have that.
Cincinati was a lot of fun because of the build day, it’s always nice to have a chance to rest and do some building. Of course it’s custom to always go out before a build day and Adam, one of the former program directors of Bike and Build offered to give everyone shuttles to downtown Cinci. Got to see some of the local hotspots which was a lot of fun.
Two days ago on our way into Bloomington we stopped by a tiny town called Nashville. It was really interesting because it was meant to feel like a Christmas card and was very tourist oriented. Something I always enjoy doing is stopping and getting ice cream at our lunch stops, but this town had probably 10 different places to get ice cream so it was quite the dilemma trying to pick which one. When we finally did I got my banana split and it was amazing, and though I’ve only gotten banana splits so far (with the exception of one boston shake) I feel as though I might start adventuring towards new types of ice cream. After ice cream, we got pizza, not exactly the most ideal lunch for a bike ride but we only had 20 miles after that.
We finally crossed into IL, it’s crazy because we’re going to be in St. Louis in 2 days from now the home town awaits. I am once again driving the van, it seems like the only moments when I have enough free time to write things is when I’m waiting on riders for lunch during my van days so I’m glad I at least have that.
Cincinati was a lot of fun because of the build day, it’s always nice to have a chance to rest and do some building. Of course it’s custom to always go out before a build day and Adam, one of the former program directors of Bike and Build offered to give everyone shuttles to downtown Cinci. Got to see some of the local hotspots which was a lot of fun.
Two days ago on our way into Bloomington we stopped by a tiny town called Nashville. It was really interesting because it was meant to feel like a Christmas card and was very tourist oriented. Something I always enjoy doing is stopping and getting ice cream at our lunch stops, but this town had probably 10 different places to get ice cream so it was quite the dilemma trying to pick which one. When we finally did I got my banana split and it was amazing, and though I’ve only gotten banana splits so far (with the exception of one boston shake) I feel as though I might start adventuring towards new types of ice cream. After ice cream, we got pizza, not exactly the most ideal lunch for a bike ride but we only had 20 miles after that.
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