11 June 2009

T minus one week until I'll be in Portsmouth with all the other Northern US '09 Bike and Builders! It's hard to believe time has flown by so fast!

I'd like to thank each and every person who donated; I reached my fundraising goal (and then some) a few days ago! Now all I have to do is ride a few more miles in preparation for this summer. I can't even imagine how it will be, amazing I wager. But it's the whole experience that I cannot fathom. How will it be riding so many miles almost every day? And then building 9 days this summer? What will it be like to sleep on just a thermarest and a sleeping bag every night? My family never did much camping or traveling while my brothers and I were growing up, so this whole trip will be something new.

In other news, the bicycling is going well. Today I biked down to Greenfield, MA (it was about a 23 mile ride, mostly down-hill) to pick up my car, which was in the shop getting fixed so that I can drive it to Portsmouth. I did that late in the afternoon so that I could then go on a group ride out of Bicycles Unlimited, also in Greenfield. That ended up being a 22 mile ride. So all in all, today I tallied 45 miles. That brings my total pre-trip milage (since I started counting) up to 497 miles. However, I have not yet gone on that 65+ miler that we're supposed to get in before the trip begins. It's getting down to the wire, so I'm going to attempt it Saturday. If that doesn't work, Monday I might be able to fit it in.

One more thing! It's been a while so I'm trying to sum up a lot, I suppose. Last weekend and the one before I completed the volunteer hours also required pre-trip. The first weekend was helping to put loam down for a family's back yard, so that they can have a lawn! Then last weekend I helped at a site in Northampton, MA. We mostly set up staging, but that was tricky work! It's fun to volunteer time for this kind of thing, I like good, hard work. This summer is going to be amazing, how could it not?

until next time!