My bike is back up and running. My new fork is blue, and beautiful, and looks exactly like one the I bent. I have broken it in with 350 miles in four states in the last week, and my little legs are tired. We have a day off tomorrow, Tuesday, and I am so excited to be able to sleep in till 9AM. I have gotten pretty used to our normal 5AM wake up, and stuffing all of my worldly possessions back into my backpack. This past week has treated me well. This week I was filled with quite a number of firsts.
We had our first day off in Memphis, and go to experience Beale Street. It was fun to watch the street performers doing back flips down 50 feet of the street. Because the majority of our group had come out with us we kept running into people we knew, and having to stop and converse, play ninja tag, and do other such shenanigans. We had a great time, but I have never seen so many cops out patrolling in my life. The actual day off was not that eventful. I slept in till 8:15, ate pancakes, read my book, and generally relaxed and avoided physical activities.
The next day I crossed the Mississippi for the first time in anything other than an airplane. It is a big dirty brown river. We left Tennessee behind us, and entered Arkansas. And even though I had run in with a Tennessee driver, I immediately began to miss the TN roads. For what ever reason in Arkansas there is a bump every 20 ft. By the end of the day I had more then a few choice words to say to the builders of highway 70.
Once we entered Arkansas it became flat. We stopped to talk to a crop duster and found out that in that section of the state grew "just about everything." I learned that it was so flat that it was possible to grow rice. I did not know that rice was grown in the US, but as soon as though about the amount of rice that is eaten in the US it made sense to grow it here. Also apparently if we had headed through two weeks later we would have had to fight off hoards of Misquotes. The thought of biking through swarms of biting bugs is not high on my list of things I want to do in my life.
We had two build days in Little Rock, AK. The first day we prepared a build site for a house that had been built in a parking lot and then moved to its foundation. They do this to promote Habitat. I think this particular house had been build at one of the local high schools. I leveled sand in the car port in preparation for the cement floor. It was the first time that I had ever leveled sand so I do not know if I made it level enough for the professional, but I was proud when the day was done. Our second day of building was actually debuilding. We worked deconstruction for the Habitat for Humanity Resale Store. We went into a house that was going to be torn down, and took out everything that could be resold. We took out the doors, the fireplace, the gas stove, the hot water heater, the air conditioner, and all of the baseboard and trim. I was skeptical that the trim would get sold because it had years of paint on it, but it was sold before we even took it to the resale store. I was impressed.
Out of Little Rock was my first century day. We were supposed to ride 104 miles, but I kind of sort of got lost making mine 108 miles. I apparently missed the turn onto 64, and didn't realize it for 10 miles when the lunch stop never appeared. We have a cue sheet that tells us when we are supposed to turn, and we had planned to have lunch at about mile 40. For about 5 miles there really was no place for our trailer to have pulled off, but then I passed a deserted parking lot. I stopped at the next flea market, and asked if they had seen any bikers pass by. She said "you are the first one, so you must be far ahead." At that point I knew that I was not far ahead, but far lost. I called the van, and started biking back the way I came. Because I was behind sweep, I had to ride in the van till I caught up with sweep. They weren't too far ahead so I was still able to get in over 100 miles. Because we were still pretty much in the flat section of Arkansas it wasn't one of the hardest day we have done on this trip. The next day we bike 92 miles through the Ozark. They were absolutely beautiful, but my legs were rocked by the end of the day. Some of our group members rode an extra 10 miles so they could get in back to back centuries. I was just happy to say that I did 200 miles in two days.
The next two days were shorter with only 74 miles. I know that I am getting into biking shape when I can truthfully say that the first 74 miler was easy. I tried to do the entire 9 miles that we were in Missouri no handed. I was not skilled enough to do two of the hills no handed, and I learned that my bike seat was not made to do 9 miles of no handed riding. I was rather sore by the end. Today my legs informed me for 74 miles that they were not happy with me. It was a very long day, but I survived. I am looking forward to resting them tomorrow. Then it will be back on the bike for a full week of riding. I haven't look too closely at our schedule because we have a rule on this trip that we don't talk about tomorrow until tomorrow, but I am sure that it will be amazing.
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