Day 78

Seventy eight days down, 3 to go.

We rode to the supposed most bike friendly city in the world today, Davis, CA. It was a fairly short day that was filled with activities. I really enjoyed the whole day.

I left Colusa with a large group yet again that consisted of Brandon, Lauren, Kate, stew, Nate, Maria, and Elle. We spent most of the morning just enjoying each others’ company. Eventually we began to speed up. In fact, so much so that we missed the wild blackberry bushes on the side of the road.

Around mile 40 Elle broke off all of the sudden. I tried to catch her, but it took a solid 8-10 minutes I solid hammering to get there. When I finally made it my butt was on fire, but the look on elles face when she realized she wasn’t alone was worth the burn. We talked about life, love, and how much we weren’t ready for all this to be over just yet. It was an incredible 17 miles.

At the turn at the end of the road we decided to stop and wait for everyone. Our main goal for the day was to get to Davis for all sorts of food. Personally, I wanted In N Out again. When we reached the outskirts of town we split up into the in n out faction and the FroYo faction.

Nate, stew, and I rode back to the church and opened the doors and got the keys for everyone. Meanwhile, the FroYo-ers went for frozen yogurt and went to explore davis. As soon as my group was ready we strolled through town on our bikes in order to explore while on our food mission.

Upon reaching the restaurant an overwhelming sense of relief overcame me. I was so hungry and dehydrated that I felt like that was my last meal I’d ever eat and I was overjoyed that it included red meat.

The groups remained fluid as Jesse and Laurie came and went. Lauren, Brandon, Nate, Jess, and others all left before stew and I as well. When stew and I finally did decide to leave we ride over to the USA Bicycle Hall of Fame museum. The top two floors were interesting, but the basement was where all the really cool stuff was located.

We left not long after we got there so we could eventually make it to the showers, but first we decided to stop by the campus bike shop. They had plenty of stuff for fixies and single speeds, but nothing that really interested me for JP. For whatever reason I had gotten extremely antsy by this point and was ready to leave, but we kept getting held up. So, when we did get on the bike I hurried off toward the church.

We quickly gathered our things for showers and left for the pool where we were to clean up. However, we had plenty of time on our hands so we decided to get in the pool too. One of the feelings I miss most in my post swimming life is the refreshed feeling unfit after having a really tough practice in the pool. So I put on my two piece strapless suit and decided I’d swim some laps. Pushing off the wall was a difficult feat, by I probably swam a total of 1100 if I were to add up all three times I went back to the lap lanes.

After that I decided it is finally time to attempt a swim practice again. I never thought I’d think that, but the day has arrived. When I get home to Memphis it’s going on my laundry list of things to do.

While we were at the pool we watched the cutest baby girl with her grandfather playing in the water. I couldn’t help but think about my USB grandpa and when I was that girl’s age and I was jut learnin to swim and dive in the pool when we were in Destin, FL. I’ve come so far from those days, but wouldn’t be anywhere close to the person I am today without him shaping the person I am now. The best part about that little girl was her diaper though. It stuck out easily a full foot from her body from being completely soaked in water and whatever else. We all laughed and fought over whether our boys would notice that kind if thing when they have kids one day.

It wasn’t all fun at the pool though. Unfortunately, davis is not in fact the most bike friendly city in the world. That title is quite ironic in fact. As we sat on the stairs of the pool stew told us that Alyssa’s bike had been stolen while she walked around downtown. Someone had cut the cable and took her bike and left the other two that were locked up to hers.

Alyssa handled the situation far better than I ever would have. Everyone tried their best, in their own ways, to make her feel better and to help her out. Eventually, she came back to the church with what has been dubbed the YOLO bus, a used cruiser bike that will most certainly get her across the last few miles of our journey. I couldn’t be prouder of her tenacity and good spirits.

While Alyssa was taking care of business we were at the church eating dinner. I sat with a particularly interesting woman. She told me all about her life and how she was now is history teacher at UC Davis. The most intriguing story she told me was about her involvement in the Katrina relief efforts in 2005. As soon as she found a way to make a difference she was down in Houston helping a UMC there gather and ship things to New Orleans. She was hilarious in her matter of fact ways. I couldn’t get enough of her.

After dinner and presentations were over we had our final AH meeting. We discussed how we can stay invoked after bike and build, whether it’s part time, full time, or short term commitments. I want to go every possible thing they listed in the presentation. Somehow I need to find a way to recreate the feeling I get every morning when I wake up here realizing its another day of bike and build and that it doesn’t get any better than this.

The last thing we did before going to bed was vote on paper plate awards. Basically, whoever we were discussing we sent out of the room while we shouted out awards for them. It was wonderful to hear all the positive things we had to say about each other. It only took about thirty minutes to do all of them. By the end of it though I was beyond ready to pass out. So I went straight to bed so I could be happy and well rested for the 70-ish mile ride into Brentwood in the morning.