Texas, Continued.

Wow. Another really, really tough day. My bike was still out of commission but Ethan kindly let me borrow his. I’ve been a bit spoiled – my bike and I have become One as of late and every time I hop on her I am strangely reminded of butta’. (This comparison is both very accurate and very difficult to explain. It’s a good thing though!) Getting used to a new set up was pretty tough and a bit hard on my knees, but I had a great time nonetheless!

Again, a beautiful ride. I’ve never seen a sky this…big. There are no trees out here, just sky and field. I even spotted some antelope, a giant tarantula, and a HUGE toad. It’s like National Geographic out here. The ride was tough again, too – we had some strong headwinds and false flats (or very gradual climbs) all day. However, our second lunch was at Dairy Queen where they let us order all the food and shakes we could hold, on the house! I can’t remember the last time I was so thrilled.

New Mexico tomorrow – what an adventure!

Lace 

Don’t Mess with Texas

We awoke this morning excited for a new state after almost a week in Oklahoma. JD, a Texan native, really got into the spirit of things when he decided to wear his (rather tightly fitting) “Don’t Mess With Texas” shirt – if only we had known how appropriate those words would be today.

After a delicious breakfast set out by our generous hosts at Arnett United Methodist, our 90-mile day got off to a rather slow start. Within the first 10 miles, a storm started brewing just north of us, shooting off lightning bolts that sent us scurrying over to the nearest “shelter” (a bush) for about an hour. Despite our anxiousness to get moving, we did get the rare opportunity to watch a breathtaking sunrise (it usually comes up behind us!).

The ride was simply gorgeous, and I can honestly say I enjoyed every minute of it. However, our route was incredibly challenging – probably the toughest I’ve ever  completed. Texas continued the Oklahoman tradition of some dirty crosswinds while also throwing in 15 miles worth of gravel roads. The second section of gravel was quite treacherous  - an 8-mile stretch I doubt anyone will forget for a long while to come. The powers that be thought that this point would be a particularly amusing time to snap my gear cable, rendering my bike useless. However, Amanda who is unfortunately feeling under the weather came to my rescue and lent me hers!

Despite literally “scooting”, sometimes even being reduced to the humiliating walking of the bike, Austin (who I rode with through much of these obstacles) and I had a great time and often found ourselves reduced to tears at the ridiculousness of the day’s events. We even saw the long, thin ears and sinewy body of a real, live jack rabbit bounding through a giant field, a creature that we both thought was completely mythical.

After a long, long day, we were greeted with juicy watermelon, ice cold water, and huge smiles from our hosts at Union Church in Spearman, Texas. After a huge dinner, our hosts shuttled us in the back of their pick-up trucks to the local pool that they kept open just for us. They even had a waterslide!

As usual, I’m exhausted but couldn’t be more thrilled for tomorrow – another day to live the Dream!

Ride On,

Lacy

 All the cows gathered around when my bike broke. Very, very creepy.

Take that, cows!

 The dead center of nowhere.

 Gravel road #1. Still Smiling.

Dan

Elaina.

Arnett, OK (86)

Every waking moment I wasn’t driving during the day today, I was conked out. My body just decided that since it wasn’t biking, it’d just shut down completely. Despite it being five trillion degrees and my having nowhere else to sleep besides curled up in the driver’s seat, I probably logged a good 8 hours today at lunch stops.

For what I saw of it, the roads today were extremely windy and extremely beautiful. We came right up on a wind farm and I just couldn’t get over what beautiful structures they were. When stopping to fill up on water, we came across one up close and personal when the road was completely shut down while moving a piece of the turbine - it required a rig with over 120 wheels!

I did, however, have a bit more energy for exploring the super tiny town of Arnett though (and I thought Watonga was small!). The church members were INCREDIBLE hosts – it really showed how much they loved having us over our potluck dinner. Afterwards, a few of us set out to chase the sunset which didn't disappoint. We were treated further when we realized there was a harvest moon out as well, which was a truly beautiful site.

