120 miles and Andrew's back! (Colorado Springs, CO)

Yesterday (Saturday) was yet another epic day for Bike and Build. We had what's hopefully our longest ride of the trip--120 miles(!!) and a couple thousand feet up into Colorado Springs. We got up extra early in the morning to hit the road at a quarter of six, which was tough but almost worth it when we spied the Rocky Mountains for the first time at about 6:45am. The early morning light was really beautiful and the mountains seemed like a mirage, rising out of perfectly flat land--completely unlike the Appalachians. As the day went on the Rockies got bigger and bigger--it's amazing to me how dramatically they changed in just one day. First, we started to notice the clouds, which seemed to gather around the mountaintops in big poofy shapes, then all of a sudden the mountains took on 3D shape and we could see the shadows the clouds cast on them. The first 70 miles of the ride went amazingly fast and easy, then the adventures began. We hit about 15 miles of dirt road, which was treacherous on our tires and plagued with biting flies. Anita and I rode together and would yell whenever we saw a fly land on the other, like "fly on your butt, right cheek!" but there was no avoiding them. We started getting really tired and running out of water, but Anita and I kept cheering each other on, which we pretty desperately needed. The last 18 miles of the ride went right through Colorado Springs on a scary 6-lane highway with no shoulder that only went uphill. After seeing our lives flash before our eyes at least half a dozen times, we ended up riding on the sidewalk, which wasn't much better than the road. Somehow or another, we made it to our host site and could hardly believe what we'd just done. The Rockies were huge and loomed right over us. Our host Saturday and Sunday night is New Life Church, a megachurch (congregation ~ 14,000) led until recently by Ted Haggard. The church itself is unlike anything I've ever seen and I guess in that respect a fitting destination for such an adventuresome day. Our real reward, however, was picking up Andrew from the airport and welcoming him back to the group with big posters Lee Anne made. It feels so good to have the team complete again--welcome back Andrew!

Bike odometer: 2245 miles

PS - Another cool thing that happened today is that we ran into another cycling charity group going across west across the country called Push America--Journey of Hope. Journey of Hope is made up of fraternity brothers raising money for people with disabilites, another cause I've cared a lot about during college, so please check out their website because I think what they're doing is really cool. On the inside, though, I was scoffing at the fact that they're biking east, with the prevailing winds always at their back. Bike and Build is definitely way more hard core.













Mary Olive discovers the Rockies, ~8am










Cattle crossing...eastern Colorado is a lot of big, flat, empty land













Rockies getting a little bit bigger (Anita, Ryan, Liz), ~10am










15 miles of dirt road and biting flies (me)










Anita points out those ever-growing Rockies, ~12pm










Our route took us right through a classic car festival in Fountain, CO (me)










View of the Rockies from New Life Church in Colorado Springs (holy cow how'd they get so big?)

Water slidin' and ridiculous tan lines (La Junta (outside Rocky Fort), CO)

We had another "easy" ride today, arriving in La Junta, Colorado after about 56 miles. Eastern Colorado is surprisingly flat and barren, empty grasslands on either side of us. We're tenting tonight at the La Junta Municipal Park, where we've also been given access to their pool and, best of all, water slide. We were having lots of fun flashing back to our childhoods by cannonballing into the pool and finding the fastest way down the slide when I started to notice that lots of people were staring at us. It took me a few minutes to realize how silly we must all look in our dark tan lines that only come halfway up our arms and legs and some of us with bike grease still smeared on our legs. I forget sometimes how much we stand out as a group, especially when we're walking through small towns in matching Spandex. What memories we'll have of this trip :)

Bike odometer: 2125 miles













Love seeing signs like these by the side of the road... (Mary Olive and I are thumbing for rides but she has the technique down much better than me)













Risa enjoying some shaved ice

A Dalmatian for every mile (Lamar, CO)

Thursday has been a day of epic proportions, complete with triumph and tragedy. It's late, so I'll just try to hit the highlights. Please check out the two new journals (Tues and Wed) below.

