Poughkeepsie, New York

Here I sit on 8 inches of pillow foam propped on a regular chair with my feet struggling to reach the ground. My butt has finally found the sweet relief it has been seeking for the last week. This morning was an early wake up call for me since it’s my group’s rotation on breakfast crew. My alarm invaded my eardrums at 5:45 so I could get up to the kitchen and start prepping for vege scrambled eggs and bacon. In hindsight it was a bad idea to start chopping peppers before my eyes were even fully open (don’t worry mom I still have all my fingers attached). It was nice to have a hot breakfast that we could enjoy without trying to carb load and avoid dairy on the typical cycle in the sun days.

Today was a build day so our pedaling muscles got a nice break, but we still all worked up a sweat contributing rigorous physical labor toward the ultimate mission of Hudson River Housing. This company based in Duchess County, NY and spreading to Orange County focuses solely on providing housing options for the homeless. We rode our bikes four miles to their office in Poughkeepsie where were received a morning briefing going over the specifics of the organization and all the great things they are doing to improve the city. They are acquiring property at a surprising rate and doing a great job to make a unit a point of pride to live in.

The group was split many different ways today to accommodate our large number of volunteers filled with bright eyed ambition. Different worksites offered different challenges. A huge garage was painted by a crew that came back with white paint on all their clothes, skin and hair. I chose to take part in the landscaping crew because of my work experience developing a mock landscaping company. We came back covered in dirt and red mulch dye, but the result was well worth the mess. We filled, graded, mulched and planted flowers on both sides of the front steps. In the back yard we built a planter that stretched the whole back strip of the yard, planted flowers and mulched. It was hard and sweaty work, but we managed to sneak a lunch break in the middle to stuff our faces with fruit, sandwiches, wraps, cookies, and eggs all provided by Hudson River Housing. Nothing makes a hot sweaty body happier than a steady influx of nutrients so we were very thankful for the delicious food.

On the ride home, most of us got lost which is increasingly more common in Bike & Build. This ended up leading to a great detour where we found a tag sale. A couple of us bought large stuffed animals to act as lunch stop markers. Max rode off with a giant lion strapped on his Camelbak and I grabbed a giant duck. Even better was the fact that across the street from the tag sale was a Rite Aid. I went in and talked to a pharmacist about what she would recommend to prevent chafing and saddle sores. She suggested a diaper rash cream, which made sense, but was still embarrassing to purchase. I would embarrass myself everyday for pain free pedaling though.

Dinner trumped the deliciousness of breakfast as the night time cooking crew spoiled us with fish tacos, with mango salsa, black beans, fresh guacamole, and several other fresh accoutrements. It was like heaven in my mouth. After everyone satisfied their seemingly insatiable hunger, we had our first night of affordable housing presentations where riders presented different topics from our curriculum to educate the group. The night continued to fill up with a recorded viewing of the World Cup (Go Ghana!) and a late night game of capture the flag. Never a dull moment…