On the walk back, Mike and I spied a few kids sprinting through town and decided to follow them, wondering what kids do in a town of 500. After many wild guesses, we realized they were making their way to a tiny fireworks shop run by some extremely nice folks! Despite never having officially met a Bike & Builder, they knew exactly who we were and why we were in Arnett. News travels fast, I suppose.

Tomorrow we hit Texas, which is supposedly one of the most difficult rides of the trip. Fingers crossed for a cloud or two.

May the winds be ever in your favor,

Lacy

P.S. We come across the most wonderfully random wifi passwords. “cowboys14”, hahaha.

The dirt was amazingly soft!

Watonga, OK (74)

Watonga is smallllll. Compared to OKC, this place is a ghost town! I rode with Josh most of the day, battling some very intense crosswinds, and got into the host fairly early, leaving us plenty of time to explore (and obviously DM some Sonic milkshakes!). Despite it being 2pm on a Saturday afternoon, absolutely everything was closed. Our host was amazing though, so we were more than happy to mosey back and hang out with them. (We had such a good time that they might even have us back next year, despite spilling paint all over their sidewalk! Whoops!)

The wind blew off our trailer wheel cover today, which JD took to get fixed at the house of a very nice local. On the way back, he ran into the owners of a small local vineyard who invited us to come to a taste that evening. I tagged along and we all made fast friends with one another. Check out their stuff at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whirlwind-Winery/146027668752130?fref=ts!

It’s been a long day, but I’ll get somewhat of a “break” tomorrow when I’m driving the van. Until then.

Lacy

OKC Build Days

My explorative spirit didn’t carry me too far on that first night in OKC – I fell asleep at about 6 and was out like a light for the next 13 hours. This left me rearing to go for our build days though!

The OKC Habitat chapter we worked with over the last few days is really awesome and builds a house unlike any other I’ve seen! They include beautiful brick and stone work, even a two-car garage, and yet are still extremely affordable. Though these little details may seem like extravagances, our site manager explained how they helped Habitat communities be accepted as something more reputable and sustainable than something like “the Projects”.  Our team worked at several homes in their Habitat development of over 300 houses, mostly doing exterior trim painting and masonry cleanup. I stuck with painting and quickly solidified my dominance in the “Messiest Painter” category, as is still evident by the thick coating in much of my hair.

Though we didn’t do any rebuilding from the tornado damage, our site director did help shuttle us on a little tour of the damage in order for us to just gauge the impact. Though I had a hard time keeping my eyes open in the van, I did squeak them open every time I heard a particularly loud “Wooww” and the damage done was indeed moving.

Mail drop also happened today! Amongst my awesome notes and packages was a particularly neat gift for the team from my grandmother – “cool bands”! We had a ton of fun picking out our patterned bands and figuring out weird ways to tie them on – pictures coming soon! We also got a chance to do a bit of exploring since our host was situated right down town. One evening Cassie and I went walking to meet some B&B alums living in OKC, Travis and Jodie, and stumbled upon an awesome little canal running through Brick Town. We spent the evening listening to the dueling pianos bar across the street and swapping SC2SC stories, which was a lot of fun.

We’ve been a bit spoiled what with the 7am wake up time and not having to pack all our things, but we must keep rolling! Until next time.

Lacy 

Kevin, Dangerous Dan, and Marcus deep in thought.

Josh, hard at work.

Austin, hard at play.

Kat and Elaina, bein' cute.

Mischief.

Free socks! One of our riders got stopped by THE sock guy of sockguy socks. So awesome.

Thunda city!

OKC (92mi)

I felt really strong this morning, and it showed. After a few minor mix ups in directions, I was antsy to get moving and took off for the first 60 miles or so. After getting a flat and waiting on my saving graces Josh and Emma to lend me their pump, I ended up bringing in the ride on a paceline with a great crew of ladies. It was undoubtedly a long and tough day, but they made the last few miles a ton of fun! We even DM’d slushies from Sonic, which has become a running tradition.

