Finally out of New Hampshire

Today we crossed our first state line! Out of New Hampshire, into Vermont, finally...
So, tell me why lately whenever we have to bike, it decides to rain, and as soon as we get to our destination it gets all dry and sunny. Today we had what was supposed to be our hardest day of the entire trip. We climbed a crazy 6 mile long mountain called Bethel Mountain in Vermont and it was ridiculously steep. At some points, I was pedaling as hard as I could in my lowest gear and was still going slower than I would have been if I was walking. And it was raining which was not really too fun. Going down the other side of the mountain was pretty terrifying in the rain, and there were some crazy trucks that didn't care about driving 2 feet away from us as we're flying down the mountain in the rain. I was legit nervous...

But so far, the trip has been amazing. The group seems to be getting a lot closer now, and we've done plenty of biking and building. The other day somebody pulled out a map of the US and we looked to see how far we had biked and how far we had left to go. We'd barely made any progress. Everyone started laughing hysterically because we kind of realized how crazy the next 8 weeks were going to be. The church we had been staying in the last couple of days while we worked on some houses in New Hampshire was amazing. They loved having us there and they gave us sooo much food. I was shocked because they would actually come at like 5:30 in the morning to make us pancakes and waffles before we'd go out and build or bike. They're the complete opposite of the church we're staying in now, who are like crazy strict about keeping everything super clean and organized.

Also, I got a few days to go and explore Dartmouth's campus. I hit up a really good breakfast place and then went to the bookstore and a bike store. Basically, did some good shopping after finishing up at the build site. I really like the school, the campus is beautiful and its got a nice small town atmosphere which I feel like Stanford is missing.

But yea, I've got to make this quick as we're having dinner soon and I should head back to the church. I'll be back soon tho.

Also, random side note that I'm pretty proud of. My last blog entry was done in the Dartmouth library while I was in full spandex gear soaking wet while people looked at me like I was a lunatic.

Bike and Build starts

Hey all, its been a crazy last couple of weeks so I apologize for not updating sooner.

I finished up Chile with an amazing trip to Easter island, which is basically the most isolated island on the planet. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I got some weird feeling from being on the island, like I was in the show lost or something, because there was absolutely nobody else around. The big moai statues were also ridiculously huge and really confusing. I'm not really sure how they built so many, and why. Anyways, that was one of my highlights from being in Chile. Then my life got pretty crazy. I got back to Santiago, then the next day I flew home, and then 2 days later I was up in New Hampshire to start my bike trip. Basically, there was too much packing and moving, and not enough sleeping crammed in those 4 days. My mom calls me "hurricane Bobby" seeing as how I was home for 2 days and managed to destroy the entire house. And I'm sure its still a mess since I haven't quite finished packing for school.

Anyways, the start of Bike and Build has been really fun. Meeting everyone has been really interesting. People are from all over the country and from a decent variety of schools (almost half from Dartmouth, a few from MIT, and various other schools). Everywhere we've stayed and everybody we've met so far along the way has been incredible. They all want to know what we're doing and they want to help us any way they can. Pretty much, this ends up in them giving us a ton of free food. Hahaha, I thought I would have trouble keeping weight on during this trip, but with all the free donuts and bagels and pizza and peanut butter people are donating, I don't think it should be too hard.

Also, the bike rides recently haven't been too hard. Our first day of official Bike and Build was actually a build day in Farmington, New Hampshire. A lot of people did landscaping which looked pretty hard, but my job was to build a shed. With a couple other people we put the foundation and built the floor and a couple walls for the shed. The next day we started biking, and it was hard. We did a solid 65 miles of crazy hills. I was ready for it, but it was still a long, hard day in the saddle. The next 2 days haven't been too bad, except for today was kind of insane because we got caught in a huge thunderstorm. For a good while I was pretty terrified going down some big hills with a ton of rain falling, and I couldn't really see anything. Then some huge 18 wheeler would come flying by and splash us with water. But the rain only lasted long enough to completely soak me and everything I was carrying, and then it got sunny again. Eventhough it was tough to see, the ride was beautiful. We went along a nice lake and there were a lot of small bathing areas and cool sites. Hopefully I can upload some pictures later, I just don't have the stuff with me right now. Anyways, I'm now at Dartmouth, using one of their library computers to type this all up, but I should head back to the church soon. Thanks for reading, and I'll keep on posting as I go along...