First Build Day!

Last night we had a great dinner of footlong subs donated by Subway, which we happily munched on while listening to the director from the Providence Habitat for Humanity talk with us a little about what we are dedicating our lives to this summer. Today we woke up and actually got to get out there and build with them.

My day started with a nice trip to Starbucks where I got a tall sugar free caramel coffee and then met up with the group for a short walk to a local Brown University favorite diner called Louie's. They were kind enough to donate or meal. We had a choice of made to order egg breakfast that included toast and homefries (I got this), pancakes, or french toast. Breakfast was nice, the food was good, he service about as good as you're going to get at a diner, and the conversation with what is becoming new great friendships was entertaining.

After breakfast, and waiting for 31 people to use the bathroom, we piled into our two 15 passenger vans and were off for our first build day. Unfortunately, we did not get to go to the actual site where the house we were helping to construct was going to be that day. There have been some legal issues with the piece of land that the Providence Habitat for Humanity is trying to build this particular house on, and for this reason we instead were in a huge warehouse hammering away... literally. Our job today was to construct all the wall frames for the soon to be house. This required looking at drawings and placing the correct pieces of wood in the correct places and hammering them into place. It was really cool to learn how to read the plans (they were simple enough with the number and lettering system they use) and actually use a hammer and nail together these soon to be walls.

We took a lunch break a few hours in (also donated by a local rib house) and we had ribs, chicken, coleslaw, baked beans, and cornbread. My favorite part was definitely the cornbread mmm... It turns out the the house we were building that day was paid for by the money raised by the Providence to Seattle Bike and Build trip from last year. It was cool to see and know that the money we are raising on this trip is truly being put to good use, and it felt awesome to be a part of it. After lunch, we started hammering away again for another couple hours, and ended up finishing around 2:00pm. It was a really fun build day, and made me so excited for our next one.

I am much more excited though that tomorrow is our first day of riding! I am actually assigned as a sweeper for tomorrow's ride. Every day two riders are assigned as sweepers. The sweepers' responsibilities are just to ride at the very end of the group to make sure no one gets left behind. I am kind of glad that one of my days I am assigned this is tomorrow since it is going to be such a short ride and most of the group will be riding together anyways.

Dinner tonight was also a really fabulous donated meal that I know more than a couple people reading this will truly appreciate.... burritos from Chipotle! They were really good, except for some reason the one I picked was guacamole free while the other 3 burritos being ravishly consumed around me were full of the green gold and it made me slightly jealous. We also had a Bike and Build alumi from last year's Providence to San Francisco route come talk to us about his experience, what to expect, and answer any questions we may still have. He was really funny and got us all pretty pumped about our trip's official pedaling start tomorrow.

I am hoping to learn a lot, laugh a lot, experience the country both through the beautiful scenery and the wonderful people I meet in each town, and feel like I have accomplished something great at the end of this awesome journey.

Some fun and cool facts I learned tonight:
Since Bike and Build's 1st trips in 2002, they have raised over $1.1 MILLION for affordable housing and donated over 20,000 hours of volunteering to affordable housing groups.

This year's trips alone have raised over $150,000 and will be donating over 12,000 hours in volunteering.

Pretty amazing!

Things I have been contemplating the past few days of orientation:
Things I am already missing and/or think I am going to definitely be missing when I reach Seattle:

hair dryer, straightener, hair products
my bed (and not a 1 inch thick blow-up mattress with sleeping bag)
my own room (and not sleeping on the floor surrounded by 30 of my new "closest" friends, who may or may not snore... TBD)
not dressing like a slob/bum everyday
makeup and perfume
my own laptop... i miss it already
privacy
not having to shower with other people (i was told a traditional gym showering environment is what is to be expected)
going back to FL where the riding is flat (except for the bridges that get you to the beach)
not having to label EVERYTHING with my name

so far, this is all I have come up with... but i will definitely up date and/or correct as the trip unfolds....