It’s so exciting to be back in civilization, and I can’t wait to get exploring!

Happy Trails,

Lacy

 Some wisdom we found waiting for us at the church in OKC.

 Dream Team.

Dream Team again. This picture is comically less epic than was initially intended.

Henryetta, OK (106)

Our hosts at Henryetta Baptist are The Business. They’ve been hosting SC2SC through Henryetta since the trip began in 2006 and it definitely shows. We arrived to a giant “Welcome Bike & Build!” sign and a long table lined with nutritional food (even the coveted vegetable!) to tide us over until supper at 6:30. The potluck dinner drew in tons of congregation from the tiny town and I ate with Rebecca, Ryan and their little girl, Tinsley. Tins and I really hit it off and had a ton of fun playing (besides getting scolded during the presentation…).

This overwhelming display of hospitality was perfectly timed – today was also our first official century, clocking in at 106.4 miles. I stuck with Cindy the entire ride, a Chapel Hill native as well as a fellow UNC grad! It was a beautiful ride and we ran into the  nicest folks along the way. Cruising through Gore, OK, for example, we noticed a sign attached to a bike rim that said, “GO BIKE & BUILD! PEDAL PEDAL PEDAL!” and later passed by a couple of young guys who recognized our Bike & Build jerseys and shouted encouragement from their cars. We were even given an armadillo “tiny sip cup” (also known as a “shot glass”) by a lady at a gas station who heard about all the disgusting armadillo road kill we had ridden by that morning (Armadillo, you should know, is easily the worst –smelly dead animal out there).

The only real bump in our ride came when Cindy got a flat tire. She was struggling to inflate her tire when I offered her a hand. Little did we know, the psi gauge on the pump wasn’t working and I blew the tire up in my face. It was pretty hilarious, minus the fact we had to change the tube once again. Some locals stopped and offered us a hand, which we declined but consented to a very awkward photo opp. Such nice folks, these Oklahomies!

This is definitely our hardest section so far – our century today was fraught with hills and wind and tomorrow we’ll top things off with a 92 miler into OKC. Still, it was incredible to witness the look on several of the riders’ faces when they rolled into Henryetta and realized what they had accomplished. A beautiful thing, indeed.  Can’t wait to do it again tomorrow!

Tally Ho,

Lacy

A quiet morning.

 Sassy ladies pic.

 Simple beauty.

 Rejoice!

 Burnt.

Van Buren (88 mi)

The morning came far too early this morning – I awoke to music BLARING in my ear, thinking I was going to wring the neck of whoever’s phone was going off in the middle of the night. It took longer than you might expect for me to realize that the music was Cassie’s wake up mix and it was actually 5am (which, in my book, is still middle-of-the-night territory). I was so tired last night that when Cassie woke me for our nightly “Leader Powwow”, I grouchily told her (in my sleep), “I do not know what you all want from me” and laid back down. Guess I needed the rest.

My grouchiness took a bit longer than usual to wear off, but as soon as I got on the bike I felt so much more relaxed. I rode all 80.2 miles today with JD and Josh, two fine gentlemen. The first 20 miles or so were really beautiful and the last 60 may have been as well, but it was raining too hard for me to really pay attention to much else besides staying upright. Still, the ride was a pleasant one: we never got too dirty and our little crew kept a respectable pace up all day. After a day in the van yesterday and a day off on Saturday, my body has finally had time to do some repairs and it’s unimaginable how much stronger I feel on the bike. We made great time despite my nasty front flat on a descent. Though JD and Josh didn’t hear me yell that I was pulling over, they came back to find me (see, I told you they were nice).  They even lent me a pump and tube when I realized mine had apparently disappeared sometime in the last week.

