Palmdale, California

Palmdale is home to Afroman, famous recording artist who sang the hit (how it became a hit, I'm not sure) "because I got high." the ride into Palmdale was anything but a high feeling of euphoria. If it wasn't bad enough to be stuck in the desert sucking down more water than I thought was possible, the wind was downright silly. 10mph was the steady cycling average because gusts hit us in the face on a strong constant. First lunch was disasterous because the night before was maildrop. This meant we had bins overflowing with a bounty of delicious cookies. Snickerdoodles, oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, butterscotch and more were the food of choice at lunch which meant I didn't consume any food with nutritional value. Shoutout to Linda who sent the best cookies ever. I made eveyone read the congratulatory note that accompanied the sweets which was difficult because the cookies went so fast. Everyone was a huge fan and the recipe was requested several times. A huge shoutout to my loving sister who took time out of her very busy schedule to make me a collage that she sent along with a crossword puzzle and note. This brightened my already bright day times a million. A man at a nearby grocery store came out and gave us bags of ice and Popsicles so he became our momentary hero at lunch. Once again, the cue sheets were wrong as they tried to route us on a dirt road. We had to take 20 minutes to figure out a new route which detoured us an extra five miles. When all was said and done at the end of the ride, my odometer read 104.05 miles and I had been on the road for 11hours and 36minutes. We has showers reserved until 4pm at the local pool, but with the ride being so hard, no one made it. We also started later than we wanted to because we woke up at 4am but couldn't leave until it was light outside a couple hours later. Poor planning. So after I got in around 5 and shoved some pizza and salad in my face, I took a nice warm hose shower. Of course to conserve water and since everyone was dirty and seeking immediately cleanliness, we had a group shower. Gold medal dinner crew made burritos with all the fixins for dinner. We went over our affordable housing grant financial distribution which was dictatorious assigned. It was alright but really represented a constitutional monarchy approach to leadership. Some people went out to the bar, but I just hung around and then passed out. At the end of the day reflecting on conversations, I was impressed to realize how much I actually know about my family. Sometimes I seem to not be interested or a little standoffish, but after many hours of riding together, you start telling stories about everything. This of course means everyone knows all your dirty little secrets Germain family.

Speaking of getting high from the previous blog post, I'm pretty sure we all got high on paint fumes today. Our task with Palmdale was to paint the interior of a house and lay hardwood flooring throughout. We worked with their youthbuild program which is a school designed around community involvement through hands on building. Kids learn math and science and English, but they also work on homes together. After hearing a lot about youthbuild the whole day, I started to admire what a brilliant concept it really is. I would love to start my own youthbuild where ever I end up after bike and build because nothing gets through to kids like a little physical labor. This building we worked on was a youth center that was being converted into affordable housing for someone to live in. Every couple of years Palmdale buys a home, makes it a youth center and then converts it while they buy another home to make a youth center and continue the process. Inside, the riders taped and edged all the walls and covered the interior with beige. Painting was difficult because we were doing it on walls with speckled crevices instead of smooth Sheetrock. For lunch we were surprised with an ambush of water balloons from fellow riders. They filled up two boxes with balloons (which shame on them means they were skipping out on work in the morning) that were put on either side of the backyard. It turned into a battle between sides and I scooped up 5 balloons at a time in my freakishly large hands as I let them rip on any target. After the build, only a couple people decided they wanted to get clean. We rode to the local pool that was closed to the public because of funding but open to us. We played on noodles for a couple hours and soaked up the sun along with the fast chilling wind. Upon return to the host, everyone was working in their talent show act for the night. Descriptions can't really do the show justice so I will just have to hunt down video to post on here. However, I will say that Chris Phillips wins for his remix rap of "I'm on a bike." I can't recall a time when I have ever laughed harder. Ross failed at the gallon challenge and projectile vomitted a half gallon of whole milk in the middle of MK's mandolin serenade. Wiser made the best haikus to fill transition time. I never knew a Japanese poetry sequence could be so hilarious. Also, ten bonus points to Brandt and MG for their personal version of the ambiguously gay duo. That took a lot of guts to say those things to eachother in public and touch eachother like that. No judgement passed fellas.