Friday, June 20, 2008

Akron, OH - A Beautiful, Easy Day

For those of you who are following the route through the Bike & Build website may have noticed that today was suppose to be about an 85mile ride from Youngstown (where we were last night) to Akron (where we arrived this afternoon). The website is officially WAY wrong. The ride was only 42 miles and it was glorious! I rode with a few of the faster riders today (Shira is an animal on the bicycle) and flew to lunch arriving to find a ton of food that was donated to us by a local grocery store in Youngstown. People stuffed their faces with day old doughnuts, pastries, bagels, fruit, and cookies. Peanut butter also is used on just about everything on this trip, so that was also floating around. We were also given four cakes, muffins, cupcakes, more cookies, and enough different types of breads to feed a small army (which we kind of are, so it works).

After everyone stuffed their faces, and joked about who could eat the most doughnuts since we were given a garbage bag full of them lol, people layed in the sun, took naps, gave each other massages, played with bubbles (no one still is sure where Joe got them from lol), and just enjoyed each other's company and the warm sun. I personally took a nap in the sun and tried to even out some of my ever increasing spandex short tan lines. When I woke up it was a little past noon and decided it was probably time to get back on that bicycle and finish the last ten miles of the day.

The ride was easy, relaxed, and I even got to stop at a Super Wal-Mart before reaching the church we are staying at for the next two nights. People are hanging out before dinner that is being provided by our wonderful hosts. Some people went on a trip to the bike store where I am being picked up some more butt cream. It's surprising that I've almost gone through an entire tube, but seriously, we bike A LOT.

Tomorrow we are having a build day (yay of rest for our butts) with an affordable housing organization called Rebuilding Together. I have never worked with them before and am really excited about it. Rumor is that we will be doing painting, carpentry work, and landscaping, but who knows if it this is true or just another thing going around what we know call the Bike and Build "rumor mill" haha. Either way it's a day our butts are not glued to our saddles and that is always a plus =)

No comments: