O-H... I-O

We are into our fifth state as of Friday night. We trucked into Youngstown from a neat town in PA (Franklin), and stayed in Youngstown until this morning. We did a build day yesterday with the local Habitat affiliate before riding about 50 miles to Tallmedge, OH today (just outside Akron, or "AK Rowdy," as Erika calls it). Some random thoughts from the last few days...

The ride on Thursday was fantastic. We stayed at a church with a very cool pastor (Sam) who fed his homebrew and lots of Subway. He's an avid cyclist and he showed us a great bike route on the way into town and led us out the next morning. We had a bigscreen TV in the church that night, where we were able to grab some news. The big story of the night was Michael Jackson's death, which spurred multiple tribute dance parties to MJ over the next few days. It was nice to see Jim Lehrer's face again. I also had two helpings of ice cream that night (one wasn't enough), which always makes for a solid evening.

On Friday, everybody was excited for the Ohio state line. State line days are becoming quite popular; it really shows your tangible progress. We've been hearing OH is pretty flat, but Pennsylvania had one last gasp of hills to make sure we didn't get too complacent. We had a couple 8-10% grades to start the day, and then a wicked 13% grade early in the afternoon that wiped me out. A group of us coasted towards Youngstown in the afternoon, but I got separated from them when I stopped to chalk a confusing turn. That led to a bit of a bummer ride into the church on my own, with really bad roads in a dilapadated part of town. However, the church was comfy, and that night 8 of us (Eileen, Beth, Kyle, Chong, Trevor, Erika, Ali Mae, and myself) went to a local bar and had a great conversation for a few hours about all sorts of topics.

Saturday was a build day, and we managed to score some free media. Check out these links:
http://www.wkbn.com/mostpopular/story/Bike-and-Build-Comes-to-Youngstown/019lFHxFcUOvtukV1BsfKQ.cspx
http://www.vindy.com/news/2009/jun/28/cyclists-pedal-around-to-aid-building-crews/?newswatch

I was on the roof most of the day, so on the video look for the only guy wearing long pants (my AmeriCorps pants, baby!) Overall, it was a good day, and although I sometimes question just how much good we are doing based on the overall quality of our work, it is nice to interact with the beneficiaries of our service.

Today's ride into Tallmedge was actually one of my least favorite so far. The roads were atrocious for the first 25 miles of the day, leaving my back, butt, and hands very sore from all the potholes. It rained on us in the afternoon for a little while, which didn't bother me so much except that I'd forgotten my sunglasses in my other bag so I didn't have access to them for the day. The rain essentially blinded me down hills, which made things interesting. Overall, it was a short ride and I was happy to pull into the church. I also got stung by a wasp yesterday and my left leg is double the size of my right, which made for some discomfort during the ride. Oh well, gotta have some bad days to appreciate the good ones, right? Spirits are still very high, especially after the sun came out and people are out on the lawn hanging out. Maybe that's where I'll head right now.

Anyway, I hope you guys are all doing well. Talk to you soon. Pictures to come when I find my USB. (Biggest challenge so far of the trip: keeping track of everything)