Fwd:

So I had journals for our last build day so I'll just include that
along with a quick and painful update about the mountains.
>

> On May 29th we had our 3rd build day in which we split up into three
> different groups to go to three different organizations and sites.
> One group worked on building a handicap accessible ramp for Mountain
> Housing Opportunities. A second group did roofing with the
> Henderson Habitat for Humanity, and my group initially called the
> painting crew, turned light bulb crew, worked with Asheville Housing
> Authority.
>
> In my group we went around to a set of government owned buildings to
> change out old light bulbs with energy efficient ones. I personally
> was working with Danielle, Jackie, and Cindy, which proposed a bit
> of a height problem for our whole group in installing these bulbs,
> but we made it through with lots of laughs and a couple of pump up
> tunes. By installing these light bulbs for this community, we were
> able to save a ton of money and time for both the Asheville Housing
> Authority and the community members. The only downside of the day
> was when I talked with Samantha, our main contact person for this
> project; she told us that a lot of these community members abuse the
> system and housing projects. The neighborhood we worked in was
> supposed to be temporary housing, but she told us that a lot of
> times it wasn't that way. In fact, one family had been there for fi
> ve generations. This boggled my mind as to why these families didn'
> t want to achieve more, but then Samantha explained that once they g
> et a job they have to start giving a percentage of their money back
> to the system for rent. It was almost like they were being punished
> for improving their life. I felt that what we were doing wasn't as
> appreciated as it previously was, but I just had to keep telling my
> self that I was making a difference and that we were helping out.
>
> After we were done installing hundreds of energy efficient light
> bulbs, Samantha took us to Subway, where we "vegged-out" and then
> went to the general store in Asheville where they gave us a 25% disc
> ount off everything in the store. I personally didn't buy anything,
> but a lot of people in my group did. They had a lot of good campin
> g gear, and some amazing looking old-fashion candy. All-in-all it w
> as a good day, a little unconventional from our typical build day, b
> ut it was nice to help out different types of organizations.

Yesterday was the hardest day ever. We technically climbed 2 mountains
but I count it as 3 because we never got to go down the first climb,
instead we went straight from our 9% grade into climbing the blue
ridge parkway. The parkway was awesome. Going down felt so good,
except for the fact that right after that we had the most massive
climb ever for about 15 miles. At around 5:30 there were 10 of us
that got pulled from the mountain because we hadn't made it to the
peak of the mountain and we had about 20 miles left and were not going
to make it in. It sucked being pulled even though a third of our trip
was. It was sooooo hard. Anyways the rest of the day we got back had a
nice spaghetti dinner and them showered in semi brown and luke warm
water. Not the best conditions but I dealt with it. We camped out
afterwards for the first time which wasn't too bad. I actually kind of
liked it, besides for the extreme possibility of being attacked by a
bear...but I survived, and made it to our next biking day. We got to
sleep in to about 7 and then headed off for only 40 miles of biking.
We took it nice and slow and made a ton of long stops, including a
local lunch stop, a 3 mile hike to a waterfall after our 7 mile climb,
and a stop at a local bike shop. It was a long day because of all the
stops, but still a good time. We are now hangin out at the church
playing rock band and then our going to hang out in the town.

Oh yea and I'm now in Tennessee. Basically to some of all up I climbed
about 10,000 miles in 3 days and I'm tired and am up in rock band,
peace!