Build Day. Lawrence, KS
Hotels rock. so does 7 hours of sleep. It was just so nice to have a sense of stability waking up this morning, as in being in a normal place where people usually wake up rather than a church basement. The continental breakfast was not exactly designed for 32 starving riders but they had real belgian waffles. Oh and processed eggs and sausage, YES.
I biked over to the build site with some others. Its so wierd to get on my bike for anything less than 70 miles, let alone an enjoyable stroll. The site had all of the wall framing done and kept us busy all day putting up the roof tresses and siding. It was crazy hot and sunny and I tried to hold out, but eventually had to do the unthinkable. Yes, I donned a visor. They're actually extremely functional and it kinda grew on me. Now if only it also looked good.
By the end of the day we had all of the tresses up and the house was really taking shape. I got to do some work up on the roof which was really fun and new. What wasn't fun was the fear of heights i think i developed from standing on 4 inch wide beams. It didn't help that this older dude Zach was zooming by on them like nothing and was literally walking circles around me. The family also was there and it was just a great sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.
Afterwards Larry and I rode up along the town's main st and gave it a thorough checking out. it started out at "The Vagabond Bookstore" which was this crazy used bookstore stacked to the roof with all kinds of crazy old books. It was interesting talking to Howard, the Vagabond Bookman himself. He had gone bust farming in the 80s and kinda started buying books dirt cheap at flea markets, and reselling them out of his truck. It turned out pretty well for him and he soon had so many books that he had to open up shop. He also apparently sells bicycles that he keeps in the aisles. Interesting store to say the least. Picked up a sweet book from the philosophy section called "A commonplace book". Its a collection of different literary and philosophical quotes and this guy Charles P Curtis' pithy commentaries on them. Figure i could read one of the 109 sections a day. The guy was a Harvard Sociology Professor(my school and major) so that was also cool.
There were so many other locally owned gems in this town. A self identified hippie store with the largest collection of 1968 pennies in the world (around 14,000). The pennies are actually part of a compelling story of a guy who was upset one day, found a penny from 1968 on the ground and started collecting from there. (Check out www.1968pennies.com)
There was also this really cool t shirt printing shop called Acme, where you could design your own shirt and have them print it. They also had a whole wall chock full of hilarious designs. I walked in and almost bugged out. T-shirts are by far the one object in this world i have the least resistance to when shopping. I could literally spend my life doing something like that store. It was pretty inspiring actually in that sense.
We had dinner graciously donated by one of the KU ministries and it was fantastic. It was Mexican themed and all i will describe is the 60 avocados worth of guacamole that made my heart leap. I could've taken a bath in that tub it was so large. I basically ended up having a meal of guacamole with a side of rice, beans, tortilla and salsa. They also passed around a basket to the community members there for donations and we had a whopping $300+ in donations. Thank you to everyone there! I had the pleasure of sitting with Jim there and we had great conversation, some of which included him telling me about Red Dog, this 73 year old dude who leads 6am workouts 4 days a week in Lawrence with regular attendance of 200+. By the way this has been going on for 20 or so years and the guy is currently fighting cancer but still going. Wish i could have met him but my prayers are with him. Community was definitely a big theme i took away from that church and from Lawrence in general. You can definitely feel it everywhere, and its too bad that its not more often the case. Jayhawk pride was also something not too be even joked about for fear of being tarred and feathered.
We later walked around the KU campus which was really pretty. Kate had all 32 of our nametags stuck on her shirt which was amusing. There was this giant wood cylindrical sculputure made out of branches there rising to 25 feet which you had to see to understand. Standing inside was really cool. Also full moon = great.
We had more ice cream later(Blackberry!) which is quickly turning into a theme of the trip. I feel wierd doing it almost every day on this trip since i usually save it for special occasions. But honestly when you're riding 70+ miles daily, its hard to not to be like "Hey i totally deserve this" every single day. Kind of makes you rethink what is a "special occassion" on a trip like this and how relative life quickly becomes.
More building tomorrow, lets finish that roof!
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