Yayy Tennessee! (Gatlinburg, TN)

We finally crossed into the second of our eight states today, Tennessee! This is the farthest west I've ever visited along our route, so I'm pretty excited to be riding into new territory. We were all psyched up for the toughest ride of our trip yet, but to my happy surprise it wasn't nearly as bad as expected. The 84-mile day had only two sections of tough uphill, the second section only ten miles instead of the expected fifteen, and ending right at the NC-TN state line, where there was some celebratory dancing and carrying on. After leaving the Y at Asheville, we rode mostly downhill through Maggie Valley into Cherokee, NC, full of "rich cultural heritage" like casinos, SantaLand, tee pees, and the Tomahawk Mini-Mall (the Cherokee had tee-pees? tomahawks?). There were some interesting billboards hinting at challenges (besides crazy tourists) this community faces...like "Ask your elders about diabetes --Cherokee Chairmen" and, more simply, "Meth Kills." I haven't been to Cherokee since I was almost too little to remember, so I found the culture pretty interesting...it must be pretty complicated to have Cherokee identity.

After lunch we climbed into the Great Smoky Mountains Park, where we hit the state line and most of us had a great coasting ride back downhill. Unfortunately, Jochem had a really rough fall in the last ten miles and picked up some nasty road rash. Luckily, he was rescued by a newlywed couple in the car following him, and they drove him in to our host site, a Lutheran church in Gatlinburg, and even posed for pictures. Ever brave, Jochem's doing fine and should be back on the road once his bent wheel is fixed. Riding straight into downtown Gatlinburg after exiting the quiet and shady park was a surreal experience...the heat in the sun was oppressive and Gatlinburg is super-touristy, looking a lot like Disney World with people, shops, and restaurants packed in tight on the streets. It seems like a pretty cool place, and our host church is nice (no-one is here, but someone came to unlock the building and let us cook in their kitchen), but I'm kind of glad we'll be moving on to quieter Maryville soon.










Shoot, we're biking across the United States and then some













Loving the downhill












Cherokee has cool road signs, translated in (I assume) the Cherokee alphabet










Lunch at a park in Cherokee










Buggers! We did all 35 of those suckers, too










Almost at the top! Liz, I think? Last view of North Carolina!










My hill-climbing motivators: Kaitlyn, Ryan, Liz, Anita and Kim










State line at last!! Man, were we excited.

Bike odometer: 683 miles

Blue Ridge Parkway! (Asheville, NC)

Oh man, another killer day. We hoped today would be a little gentler and allow for some recovery (tomorrow's supposed to be the hardest route yet), but it turned out longer (78 miles) and hillier than expected. We're all having a really tough time, and most people didn't arrive in Asheville til 6-7:30pm. I've grown big blisters on the backs of my heels from all the walking I've been doing! Here are a few pictures from positive moments of the day...we were mostly on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which gave us gorgeous views, and after climbing up to 5200 feet we came off the ridge down ten miles of hill going up to 37 mph. Tonight we're staying at one of the YMCA's in Asheville, and I'm about to collapse for some badly needed sleep.



Early morning countryside, going up to the parkway


Queen of the world!


We came across some horses and Ryan got a little friendly with them. We tried feeding them one of the "100% Greens and Whey Protein" bars that Whole Foods donated to us, but even the horses spit them out.


Go Vandy

PS- Thanks for the comments, Anna & Statt and Mr. Click!

Dan visits!! (Altamont (Linville Falls), NC)

Alternate headings:
Killer Hill of Death!
Ain' No Shame in Walking

Phew, these last two days (biking into Altamont and into Asheville) have been killer, so in lieu of detailed journals I'll just post a bunch of pictures. Yesterday (Tues) we biked 72 miles from Taylorsville to Altamont, a tiny community near Linville Falls. The mileage wasn't too bad, but we ran into the mother of all hills going up the side of a mountain on state road 181. We thought it was going to be about 4 miles, but it turned out to be 8-10. Lessons learned: I couldn't get anywhere at all if it weren't for really cool and supportive teammates and there ain't no shame in walking. After we finally found Altamont (an adventure), we stayed at Altamont United Methodist, a cute little church surrounded by cow pastures. The folks there are really friendly and fed us lasagna and country ham biscuits for breakfast! Best of all, Dan came to visit, and made my week.

*Important corollary to yesterday's "positive thought":
Hills aren't quite as bad as they look IF you can see the top!

