Like we're on vacation

August 23, 2013

Mohave Valley, AZ to Parker AZ

Starting the ride this morning, we encountered more humidity than we have experienced in a while.  Almost immediately I had sweat on my arms and face--not very pleasant when you know it's only going to get hotter as the day goes on because you're in the desert.  We spent the morning following the Colorado River, also the Arizona/California state line.  

Lunch was in the touristy town surrounding Lake Havasu so there were lots of shops and places to stop.  

We grabbed first lunch, filled up our waters, and made our way to Starbucks.  After a well deserved Starbucks break, we found a point of access into Lake Havasu, thanks to a group of guys on our trip, and took a dip.  It was so nice and refreshing.  Boats with music playing were going by and it felt like we were on vacation.

By the time we left the water (we were there for a while) the temperature had risen greatly.  The rest of the ride was up and down big hills, and once we left Lake Havasu there weren't many places to stop and take cool breaks.  The heat was grueling but the scenery was pretty amazing with the mountains, desert, and the lake all in one view.

At second lunch there was barely any shade to be found except right next to the trailer on the hot pavement.  We did our best to hydrate, but the last 10 miles were almost unbearable.  I finally had to ask the group to stop about a mile from our turn because my head was getting so light from the heat.  We took a quick break in the shade, but it was already too late for me I think.  Once we got going again I was swerving a bit on my bike for the last 2 miles.  I made it about 50 yards from the site of the trailer in a county park where we were camping for the night when I tried to make a hard left, lost my balance, and fell to the ground hard on my left side.  It was an annoying way to end the day because I knew I could have prevented it if I had just listened to my body earlier when I knew I needed a break from the heat and more water.  Luckily we were staying right along the banks of the Colorado, so after a few minutes getting myself together on the ground I jumped in a cooled off immediately.  We're staying at a vacation type campsite on the river so they had a beach bar where we hung out at before dinner and then we ate dinner at a waterfront restuarant, compliments of an almost-alum (he was signed up to do Bike & Build, not sure which year, but then ended up not doing to accept a job offer).  It was a wonderfully relaxing night, but wake up is at 3:30am tomorrow to get our longest ride of the trip in--120 miles!  Maybe one day we'll all be back here and be able to relax and enjoy ourselves like we're actually on vacation.

Another best day ever

August 22, 2013

Kingman, AZ to Mohave Valley, AZ

We finally hit the desert today, and boy was it hot. However, today was once again the best day ever. It still amazes me that they can even get better after some of the awesome days we've had! The day started off slowly. Ella V needed her bike fixed and I wanted to send some things home, so I waited for her with sweep, our friends Jake and Shane. At Starbucks before the bike shop opened, we met an awesome guy named Ron who was excited about what we were doing. On our way to the post office while Ella V dealt with her bike, Ron drove up next to us and asked if we could chat. He wondered if we had had any press coverage in Kingman, which we had not. So Shane, Jake, and I biked down to a cool Arizona Route 66 sign and got our picture taken with our bikes. We also gave a mini presentation about what Bike & Build is while Ron filmed it for the press. He also was super kind and donated 5 new tubes to our group!  we've been getting lots of flats recently so they will come in handy I'm sure. Lucky for us, the post office was right across the street so we just walked on over and waited for it to open at 9am. Ella V's bike was fixed around that time as well so she biked over and met us and we went on our way. Ultimately, we left Kingman around 9:30 while everyone else had left close to or before 7am. The rumor of the day was that we were going to be climbing a mountain and then descending it on the other side. As we biked towards the mountain, we brased ourselves for a grueling uphill. The road leading to the mountain was awful and bumpy and made my arms tingle/itch. It was the worst. After a quick shop at the general store at the base of the mountain, we started the switchbacks. They were actually kind of fun! The view was fantastic and the heat had not set in at all yet. 

Lunch was just after the peak of the mountain--a very deserving reward. We decided that since we were the only ones there we would have a picnic (most likely everyone else had been gone for about an hour at least). It was an epic picnic. 

After a beautiful lunch, we descended through the switchbacks of the other side of the mountain. It was fun but kind of difficult to go down the switchbacks since the turns were so tight. About halfway down, we came upon the tiny town of Oatman, AZ. It used to be a mining town and now it's more just a touris attraction along Route 66. The craziest part of Oatman is that they have wild donkeys called Burros freely roaming the streets. It was insane. They at my cue sheet! We had a lot of fun exploring the town, and we even got an old time western posed photo of the four of us! It was a great pit stop. 

The rest of the ride was completely downhill, but the temperature increased substantially! I got a small bloody nose on the way down but decided that it would be better to deal with it on the bike then to stop and absolutely melt in the heat. When we got close to the town, all of us had the same idea--find water! We saw a pool in a gates community but couldn't find anyone to talk to about using it so we headed out and went to a different country club community. They didn't have a pool, but they gave us cold water and told us how to get to the Colorado River where we could swim. Since it was almost 110°, we decided to head there immediately to cool down. It was an amazing decision.  The water was a bit cold but perfectly refreshing. It's crazy to think that this water came from the same river we saw when we hiked the Grand Canyon!

