Thursday, June 2, 2011

Journey to Georgia


Today we had a 59-mile ride from Greenville, South Carolina to Hartwell, Georgia, which also meant our first state line crossing. The morning started off as most of them do pretty well. I was riding with a group of six or seven and I pulled off to take some pictures. My plan was to catch up with the group after I had taken photos but about a mile later I found myself with my first flat. Not that big of a deal changing it but it definitely slowed me down.

At lunch we had lunch DMed (Donation Magic) from Subway in Anderson, which was amazing!! It was so nice to actually have a decent lunch. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining about our lunches. Peanut butter and jelly stale bagels give us all that we need. It is also cheap which means that we can donate more money to affordable housing!!! By the way, it’s not too late to donate. So if you haven’t you should. (http://www.bikeandbuild.org/donate)

After lunch we all rode pretty hard to get to Lake Hartwell. Lake Hartwell was great! It was so enjoyable to just spend a few hours relaxing and not worrying about anything. We swam and chicken fought (I guess this is the past tense of chicken fighting) and then we played a chicken fight/ninja hybrid. Christina and I won!!  

After the lake it was back on the bikes for about two miles to the Georgia State line and some pictures of the dam. After that quick stop we biked the rest of the way into Hartwell. Lucky for us it was downhill because we were all exhausted after spending two hours at the lake.

When we got to Hartwell, Christina, Mac, Craig and I stopped in at Dairy Queen to celebrate our first state line with a nice cool treat. This might become a tradition.

Our host in Hartwell, Hartwell UMC was absolutely incredible. They let us use their youth building, which had ample couches for everyone and exposed rafters by which I could hang my hammock. We had a little paint spill and Troy our contact their went out of his way to help us clean it up. He also shuttled us back and forth to showers and made a Wal-Mart run for the group. Our dinner was hamburgers and chicken sandwiches, and when they realized that we ate more like a group of 66 than a group of 33, they went back to the store to buy more food for us. Can’t thank them enough!!

We also had our first town hall meeting. It went a little bit long but I think overall it went really well. Hopefully the next ten will go just as well.


-Jeremy




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