Rochester, this time it's in New York

We had our third build site and fourth build day today. Like our Portsmouth build, we were doing a lot of lawn work. This time we cut down a ton of brush in the back yard getting ready for a new Habitat family to move in and for another house to get build on the property later.

The last few days have been few and far between for internet, mostly I can get on for only a few seconds, not enough to write a blog entry. From Rochester, VT we went to Silver Bay, NY, crossing Lake Champlain via a cable ferry and we stayed in probably the swankiest (is that spelled right, or even a word?) YMCA in the world. It wasn't just like a workout place with some beds - it was a full on resort, with full meals, swimming in Lake George, kayaking in said lake, sailing, archery, tennis, and my favorite - shuffleboard. A bunch of us decided that we should try our hand at shuffleboard, and even though it felt like I had aged 60 years and should be on a cruise boat, it was a lot of fun, and I was doing pretty well.

On the way to Sliver Bay we stopped at an ice cream shop and I got a large oreo milkshake (sooo good) and figured out that I could take the waterbottle out of my vertical bottle cage and put it in my jersey pockets and then put my milkshake in my water bottle cage, it was genius, pure genius. I could make everyone jealous as I biked by drinking my milkshake at the same time, especially when the thermometer on my bike computer showed 100 F. Later in the day it started raining somewhat hard and I came up on Quang who had stopped because he hadn't seen anyone in a while and wanted to make sure he wasn't lost. So I offered him part of my milkshake for some energy (even though it was raining) and his response was "No thanks" then he thought for a few seconds and then said: "who am I kidding I am dead tired and someone is offering me a milkshake, of course I want some".

We had several other interesting days, days of pouring rain, days of huge hills, days of both, but luckily it has started to flatten out so our newly acquired skill (for most people) of pacelining will come in handy. We are still working out the kinks of the paceline, like I went straight on into a rock because it wasn't pointed out. I was fine, my wheel is out of true a bit and I had to drop back from the paceline to put my waterbottle back in the cage and I got to spend the next 20 miles to lunch trying to catch the pace line by myself. I came within 30 seconds but never did... It was a long day.

Another day one rider, Zach Hill, replaced a total of 5 tubes in one day, yes five (he also got 2 flats the next day). On his first flat the van left the floor pump with him with the intent to pick it up again, but Chris forgot to, so I carried the floor pump (a large pump) the 32 miles to lunch... It was an interesting day for all.

So I have had requests for pictures, but since I am not taking a ton and may other people are taking good ones I'll just use other people's. Here is a photo of Pen and I putting up a rain diverter at the Portsmouth build. We pulled up the shingles and the put down the rain diverter underneath them, a long process.

At our next build site in Lebanon, I also did roof work, this time it was much higher up and on a much steeper roof. I don't have any pictures of me doing work just yet, but I'm sure there are cool ones.

Also from that build site I was quoted in the local newspaper, along with some cool photos. The article was in the Foster's Daily Democrat from Dover, NH.

Here is another photo of me from our first day, some of us took a minor detour to Maine to get this wonderful picture (and notch another state)

That is all, we are off to see a movie in Rochester since it's the first big town we've been in so we might as well take advantage of it.




Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.
--P.J. O'Rourke