Duck River TN to Collinwood TN

March 18^th 2013

Duck River TN to Collinwood

Rain poured down as we left the Methodist church and began the ride this morning. At first it wasn’t such a big deal, I have spent entire days riding in the rain before. I figured it would just be one more thing that made today an adventure. There was thunder and lightning, but that never scared me as a child and although it probably should scare me as an adult, but it doesn’t especially with so many trees above me.

Little did I know then that I was riding through a named storm. It was a weird name too like Urek or something like that. I also didn’t know that later in the day the temperature was going to drop and I was going to be shivering. The next day I would also see whole trees torn from the ground from this storm. Roots lay jagged and open in the air when they should be clinging tightly to the Earth.

Fortunately I survived although I was very cold. Another highlight was going by the Merriwether Lewis memorial. I didn’t know that Merriwether Lewis was born in Albemarle, Virginia, the same place where my Dad grew up. It’s like I keep saying Virginians are taking over the world.

When we arrived in Collinwood they had nice heaters ready for us. Pastor Tim took us to the showers at a Firehouse down the road. We were able to grab coffee or hot chocolate in my case from a store called the Dragonfly. The church cooked us a huge dinner and allowed us to give a presentation. Tom, Angela, myself and a few others spoke at the presentation.

We ended the night with a bike chain cleaning party since all of our chains had become disgusting from riding in the rain.

It was an adventure and we all survived it. Looking forward to the century tomorrow.

March 17, 2013

Nashville TN to Duck River TN

St. Patrick’s Day!!!

We arose around 6:30 or so and had a breakfast of cereal peanut butter on bagels, and bananas. We attended church and listened to a wonderful sermon about smells – the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus having been in the grave so long that he had begun to smell and the story of Mary washing Jesus’ feet and thus preparing him for burial. I didn’t know until today that these two events happened in the same place. Smells are powerful and they can evoke strong emotions. The sermon was about holding nothing back as our savior held nothing back for us we should hold nothing back for others. It was really cool.

A News crew actually showed up to talk to Ryan and catch footage of the cyclists as they departed. Also I mention before that we picked up supplies from Wall Greens for a surprise for St. Patrick’s Day. Check it out

Venus on the left, who talked us into purchasing the glasses, Angela in center and yours truly on the right.

Venus, Melissa Merrill, the new trip leader, myself and Ryan Iafigliola, the trip founder.

Pretty cool right?

We found the green glasses at Wall Greens I actually bought the light up shamrock from Party City the week before the ride began. So I am definitely showing off my green on this St. Patrick’s day as I ride about 47 miles to the next church. Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone.

It was a nice ride today; there were some nice hills, but nothing too steep or ridiculously high for climbing. The scenery was beautiful and you couldn’t ask for better directions. Usually on these Fuller Center rides you deal with directions that tell you to make twenty different turns and can be very lengthy. Riding the trace it’s as simple as making two turns to get on and two turns to get off. This was of course after we managed to make it out of Nashville, but it didn’t take long to get out of town. I hope the directions remain so easy. Being Blake Smith’s brother I have a track record for getting lost too… actually truth be told I find myself becoming lost much more easily than Blake.

We arrived at Shady Grove United Methodist Church around 2:00pm and the congregation was already busy cooking us a meal. We were actually invited to the individual homes of the congregation for showers. I went to the house of a man named John who has a great sense of humor. John became handicapped recently, but his church family helped make renovations to his house which helped him tremendously. They re-designed his bathroom and shower so he could clean himself without extra help and made other adjustments to make his house more wheel chair friendly. It turns out he did a lot of volunteer work with his church building homes for people before he lost his leg, and just because he’s one foot shorter it doesn’t stop him from continuing to volunteer and help make life better for those less fortunate.

Shady Grove United Methodist provided a wonderful meal of fried chicken, cole slaw, baked beans with bacon, pasta salad, deviled eggs, potato casserole, biscuits, gravy, salad, chicken nuggets and much more. Dessert was banana pudding, cupcakes and at least three different kinds of cookies.

Dinner was fantastic and they have even offered to cook us pancakes in the morning. Shady Grove is a relatively small church in a rural town with a lot of poverty. They are made up of perhaps 3 or 4 regulars and the rest is all family and friends as they describe it. Even so they do all that they can to outreach to the community working on building projects and lots and lots of food drives. There is a lot of need in this community, and Shady Grove UMC has learned that just because they are a small church doesn’t mean they can’t make a difference in their community and abroad. They build not only here in TN, but other states and places as well.

We ended the night with the most intense game of spoons I’ve ever played in my life. It was touch and go there for a  while when I found myself at ‘spoo’ if I had missed another spoon then I would have a a full ‘spoon’ and been out. The game lasted until the participants faded away. I’m glad I was able to last until the end.

Well it sounds like we are most likely going to have rain tomorrow, so I’m going to have to go get my rain gear out and ready to go. It’s been an awesome day and now I’m going to have to go get ready for another one!

