andyreagan.com

Yesterday we biked into St. Louis, and it was a pretty awesome day.  I got close to 70 miles on the day, the first half into lunch was country roads and then as we approached the city it got busier.  Highlights included: seeing the arch, crossing into another state, and getting new sandals!

Today we built with Rebuilding Together of St. Louis, and it was great to be able to help out multiple people by improving the conditions that they live in.  Then we got to swim, play basketball, and play table tennis! And I got to talk to Lauren for a while which was good, hope she has fun on her road trip tomorrow.

Looking at the map, we're getting pretty far along!!

We spent the early part of the ride out of Greenville on route 140, which wasn’t bad.  It was more cornfields, and there were parts where we could ride close enough to talk which makes the riding go by.  At 10 and 20 miles both we stopped to stretch which was nice, and I pulled lightly into a headwind for the majority of the ride.

Not too long after our second stretch break, my ankle hit my crank again on the right, and it hurt really bad.  It felt weird clipping it out, and sure enough the clip had actually slipped.  So Jesse stopped with me and we moved and re-tightened it and caught up to the others before getting to lunch, which was behind a McDonalds today haha.  The bad part about that was that there was no place for shade to escape the heat or to nap, but we really didn’t have time for nap today anyway haha.

Coming into the city was sketchy for a lot of people, but I didn’t mind the riding at all! It was kinda exciting, and our stay host here in the gym of UMSL is nice.  We’ve got table tennis, a pool, the basketball arena, showers and laundry…

Dinner for both nights was absolutely amazing, I’m really running out of words to describe how awesome the trip and the people and food along the way have been.  Christina and Sarah G’s parents provided the dinners, and we got to experience some real St. Louis cookin.  Pork steaks the first night were bomb and tonight the spinach salad and just everything was spectacular.

Working today was great, I got to fix up walls and install flooring in the bathroom of a house with Jesse, and it was so hot up there that we couldn’t find a dry spot anywhere on our clothes haha.  Not the heat really though, it was the humidity.  Coming back to swim and shower and play basketball and table tennis was great.  I’m ready for the next four days, including a 95 and 106 mile day on our way to Kansas City where we build for two days.  For pictures, I’m working on using flickr and here is the URL for that:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51163058@N08/sets/72157624262049394/

I didn’t really do captions but in reverse order they show the Ohio River, the Arch and the view from that at night (and the ride up it), cool things from downtown that night and today they show some of the roof we put up under a porch.  Check out that board that I cut to fit in the angled space…it fit so tight that it held itself up, boom! And there is a picture of the neighborhood that we were doing the work in, it was rough but I’m glad to be helping where it’s really needed.

Rumor is that they next two day, and 160 miles are on gravel…so not looking forward to that part, but at least now I’m expecting gravel trail so when I find pavement I’ll be even happier! Better than the opposite haha, that’s what I was just telling Jen.  Alyson, one of our fearless leaders, just confirmed the rumor, sorta haha so it should be interesting!

I’m working on getting a better photo system still, leave comments about how this flickr thing works! Here are the very best haha:

Thiiiiick gravel before the bridge

The Mississippi River!!

Get ready Missouri!

The Arch really was awesome

St. Louis by night, from the top of the Arch

The neighborhood we build in, I didn't take too many pictures to not be creepin haha

Today, I for the first time left the Eastern Time Zone! We crossed the border into the flat, windy, farms of Illinois and after biking to the post office and to showers, I logged 73 miles on the day! This morning, we all (yes, all 31 of us) put on make-up, eye shadow really, in an attempt to look as good as Christina too haha. Most of us looked pretty scary lol.

We tried haha

Glamor shots

Scary

Very scary Emily haha

I smiled lol

Ahh Emma

And Jesse continued to amaze us haha

Aileen

Bike and Build owns the barfights haha

A new time zone!!!

Another state border for all of us!

We didn’t have internet at our host, although I bought an ethernet cable in hopes that the wall port would work haha. So apologies that this is going up late I guess.

Last night I didn’t really get a chance to finish the blog either, but came back and started reading the book that I had brought with me on the trip: “It’s Not About the Bike” by Lance Armstrong. Tonight, I finished it! That’s how I read books, because I really enjoy reading and so once I get started I don’t want to put it down. Also helps that I had four hours today to lay under a tree when it was beautiful out and read, which was real nice.

Today’s riding was good, it was windy but it really wasn’t that bad at all. For the first time, we could see the flatness of the land extending through farms for miles. Some of the silos and elevators made tractor trailers look small haha.

Huge silos

Flatness!

Off into the distance

I got to ride hard in the aerobars, and after lunch I had waited too long and ended up riding by myself for the first time without quickly catching someone or being caught. It really wasn’t that fun at all, the plains were nothing to look at all, and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open really haha. So, I decided to do some intervals to keep myself interested, and in doing a 1 on, 1 off, 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 1 off, 1 on pyramid at 23mph into the headwind, I actually caught up with some friends

There was this sweet map of US-40 crossing the country outside of the church in Terre Haute

Jesse looked rediculous riding into lunch haha, I though he was trying to take flight. He was actually trying to cut more wind for people behind him, so he put a stick in his jacket haha

There were only like 15 miles left then, and I tried to set a pace at which I could pull them without making them work too hard, and we cruised all the way into town at 15-16mph, and attempted to talk through the wind riding single file, but mostly unsuccessfully trying to talk haha.

Found some kittens on the way there, possibly the most exciting sight haha

Our hosts a Sacred Heart (our first Catholic host church) were totally awesome and had more snacks than I knew what to do with, and drinks already laid out for us! It was sweet. I hopped back on the bike before changing and went to the post office, taking Kristen’s thing to mail too. I whipped through town which is a lot of fun really, cruisin through the turns and timing the lights and drafting and such, I was feeling good. Got to talking to the post office mail guy, and turns out that he was into cycling and we talked about our trip and he was telling me all about RAAM which has a checkpoint in Effingham! It was really cool, and when it came time to pay, he said he’s got it. I asked him if he was sure, and he was, and I’m continuely amazed by the generosity of the people we meet and the hosts who feed and house us.

A stretch break along the way

On the way back I stopped by a computer store I saw on the way there, and picked up an ethernet cable with the hope that the port would work, and that I could probably use it later on the trip but no beans. When I got back to the church, most had gone to shower and they were running a last shuttle but didn’t have room for one of us. I grabbed my shower stuff and hopped back on the bike and beat them there and back haha, and even got a little lost and got a tour of the HS here haha. Showers were cold, but I was hot from riding around town and riding there, so it actually felt good once I overcame the shock of the cold water.

Tonight we had an excellent dinner, and gave a presentation to our host, hung out (threw some disc and footballs) with the youth group here and then did our affordable housing presentations, which were good. I typed this guy up on notepad and hopefully it’ll be going up early tomorrow! I would hope to stop in a coffee shop on the way or something, but can’t really carry the laptop with me haha. Oh, I got an idea…put it on a flash drive…and maybe find a library! Anyway that’s all for tonight, I’m hoping to talk to Lauren soon and then hit the hay.