Preview

Dan and me

Risa and Melanie RICE'ing it up in their matching dresses


Cool folks at First Baptist Church in Taylorsville (departure)


Fillin' up?


We ran into about 3 miles of dirt road--no way through it but through it


Stopped for lunch


Thought I was at the top of that hill...silly me, there were five miles to go!


How Andrew and I felt a little later


This biker saved our collective tushes...he saw all of us riding up 181 and wanted to know what we were doing...later he brought us Gatorade (right when I was about to pass out!) and helped us sort out the directions!


Still lost, we happened upon the continental divide (...twice)

A whole slew of posts! (Taylorsville, NC)

Amber waves of grain (well, sort of cream-colored--man those bikes are heavy!)










Lunch in Statesville













Celebrity T-shirt signing













Welcome from the younger Barrys










Welcome from Calvary Baptist

We have a little down time in Taylorsville, NC and I’m getting caught up on my journals, so please scroll down to see a bunch more! We rolled up to Taylorsville’s First Baptist Church around 2:00 this afternoon and caught our first glimpse of purple-headed mountains. Well, foothills, really, but we were pretty excited nonetheless. Today’s ride (65 miles) went really smoothly, which was a big relief after yesterday’s excitement. Marilyn, the Bike and Builder from one of last year’s routes, brought us muffins, coffee and cereal at Calvary Baptist, which was awesome. The weather had cleared up and warmed up, and was nice when we hit the road at 8, the local news crew filming us as we biked away. About ten minutes down the road, a car pulled up at an intersection next to us and the driver shouted: “I just saw y’all on the news!” We also got some friendly horn toots from other drivers, which made me feel pretty cool.

We stopped in Statesville for lunch around 45 miles, and it’s actually a cute little town. We parked the trailer across from a gas station, and several people walked across the street or stopped us to ask what we were doing. One guy said that he saw us on the news last night and insisted that we all sign his T-shirt (apparently George Clooney was in Statesville this winter looking for filming locations, and we’re the best “celebrity appearance” since).

When we arrived at First Baptist Church, Jen’s family greeted us with a friendly welcome sign. The church set up snacks and a poster board displaying posts from our blogs…making us celebrities indeed. We’ve just had a dinner of the best lasagna in recent memory and fudge brownies (I can’t even imagine what my caloric intake is on this trip), and we’re about to give our standard presentation about the trip to our gracious hosts.

Things I’ve learned today:

* Hills are never quite as bad going up as they look from a distance, and they tend to be easier when taken by force rather than slowly and gently

* Western North Carolina is much more pretty and pastoral than I give it credit for (rolling hills, old barns, bales of hay, the red wheelbarrow and the white chickens)

* It also has asiatic lilies growing by the road from time to time, which earns it bonus points

Bike odometer: 469.9 miles

Our trailer!

Here are some pictures from the beginning of the trip that I meant to post (thanks, Dad). We have a van and trailer that follows us to carry our gear as we go, and during orientation in Manteo we painted the trailer so that it would stand out on the road. Here are the results:










Using a projector to trace the United States on the side (we're a clever bunch)










Left-hand side (supposed to be a biker...to the right we added an arrow to SD and 3500 miles)










Right-hand side shows a map with our route


Painting by flashlight

Monsoon century! (Winston Salem, NC)

The DeSaixs and me at COTC

Today was definitely our most emotional day of the trip. It had its ups and downs for sure, but pushed almost all of us to our limits. In the morning, we had another great breakfast at Chapel of the Cross and were seen off by the DeSaixs, Bob Chase and Jimmy. Unfortunately, we were also met by tropical depression Barry, who decided to stay with us for the next ten hours, dumping rain all day long. At first the rain was kind of fun, spraying in our faces and making the road slick and shiny, but after awhile our shoes turned into pools of water and we started to get cold. On a funny note, the chamois in our shorts (padding for our bums) got wet, and it felt like riding around with wet diapers. The hills started getting steeper and we began missing turns when the rain washed away our chalk (usually, the lead riders in the group use chalk to mark the turns for the rest of the group). We finally arrived in Winston Salem at 7:30pm—after 106 miles and more than eleven hours in the saddle! I was lucky and only had mild bike trouble, but several folks had flats or got so lost they had to be rescued by the van. I know there’s no way I could have made it all the way if it weren’t for my riding partners, Anita and Melanie, with their silliness and good spirits.