Good Night!

I must apologize, the last few places haven't had internet so I have been posting as often as I like. This is why the next few posts will be rapid to cover the last few days. I'm glad I typed everything up in a word document.

March 16, 2013

Nashville TN to Duck River TN

It’s day 2 here on the Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure. Today we went out for a practice ride which was an experience in itself because this is first time I’ve biked with only rear brakes. My front brakes weren’t ready yet, but Jonas said I would be ok as long as I was comfortable with it, and Jonas has yet to let me down. It’s not living unless you’re living on the edge right?

Here are some pictures of our practice ride:

 

After which we went to the showers and Marty our bus driver, who was kind enough to bus us to the showers took us by Al Gore’s house. I didn’t even know that Al Gore lived in TN. Crazy right?

Then we had a debriefing of the ride, reviewed the history of the Fuller Center and had people assigned to chore groups. I’m actually a chore leader this year. I’m in charge of dinner clean up, thank you notes, and site cleanup when we leave. Those who signed up for my group are on top of things, they are usually already hard at work before I even ask them.

After that was settled a group left for bike shop, I hoped on board with that since I wanted to grab some tubes and I needed to buy some shampoo and body wash since I didn’t pack any for fear that it would register as liquid on the airport.

While at Wall Greens we picked up some interesting stuff, but I’ll save that information for later in the blog as a surprise, also I’m sure I’ll have pictures to share with all of you by that time.

For Blake I’m sure is interested we ate ham and cheese sandwiches, apples and cookies for lunch and salad with veggies, bananas and some sauce with rice and beef for dinner, and yes Blake it was delicious.

Jonas introduced us to videos of the Target Lady on YouTube. I’ll let you use your imagination. Then the lights went out and it was the end to another great day.

Off On Another Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure

March 15^th, 2013

            I can hardly believe I’m actually here in Nashville, ready for another bicycle adventure with The Fuller Center. The plane trip over was nice and smooth. I have to hand it to South West Airlines, they have excellent customer service. I arrived nice and early at 2:00pm and realized that I had to change the time on my watch to match the time zone.

            I was given a warm greeting by the trip founder Ryan Iafigliola at the airport. I was able to meet Sarah Cook, one of Sarah Doren’s friends, who told me about me the Parthenon in Nashville. And yes you read correctly there is actually a scale replica of the Parthenon in Nashville. It’s the only replica in the world actually

There was also a memorial out there dedicated to the Founder of Nashville. Guess what Nashville was founded by a Virginian!!!! That’s right it’s like I’ve always said Virginians are taking over the world.

 

Upon my return to the church, oh did I mention that we were staying at the Vine Street Church; well yep that’s where we are staying. It’s a nice big church facility with very friendly people. So back at the church I ran into Tom Webber and some of his family. Fun stuff and another surprise Allen Slabaugh came to visit us for the weekend. I couldn’t have asked for a better surprise.

We ate out with Allen and Tom and Miranda who rode in the east coast ride last summer. Alex also showed up Friday to say hi to everyone. Alex also participated in the summer ride last year. We all ate a nice meal at a restaurant and then Miranda and Alex wanted to go see the night life, but since neither one of them knew anything about Nashville they just decided to drive and have us follow behind in the Webber’s car, or as I like to call it – the Webber mobile.

Sure enough Miranda found something random for us to do. I kid you not, she told us that there was a really famous Men’s bathroom in the Hermitage Hotel and a friend of hers told her that if we were ever in Nashville we had to see it. Unfortunately we lost Miranda and Alex in traffic so finding the place was a pill.

However I must admit the bathroom was truly unique. For starters it’s the only men’s restroom I’ve ever entered with a sign out front that says women may enter at any time. Strangely enough it’s a full functioning bathroom. A couple of guys were using the facilities while we were there. Secondly it was painted black with green highlighted lines across the sides. There was even a phone and a shoe sign station. We got our pictures taken there and I’m even including a video link here so you can see the strangeness that we all witnessed.

Jonas Winn and Sarah Doren arrived later that evening; it was like the 2011 ride all over again. So many friends reunited. It was wonderful. Jonas even assembled my bike and fixed it up for me when he first arrived. I was surprised he remembered my bike, but then I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since bikes have been such a huge part of his life for so long.

Also, before the bell tolled and we all had to settle in for the night, we watched a documentary filmed by Faith Fuller, Millard Fuller’s daughter, called “Briars in the Cotton Patch.” If you have not seen this documentary, I highly recommend it! There is so much more to the story that came before the founding of Habitat for Humanity. It’s truly an amazing story, and sadly, I do not have time to elaborate this eve. Just go see it!

It’s so awesome to be reunited with such wonderful friends and serving such a wonderful cause and being able to explore a new state in this wonderful country that we live in.

Well that's all for now folks. Good Night!