Let's Rock n' Roll

Ohhhhh man!

What a crazy awesome experience this has already become! My sister, her friend Rachel, Nolan, Sam, and I all arrived early Sunday morning into Portsmouth, NH. Tooooo early to be exact - as in, I called my leader and said "WE'RE HERE!!(yay!)" to which she replied "No you're NOT!!!" ... which meant we had to find things to do in Portsmouth for 5 hours before our 'check-in' time. Ooops! As I later found out, we could have spent several awesome hours in the small city of Portsmouth, but we didn't know any better and instead shopped for cameras in WalMart and Best Buy all day... but dang it, we purchased the absolute best priced camera in all of Portsmouth!

The people here are great. High energy, dedicated, motivated, and have huge hearts. I guess when you group something as (insane?) as riding 4000 miles across the country, with the compassion needed to raise $4000 for the Affordable Housing cause - you need those qualities to rise to the challenges ahead.

So, it's not COMPLETELy hit me yet that I'll be riding across the country. Tomorrow is the very first day of our ride... 65 miles to be exact. I've already spent 2 night sleeping on the floor of the church in my sleeping bag, with a lovely Soergel Orchards sweatshirt as a pillow. I'd actually bought a camping pillow, but on the day of arrival, realized I needed that 3"x8" space that the pillow took up... and so, now I'll be at least 69 days pillow-less.

Food is great - everything is through donations. Panera Bread, friends of B&B, Chipotle, etc. have already provided meals for us. If you see that you will be along our route, and would like to donate any food (cookies, juice, lunch, etc.) please let me know - the more we get donated, the more that will go to Affordable Housing... SWEET!

Which, as of TODAY, my trip alone (32 people) has raised $147,557 ... WOW! We still have yet to go through the logistics of how we're going to distribute that exactly...but we'll basically put it into a big pot, and different Affordable Housing non-profits will apply to our grant, and then we decide who to distribute the funds to. I can't wait :)

Well, I need to get going - off to the YMCA for showers... it's a 10 minute ride there, we have one 15-passenger van, and 32 people ... it's a production!