We 've arrived in Lamar, CO--State Number 7--after an intense but surprisingly energizing 101 mile ride. We hit a bunch of milestones along the way--Mountain Standard Time, the Colorado state border, the 2000 mile mark for our trip, and another century. I pacelined today with a group of gals that call themselves the Lady Line, and we kicked some booty, averaging 19-20 mph the whole ride. We crossed the state line with plenty of fanfare and merrymaking. The trouble with pacelining (riding in a close single-file line in order to draft off riders in front), however, is that it's really hard for riders in the middle and back of the line to see what's coming on the road. A few miles into Colorado, Molly P hit a rock (read: small boulder) that had pretty well camoflauged itself into the road and took a really bad fall. After a visit to the clinic, we learned that she's broken her collar bone and torn her AC ligament and probably won't be able to ride for several weeks. She's stayed in awesomely good spirits, though, and we're all hoping for the speediest recovery. It's especially tough since Colorado is Molly's home state and like the rest of us she's been looking forward to the Rockies.

Bike odometer: 2069 miles

PS - Our host for the night is Lamar United Methodist--thanks so much for the delicious dinner!













We hit Mountain Standard Time today, and Kansas was nice enough to mark the crossover for us










Liz, Molly P and Risa getting back on Hwy 50










Air kicks to celebrate Colorado

Gettin the heck out of Dodge (Garden City, KS)

We had a quick, easy ride from Dodge City to Garden City today, 53 miles in less than three hours. It's funny to think that at the beginning of this trip, 53 miles seemed like a ridiculously long way, but now it's just something we knock out before lunch! Our host tonight is Garden Valley Church, a Mennonite church with a brand new gymnasium/youth building. It's been nice relaxing all afternoon around the church and listening to firecrackers going off in the neighborhood all around us. I thought about staying up for the big fireworks, but chances are that I'll be passed out at 9pm. Happy Birthday America...

Bike odometer: 1968 miles










Mary Olive pointing to a ginormous arena of cattle











We've been passing tons of these grain elevators in Kansas...I've never seen one before but they're pretty cool.

Hay bales and tornados (Dodge City, KS)

I was in charge of writing the group journal for the day, so get comfortable because this post is huge. Here she be:

Hello from Dodge City, Kansas! We left the Coldwater Lake campground this morning in the middle of a heavy fog that reduced our visibility quite a bit. Fortunately, we could still hear cars coming from behind us and it was kind of cool seeing the road in front of us disappear into the mist, never knowing whether a hill or bend was coming ahead.

After a couple hours, the fog lifted and Anita, Caitlin and I came across signs for Greensberg, Kansas, a small town that made the national news this past May when an F5 tornado 1.7 miles in diameter leveled the entire town. We decided to detour to learn what has been happening in the past two months and how Greensberg is handling a very serious housing crisis. Riding through Greensberg’s streets was really sobering. With the exception of a few concrete buildings, piles of debris and trailers, the whole landscape was flat and eerie. Trees had been stripped of their branches, but trunks were left standing, sometimes with debris stuck in them or wrapped around them. The surroundings reminded me a lot of the way the way Waveland, Mississippi looked this past spring when I visited a Katrina relief work camp nearby (Waveland is the town where the eye of Katrina ran aground). Unlike Waveland, though, there was lots of evidence here of the rebuilding process already starting up. Heavy trucks and bulldozers were all over the place carting away debris. FEMA offices had been set up in tents next to the courthouse and were busy interviewing people about damage assessment, insurance, and so on. We met a resident who had lived in Greensberg for more than fifty years and owned several properties in town, all of which were destroyed. She showed us pictures of the way the town looked three days after the tornado hit, and it was clear that a lot of progress had already been made on debris removal and cleanup. She was excited because she was receiving one of the first permits to rebuild her home, and was already hanging vinyl siding on her garage. We joked that it was a shame we couldn’t stay any longer, since we learned all about hanging siding during our build day in Chapel Hill.

The rest of the ride into Dodge City was pretty nice, with very few hills and clear weather. The countryside in Kansas looks a lot like I expected of the Midwest, with huge wheat and corn fields and not much else in-between towns. Dodge City is known for both historic Fort Dodge, which protected the Santa Fe Trail for settlers going west, and the big meat processing plant there now, which we could smell in town. We’re staying tonight at the Gunsmoke Trav-L-Lodge, a really nice campsite just outside of town, and look forward to an easy ride into Garden City tomorrow.

We also got some really exciting news yesterday night—Andrew, our teammate who was injured in an accident outside Memphis and has been recovering at home, is feeling a lot better and got permission from his doctor to rejoin the team! He’ll be meeting up with us in Colorado Springs this Saturday. Andrew, can’t wait to have you back!