After all these misadventures, the reception we received in Winston Salem was incredible. The last twenty miles of our “century” (a 100-mile ride) felt about as bad as the first eighty, since Winson Salem is really hilly and we made as many wrong turns as right ones (I have to admit, I hurled a lot of insults on the roads of that city, but it’s not a bad place). Coming to the top of one hill, we finally found ourselves Calvary Baptist Church, and the rest of our group across the street at Paceline bike shop, yelling and waving at us. A Bike and Builder who rode on one of last year’s routes (Marilyn) and her mom had set up a cookout for us in the parking lot, invited the local news station, and arranged for the bike shop to be open and to tune up our bikes for free! I had never been so happy to see the group, and we rode in to the news cameras with much hand-slapping. The food was great, the folks at Paceline were really helpful, and Calvary Baptist provided nice accommodations in their workout room. I was so tired that the rest of the day is just a blur in my memory, but we had arrived.

Positive thoughts for the day:

* For some reason or another, we passed a lot of cows today. For the most part, they just sat there all nonchalant, heedless of the wind and rain. Sometimes they would look up at us if I mooed at them (note: I was mildly hypothermic at this point at getting a little disoriented), but otherwise they were unbothered by their surroundings. It was kind of inspiring actually; today’s mantra was: be like a cow.

* When you’re riding on smooth, wet asphalt, you can look down and see your reflection, with colors and everything.

* Marilyn, her family, and the folks at Paceline are awesome.

Were my bike odometer working in the rain, it would read: 404.9 miles

We build, too! (Chapel Hill, NC)

Downtown Durham historic neighborhood restoration project (Friday site)










Hanging a porch ceiling (Friday)










Posing with the very proud homeowner, Cynthia Holland













Relaxing after dinner on Friday night at the home of a Chapel of the Cross parishoner, Mr. Crow











Our Saturday house in Hillsborough (before we started hanging siding)













Chris C and Kim measure twice, cut once













Yvonne and Ivey go bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s










Ensemble

Hi everyone, sorry I don't have time for a post right now, but here are some pictures from the past two days and I'll add a journal soon. We've had an awesome time building in Durham and Hillsborough on Friday and Saturday, but will have a tough ride to Winston Salem in the rain tomorrow. It's time for some sleep. Thanks so much to everyone who made our stay in Chapel Hill so very comfortable!

NEW!

We spent two great days (three nights) in Chapel Hill, the first day working in downtown Durham with Durham Habitat and the second in Hillsborough working with Orange County Habitat, the recipient of two-thirds of our donated funds. Our first day of work was pretty tough; our group was split up, and Andrew and I spent most of the day carry boards up stairs and nailing down flooring in an attic where it was at least 140 degrees. By the middle of the day, I could wring sweat out of my T-shirt. We still had a good time and met one of the homeowners, Cynthia Holland, who was beaming with excitement about her new house. The neighborhood where we were working was actually a historic part of Durham, where run-down houses were being restored to their really nice historic colors and styles. It’s a rough part of town, though, and I learned that two houses had recently been broken in to and all their copper wire was stolen—to be sold as scrap metal for maybe a couple hundred dollars, while the cost of rewiring the houses to Habitat was about five thousand dollars.

That night, we were hosted for dinner by a Chapel of the Cross parishioner, Mr. Crow, and were served great cookout food with the help of Mark, Larry, Jimmy, and Tammy. Don Click from Orange County Habitat spoke to us about the challenges of the housing situation in Orange County (check out my blog entry from April) and the difference that growing up in a family-owned home makes on children. For lots of interesting statistics, check out the North Carolina Housing Coalition here.

On Saturday we worked on putting up vinyl siding on a home on Tulip Tree Rd. in Hillsborough. Hanging siding is pretty fun, especially because we could really see the difference our work made at the end of the day. By coincidence, a home two houses down from ours was dedicated at lunch time, and got to meet the young Hispanic family with two little girls moving in. Their gratitude and excitement crossed the language barrier, and was a great reminder of why Habitat’s work is so important.

For dinner, Chris’s parents brought over zucchini and my parents brought over enough chicken to feed a small village (great luck, since we would need so much protein the next day!). My friends Ashley, Josh, and Kristen, and long-time roomie and coolest-kid-ever Ginny came over to visit, and it felt really good to be supported by such awesome people. Leaving Chapel Hill the next day would be hard indeed.