We really didn't want to leave but we were already going to be late for dinner so we headed out to find the host site. There, we ate a ton of pizza and went out back to find a slip and slide. Obviously we had to do it for a little bit. Well worth it as well. Afterwards, we took the best hose showers imaginable! It was the first time it was hot enough to actually desire a hose shower over a real one. 

Waiting for Olympics to start, a few guys that hadn't gone to the river yet and I caught a ride to the river with one of the hosts. It was so beautiful. We were looking across the river at California and you could look up the river to see Nevada. Our second tri-state of the trip! Despite my love for Pennsylvania, this one migh have beaten the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-New York one... 

The evening ended with two more Olympic events--the thermarest roll and the bag weighing. I thought I was pretty fast at rolling up my thermarest in the morning but oh my gosh did everyone go fast! Jeff did it in just 28 seconds!! It was super exciting. Even with some technical difficulties, my teammate Sean was able to come in 3rd place. The bag weighing involved everyone packing up their bags and getting each groups average bag weight. Since we're at an elementary school, we used the school nurses office which had a scale. Side note, yay Mom for starting her job as the new school nurse at Penn Charter this week!! Anyway, the runnings were close with most people weighing in in the mid-30 range. The heaviest bag was 55 lbs with the lightest being 27.5 lbs. My bag was the second lightest at 28 lbs. Maybe if I wasn't carrying around 40 dice that my mom sent me I would have been the lightest... (just kidding it's a fun game!), but either way my team had the lightest average weight so we won the event! It was really exciting for us since we started out in last on the first night. We're all talking about how excited we are to be almost to California, but at the same time having a hard time imagining life without crazy adventures and 26 other awesome people to do them with. Reunions have already started being planned and we haven't even parted ways yet!

The first In-n-Out

August 21, 2013

Seligman, AZ to Kingman, AZ

Last night was insane. Most of us were sleeping in tents while others were on porches. Around 2am, the winds were gusting close to 30mph! The tents were shaking and looking like they were going to bend in on themselves. People hurridly scrambled to bring things inside before it started raining. Luckily everything survived through the night. In the morning I found the bikes like this. 

Mine is the one all the way on the right--the only one still standing! What a strong bike. It ended up falling anyway when we started to pick up the other bikes, but that's not important. Before we left Seligman to spend our whole day on Route 66, we stopped at a diner that had been recommended to us for its carrot cake. Needless to say, the carrot cake was delicious, albeit a bit dense and very large. 

Route 66 ended up being relatively flat from Seligman to Kingman, despite the fact that we descended close to 2000ft. Unfortunately for us bikers, the road was poorly paved so that almost the whole ride was bumpy. It's hard to ride on pavement like that for very long because it makes any part of your body that is touching the bike get all tingly and numb. It's almost painful! Luckily, as always in Arizona, the scenery was beautiful.

For much of the day, we were riding the white line of the shoulder because that was the smoothest part of the whole road.  Let me just say, trying to ride in a straight line was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  It reminded me of a balance beam, but luckily nothing too terrible happened when I "fell off" it.  There wasn't much going on on this section of Route 66 until we got to a small town called Hackberry. Pretty much all they seemed to have going for them was a very touristy general store that we all explored.  

We're getting very close to the Mojave Desert so temperatures are rising, especially as we descend in altitude.  By the time we reached second lunch, I just want to douse myself with my water bottle to cool off.  Leaving second lunch, we encountered a major head wind that lasted the last 20 miles of the trip. Luckily I had David to pace line with and we switched back and forth every mile or so.  Kingman is home to the most easternly located In-n-Out burger joint.  Lots of people on the trip were super excited about this and most everyone made plans to get there.  David and I headed there even before we went to the host site.  It was 4 miles past the hose site but completely worth it.  I got a burger "animal" style from the secret menu and I have to say it was pretty good for a fast food burger.  Fat Boy in Brunswick, ME will still always win though.  

Biking the 4 miles back to the host site post In and Out (which brought my total milage to 90 today!) I rode right into the sun setting in the West.  I can't believe in just 10 days we'll be on the Pacific coast watching the sun set over the ocean!

Tonight the teams competed in the second Olympic challenge--the Laundry Burrito.  Basically, every third day a group is responsible for doing all of the laundry.  We all put our laundry on laundry loops and then throw them on a large tarp.  The tarp is then folded into a burrito like thing and placed in the van and taken to the Laundromat.  Tonight the challenge was to see who could fold the burrito, put it and your whole group in the van, and then take it back out of the van without losing any clothes.  It was absurd how fast some of the teams were able to do it!  The stakes are high and the competitive fire is strong.