Bike odometer: 1915 miles










Greensberg










Almost all the homes in sight were buldozed down to their foundations










Happy Independence Day













Mrs. Ella Mae Mars, a resident of Greensberg for more than fifty years, shares some pictures of the town three days after the tornado hit.













Anita and CVH, signing a message board at the town's main attraction, a hand-dug well










Strange whirligigs by the side of the road (Anita and CVH)










Me, Anita, Kaitlin L










Emily B, Emily H, Melanie, Anita, Kaitlyn, Me











We pass hay bales almost every day and finally decided to take some pictures...
Me, Melanie, Anita on top










Me, Emily B, Melanie, Anita










Hotties










Melanie and me










Meeee













Anita

State number six (Coldwater, KS)

Yesterday (Monday) we crossed our fifth state line into Kansas! The ride was pretty easy, the prairie scenery was beautiful, and we arrived safely at Coldwater Lake campsite. After some pizza at a restaurant in town, we relaxed around the campgrounds, which are much nicer (and less buggy) than any we've visited before. Funny anecdote: a few people met Coldwater's mayor, who runs a business downtown. Someone asked him if there was anything we could do in town that night, and he replied: "#*$!, do you know where you are? This is Coldwater, Kansas!" ...Nice place, though.

Bike odometer: 1838 miles










Men of Cherokee's First United Methodist preparing us an awesome breakfast













Lots of sunflowers in Oklahoma










Road













Emily H, corn tortilla










Some of the girls decorated the van recently













Lee Anne checks out a rattler in the snake pit behind a roadside convenience store










Emily H










Prairie and me










Lee Anne and me at the state line










The pizza place had a bunch of maps on the wall. Chris C and Anita are pointing out Manteo, Coldwater, and San Diego. We're halfway!

Well I was born in a small town (Cherokee, OK)

The trend of awesome hospitality in Oklahoma has continued to the very end. We left First Lutheran in Ponca City after a great breakfast that prepared us well for the rain coming down in the early morning. Fortunately, the rain cleared up soon after we hit the road and we had nice cool weather the rest of the way to Cherokee. Along the way we passed even more flooding, from swollen creeks to water-drenched fields and marooned houses and barns, which was all pretty sad to see. I rode with the lead pack today, and it was pretty nice to pound it and arrive at our host site by about 1:30. We're staying at the First United Methodist in Cherokee, a small town of about 1400. After showers at the local high school, we relaxed at the church until we had another awesome dinner served by women from the congregation. After dinner and our presentation, some of us chatted for awhile with the pastor, Jim, and his wife Gail, also a chaplain. We learned a lot about the challenges this community has been facing over the past few decades as it "grays." Cherokee faces the same problem as many small towns in the area--as a farming community lacking any industry, its young people are leaving for college and only coming back if their families have owned land here for several generations. In recent years, businesses and churches have closed, and many houses are abandoned, some uninhabitable. First United Methodist once had a robust congregation, but now most of its members are in their seventies. The high concentration of elderly in the area has lead to a greater need for medical care, but there's only one PA in town (no doctors) and the nearest hospital is 55 miles away. This church does some great volunteer work on home repairs in the area, but unfortunately there isn't any need for new affordable housing here. Instead, a nonprofit group has been started recently called Taking a Closer Look, which raises money to demolish homes that are abandoned (or squatted on) and uninhabitable. It's sad to hear so much about the challenges Cherokee has been facing, but also awesome to see how much the congregation here has drawn together to show hospitality to us.

Bike odometer: 1752 miles










Dinner last night at Ponca City First Lutheran










We passed some of the flooding that has so devastated this area. In Cherokee it has rained for nineteen days straight. We learned that two months ago, wheat farmers in this area were expecting the best crop in years, but now they're just hoping to be able to harvest a fraction.










Trying to look like a disoriented herd of cattle to appease my requests for a group picture.










Stopped in the town of Jet, the Goose Hunting Capital of Oklahoma










Pioneers (Anita, Liz, Ryan). We've joked that Bike and Build has a lot to do with the American Dream because we believe in home ownership and we're heading West.











On the road (Amanda et al.)










Marquee in front of First United Methodist










First United Methodist: constructed in the days when it was popular for Methodist churches to be built up toward heaven, the congregation now has six parishioners that can't come to church because they're too old get up the front stairs.