Since the last time I updated we have arrived in Texas! The first ride day from Pelican to Carthage was marked online as only being 60ish miles, but the cue sheet ended up being 81. However, the leader who wrote the cue sheet got confused and sent us in the wrong direction adding a total of 10 miles to the already long and hot day. I ended up getting really dehydrated at mile 91 and I got sick, but I finished the last 1.5 miles and ended safely at the home of a former bike and builder's parents.
The next day we biked another 92.5 miles into Athens. That ride was so hard, and I wasn't feeling well in the morning, but I finished. The hills never ended. I almost didn't want to reach the top on them because it would bring upon me a view of hill after hill after hill. Everyone was so exhausted that day, but walking into the church where we were having dinner and having the part of the group that was already there congratulate me for finishing was an awesome thing. The day was long and hot, but looking back on it it was a great day and a huge accomplishment for every BnBer.
That night our group split up for the first time of the entire trip to stay at houses of families in the church. It was really weird, but nice to have my own bed and my own room at the house of some of the nicest people I've ever met. It was one of the girls who stayed at my hosts birthdays, and when we told Gwen, the woman whose house it was she immediately started baking her a cake. It was so sweet!
Jesse, her husband is a vet who works with small and large animals. They live on a huge plot if land in beautiful house and even have cows! One thing that greatly affects their family that I have not been aware of was the harvesting of natural gas. Jesse told us that the government owns all the natural gas, so if they can harvest natural gas on your property they have the right to put as many rigs on it as they want. All they have to pay the people the damage the rig does to the property. However when put on agricultural lands thiese rigs often cause other losses to the property owners in crops they cannot grow etc.
After a delicious egg bake made by Gwen, we left Athens and headed to Sunnyvale, outside of Dallas. Once in Dallas we built for two days with Habitat of Greater Garland. In the two days we were there we put up all the framing for all the interior and exterior walls. It was really great. We got to meet the home owner at a BBQ thrown by Habitat for us. She was a single mother of two who works in an administrative position in the health care field. She was so excited to get her own house, and she couldn't believe when we told her we had framed all the walls.
Today we biked 86 miles into Decatur Texas. I wrote about it in more detail for the trip blog, and that should be up next time we have internet. I'm too exhausted to write about again, haha.
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