We had time to explore Van Buren a bit before dinner, beginning with DM’ing free shakes at the hoppin’ local Sonic – we even scored $20 from a customer who overheard our spiel! Downtown was fairly small, but we spent a lot of time in the two local bookstores, the first of which was hilariously terrible and the second being just plain lovely. At a local’s encouragement, we also headed over to the historical Scott House, which is the town’s oldest, supposedly. Not much going on up there but other local landmarks were pretty neat, like the old school surrounded by beautiful statues.

Since then I’ve squeezed in a “hose shower”, a delicious dinner provided by our hosts at Ford Church, and even a bit of reading out of the new book I bought. Action packed, I know, but I need lots of rest for our first century tomorrow! Wish us luck.

Rollin’,

Lacy

A rainy lunch stop.

A school behind bars. How appropriate.

Possibly the most confusing grammar/syntax ever.

Mike: an American Hero.

Clarksdale to Stuttgart, Arkansas

97.5 miles. It was a tough day, period, but I felt slightly stronger than many considering I had a day in the van yesterday. When 2pm rolled around, though, and the sun hit us full force, my tail was cooked! We were stopping every 5 miles just to try to keep our body temperatures down and many had to be picked up by the van. To make things worse, we were singing to pass the time but all we could think about were songs about the sun!

Still, a rough day on the bike is better than a great day in a heck of a lot of other places. A mile out from the host, our team came across a giant inflatable bald eagle in someone's yard and broke into a loud and terrible rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. It was such a great feeling to finally get "home".

We're sleeping at a high school field house tonight. Stuttgart is the rice and duck capital of the world (?) and, therefore, they grow a ton of rice. Which is done by flooding the fields. Which creates a breeding ground for millions of mosquitoes, so needless to say we've hung out indoors tonight.

Tomorrow is a chill 60 into Little Rock, and the following day is a day off! I can't wait - I'm definitely in need of one.

Until Next Time,

Lacy

Another border crossing! #ontothenextone

It's true. There were none.

 Not as nice of a break as it looks. Hot as the dickens.

Oxford to Clarksdale, MS

One of the leaders is responsible for driving our support van every day, and today that leader was me. It was a bit of a hectic morning – Rachael was the latest victim to the pesky stomach bug being passed around while Sarah struggled once again with a mysterious food allergy. After they were able to move away from the porcelain throne, we bumped over to the local clinic where the attending physician (either Dr. Coon or Dr. Dabbs….) was wearing superman socks with little capes on them.  The ladies are both doing great now, obviously.

A typical park job.

For those on the bike today this ride was the toughest yet, both mentally and physically. The morning’s roads were bumpy, even graveled for a time, while the afternoon’s trek was boring, (head) windy, and extremely hot. However, almost all of our riders made it into the host on schedule today, and I couldn’t be more proud of the team.

We are being hosted by a canoe company in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The town is home to the crossroads where Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the devil to attain his astounding blues guitar talents. (Our laundromat was conveniently located right by the site!) Our host contact, Chris (or “Wolfy”, as he’s known by the local kids), was a part of the first SC2SC route in 2009! The site is a little oasis from the Mississippi heat: simple yet functional, just like Bike & Build! Our room is almost Granola with an infusion of Guatemala (or so I imagine) with its hammocks and knick-knacks strewn everywhere, quaint outdoor showers, and beautifully overgrown vines bordering the small windows.

After lazing about on the hammocks and cushions for a bit, we joined the local community for a lovely dinner of jambalaya and beverages. I then headed over to the laundramat with “Laundry Crew” and saw a bit of town. We drove by Ground Zero, said to be the best blues club in the country (hope to get to stop by tonight!), as well as saw the less romantic part of town. It was definitely one of the most impoverished areas that we’ve encountered, but every single person we met went out of their way to be welcoming and helpful! Sometimes you get what you expect.

Tomorrow holds 97.5 miles and a 115 degree heat index. Wish us luck.

Rollin,

Lacy

P.S. Welcome home, Tristan!

Our host.

Rach and JD, cheesin'. 

 Me! At the Crossroads!

Beautiful music.