Hello from Marianna, Florida!

Hi Bike and Build friends!

I am presently in a public library in Marianna, Florida on my day off. I have limited access to internet throughout the trip, but I will try to update the blog when I can. In the meantime, you can follow the main trip blog at http://www.bikeandbuild.org/rider/route.php?route=SUS&year=2009. There, you will be able to see where we are, how far we've progressed, photos, and the group blog, which is updated every day by a different rider.

Presently, the group blog does not have the most recent posts because we camped out in state parks for the first two biking days of the trip (June 13th and 14th) and did not have access to internet. (We have nice air conditioned hosts for a while now, so no more camping for some time.) All newer the posts should be up soon, and then you can check for daily updates there.

I'll try to post more about what I've done specifically (and pictures of course!), but I have two minutes left on this computer, so more news soon!

Thank you all again!

Hills galore and "stock" photos

So now that school's been over, I've been back at home in a suburb of Philadelphia, biking mostly in Tyler State Park, which is right near my house. Now while it's quite nice having somewhere to bike where I don't have to worry about traffic (like the bike path around Manhattan), I quickly learned that I had been spoiled by the flatness of New York City. What? Biking 30 miles in Manhattan? No problem.

Tyler Park, on the other hand, is apparently Hill Capital. Its own website says, "If you’re riding a bicycle, remember that nearly all of the trails on the west side of the creek are hilly." The first time I went biking there, I discovered that, yes, sometimes I do have to use more than just the middle 2 of 27 total possible gears, hehe.

The good thing about having uphills, though, is that there are downhills. Wheee! I also discovered that it is best to keep one's mouth closed when traveling at high speeds through heavily wooded areas with lots of little, flying bugs. Unless one likes the extra protein.

One of the very few stretches of flat bike path

I did my best to take lots of nice pictures, although everything was so picturesque that I feel like some of them look like stock photos for some kind of park advertisement, haha. In order to include myself in the pictures, I had to pull some Survivorman-esque tricks. For those who do not what that is, it is a TV show where one guy goes out into the wilderness to survive on his own and does all the filming by himself. This means that if he wants footage of himself crossing a river, he has to set up the camera, cross the river, come back across the river he just crossed, pick up the camera, and cross the river a third time to get to his destination. In that same vein, the photo below is staged:


I set the camera precariously on top of sign that said "Caution: Steep Hills" (figures :P) and carefully set the 10-second timer. Then I had to hurriedly get onto the bike and then bike extra slowly past the front of the sign. After biking at a snail's pace for a few seconds, I would bike back to pick up the camera and see if the picture turned out okay. The resulting picture is actually a result of the third try, since on the first try the camera overexposed, and all the picture showed was a massive ray of sunlight. Then on the second try, I didn't get on the bike fast enough and accidentally ended up taking a picture of a passing jogger instead.

I mean, behold! Breath-taking action shot! :D