Let the games begin

August 20, 2013

Williams, AZ to Seligman, AZ

Today marks the start of our longest stretch of biking without a break the entire trip--8 full days! Thankfully today was only 42 miles and mostly downhil. Just as we went to get on the interstate, we saw a sign telling us the way to LA. It's scary to think that we're already that close! 

Casey, Kristin, and I all started riding together and were quickly our front. Just after a long downhill though, Casey got a semitruck tire staple in her tire causing a flat. As we changed it a bunch of people passed us. Back on the bikes though, we started to pass group after group that had also gotten flats. It was kind of like playing leap frog but with bikes and flat tires! The ride was relatively easy and very short. 

We got to Seligman, a town of just around 500 people, at 11:30. The earliest I've ever arrived at a host before. We explore the town, which turned out to be way more touristy than I thought it would be. It is a very proud Route 66 town, that the movie Cars is loosely based off of. There were lots of little touristy shops and we walked around for a bit until it was time to head to the host. 

We stayed at a campsite tonight so we had to pitch tents and make our own dinner. The campsite also had a pool that we all relaxed at before we started working. Most importantly though, tonight was the opening ceremonies for the ME2SB13 Chore Olympics. There's one week left that we get to pick which chore group we want and competing in "Olympic games" is how we're going to decide who gets what chore. It was super intense and teams really brought their A game. My team is currently in last place but there is no where to go but up!! On an unrelated note, tonight was the night of the full moon and at one point the moon looked gigantic just above the horizon while directly opposite of it the giant sun was setting. It was incredible. I stood there with a few people with our arms stretched out wide taking in the moment. No picture could have captured it. 

Week 5 Video

Bike & Build - Me2Sb13 - Week 5 from Daniel LaFata on Vimeo.

A monsoon build day

August 19, 2013

Build day in Williams, AZ

This build day was our second to last build day of the summer!  How has that happened already?!  We got up way earlier than normal for a build day--5:30--because it is currently monsoon season here in AZ as we experienced hiking out of the Grand Canyon two days ago.  We split into two groups and set out to go paint the exterior walls of two different houses through the Brush of Kindness program in Habitat.  I started the day by scraping loose paint from the trim of the windows and doors so we could paint it the new gray color.  I painted for a little while, but then I was recruited for taping plastic up to shield windows and doors from the paint sprayer.  I worked with Daniel to complete this project and we shared a single small step ladder.  It was pretty hilarious to watch us both try to be up on the ladder--one person holding up the plastic and the other taping it to the trim.  We joked that we were in "Couples Construction" all day and it made the hours fly by.  Unfortunately, the rain came early around 11:30 so we had to stop for a little while we waited to see if it would pass.  During this time we all crammed into the van and our lunches showed up.  So nobody had to get out of their cars, the guy drove right up next to our van and handed the bag lunches across the windows like a drive through.  It was pretty amusing.  

The rain eased up for a little while, but ultimately we didn't get much more completed which was a bummer.  When the storm turned into one of the scariest thunder and lightning storms I've ever experienced, we decided that we should probably call it quits.  After showers, I explored the town of Williams with Casey and Jeff for a bit before dinner.  It's a really cute touristy town along Route 66 with lots of little shops.  The big news of the day was that Ellie came back from the hospital today!  She's up and walking with a cane and a back brace, which is amazing! She's so positive and we're all happy she's back.  It's hard to believe we're all going to be going separate ways in a few short weeks!

Sunflower Patches

August 18, 2013

Grand Canyon, AZ to Williams, AZ

We started today with a group photo at the rim of the canyon.  We did our team cheer there too.  It was a pretty unbelievable start to the day.  

Today, for the first time all trip, we backtracked on the road we took into the Grand Canyon for a little over 20 miles.  It was a really strange feeling going by the same things we'd gone by two days earlier but in the other direction.  I was riding with the group I had hiked the canyon with.  We all were feeling it in our calves despite how in shape our legs are.  I guess we don't use our calves as much biking.  The ride was short and lots of small, gradual hills.  Unfortunately, Arizona has had the worst drivers we've experienced by a LOT.  A few days ago riders had bottles thrown at them from moving cars while going up hills, one girl even got ranch dressing squirted all over her from a passing car.  Today the cars were passing absurdly close to us even though there was more than enough room in the other lane to go around us safely.  It's really frustrating not being able to do anything about things like that.  We all talked about how we wish there was more about road bikers in drivers ed classes and more bike paths so we could be out of drivers' ways entirely.  I rode most of the day with Ella V and we had some great chats the whole way there.  About 10 miles out, we stopped to play around and have a photo shoot in a patch of wild sunflowers on the side of the road.  It was so much fun!

We made it to Williams in great time.  Although we're staying at a church, the showers were at host family houses.  After Ella V and I were done showering, we sat around and talked with the couple whose house we were at for almost an hour!  They were awesome and I had a very meaningful conversation about teaching and my plans for getting into teaching. It's great to be able to interact with locals in all the different towns we go through.  They really make the stays there memorable.