If the brownies were there, you would eat them too.

We are currently in Chapel Hill, NC and have completed our second and final build day. We are riding 85 miles in Winston-Salem. Is Winston-Salem hyphenated?
Each day we are supposed to reach the host site by 4 pm for showers/dinner. Yes, we made it at 3:55. This somewhat lengthy pitstop (Fig. 1) was well worth it though considering all the history and folklore gleaned on such a venture.









Fig. 1 The Octagon House


Yesterday, we spent about half the day at a build site in Fairfield, NC for Habitat for Humanity before being rained out. It was a tragic turn of events and were sent back to the the church we are staying, Chapel of the Cross, to read, watch movies, twiddle our thumbs til the next day.
Michelle, Scott, and Dan #2, and I having made our thumbs sore from twiddling decided to go swimming in one of UNC's pool. Michelle and I choreographed an extensive sychronized swimming routine. Scott and Dan #2 were less creative and provided little competition. We won. Obviously. We used influences of all genres of dance in our routine but most came from our formal ballet instruction as provided by Michelle. See Fig. 2.







Fig. 2 Ballet practice

As mentioned before we are leaving and will once again continue biking. Interestingly having these two days off have done little to curb our extensive appetite. There are many of us here, thanks to the generosity of our host, have begun to eat a cupcake at every meal (Dan Carmody). Sad. Sad. Sad. But true.

Fig. 3 Flowers and fields

We anticipate hills, sweat, hardwork, and more brownies at breakfast.

Bel Haven, NC

A sorry post with no pictures, but it has been a tough to find a way to upload photos.

But soon to come magic and delights from Nag's Head and Swanquarter. Such enchanting adventures include the stop at the Octagon House and mysterious stories of the Church-Moved-By-The-Hand-Of-God. The brief summary goes something like this: hurricane, wind, church moves, an angry old man dies and his tombstone is missing. yes, that sums it up.

Special Thanks to:

Bicycles East in Matthews, NC and Billy Carpenter.
They really helped me a lot with everything I could possibly think of, and so far I have had no problems and have been really comfortable. excellence.

Also thanks again to Alan Romfelt for all his advice!

$4083 yes yes Awesome/ Tragic Farewell to Blacksburg

Blacksburg, I am going to miss you--your bike lanes/turning lanes and your large trucks.







Your never ending supply of interesting and engaging garbage. This one by far was my favorite, the family sized banquet chicken nugget bag, really in the middle of nowhere --an additional sprig of parsley as a one of many possible serving suggestions.






I am going to miss Mt. Tabor Rd. and any of the other surrounding "hills" of the area that take about 30 minutes to climb. Tear, tear.



Yes!!! made it! $4083, before the deadline. excellence.

Thanks to:

Jason Fox, super awesome Bay resident.
Katie Brutsche, field camp love.
Alec Luong, best wpolo coach ever.
Kayla Iacovino Phd., scientist, director, and baker.
Dr. Erikkson, my very cool sedimentology professor.
Stephanie Cox, geology soulmate
Amy Waller, sister and donor of the century even though she didn't go to graduation. She was sick. So here is a precious picture as a special treat.

It is ok to ignore the disgruntled girl the in the background. Not sure who that is.

Necessary amount of hydration while driving.

Today's ride in short: Purple flowers line the road for miles, magic butterfly friend, strong CCL evidence





aforementioned flowers






Look closely: 4 in a single frame. Also, an entire liter. Consumed by one individual? possibly.

















No new funds, but scheming.

$3333.50/ There is nothing magical about a selfish goat.

Dan Carmody, a fellow bike-and-builder and friend at Carnegie Mellon, has shamelessly plugged my website on his, so to pay him back, I am doing the same:
http://www.carmodyfamily.com/bnb/index.htm
His is actually much better than mine because it focuses on issues of low income housing instead of mello yellow. It also consists of more than one page, which I am not skilled enough to create.

Today, I fulfilled one of the suggestion/requirements put before us by our bike and build leaders which is to bike in the rain. It initially can only be described as “wildly unpleasant.” This seems pretty logical since plenty of people would see it pouring outside and not think “gee, what a great day for a ride.” Case in point: Steve Vito, big time wuss-out. I hope he reads this.
So really though it wasn’t that bad, and for what amount of misery it is you really make up for it in getting really dirty and just basically looking hardcore. Essentially break even. I saw two other riders and we gave each other the silent nods of “You’re hardcore and awesome” “No, you’re hardcore and awesome.”

A brief summary of the climax of the ride: I somehow got off a paved road and was wandering around in the backwoods of Christiansburg. It wasn’t really a gravel road persay, more like “not incredibly paved.” So climbed up a huge hill on this “not incredibly paved” road where it forks at the top (see left) . Of course I veered off the initial route to follow this one.
And yes, a pen fun of ponies--arguably one of the more cuter things that could have possibly come out of biking down Unicorn Ln. I am convinced that the white one is a baby unicorn (considering the road name and difficulty in arriving in such a place). I am therefore determined to befriend it, so it will grant me a wish. One of the goats is a serious glutton, but by several methods I am able to get the pony/baby unicorn some of the grass. I pedal away from the baby unicorn, satisfied that I will probably have a wish granted within the week and am generally in love with the world.
“Hello, flowers. Hello, trees. Hello, un-fenced dog…”
Ok, in hindsight, not that big of a dog. And I retold this to my roommate ,and they noted that I could have probably just kicked the dog in the face. But really-still, it was scary.
It chased me uphill so I couldn’t get going that fast enough, and it was biting at my feet. I have never pedaled so hard. It finally gave up, and once I reached far enough away I nearly doubled over and threw up. It was really fun adventure… cough.
Anyway, that summary was far from brief, but obviously necessary.

Thanks to:

Bryan Wuest--for creating and then infiltrating to put up the delightful banner. The picture taken on the Minneapolis Greenway on our way to drink excess amounts of chai.

Memaw and Grandpa!! Sponsors of the year, by far. Thanks!!!!

Kelly Waters, fellow wpolo teammate and s’more eater.

$2783.50 / Radford, land of citrus beverage (sorry Katherine)

Fig. 1

Two hour bike rides give you plenty of time to think about and over-analyze stupid observations; hence I have decided to publish my research here.
Thesis: There is a strong correlation with caffeinated citrus flavored beverages and large angry trucks.

So far my data is somewhat patchy, and giving evidence to causality is probably still far in the future, and possibly several grants later for such an important scientific endeavor as this.

Fig.1 indicates the large spike in caffeinated-citrus-litter (CCL). Here we do not discern among popular brands, but it is worth noting there is a distinct change in brands from commuters from Blacksburg to Radford versus Radford and Christiansburg, interesting.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 is a highly precise graph of observations (notice scale on y-axis) of the strong occurrence of angry trucks and CCL along the side of road.

Fig. 1 also shows the abandoned (abandoned meaning 2 employees) Subway in Christiansburg that I filled my water bottle up at. The key is to just not make eye-contact with anyone. Walk-in, walk-out. It was brilliant.

Special thanks to:

Laura Cunningham for looking up on google maps where I was

additionally:
Dr. Bodnar!! Thanks. Always making senior seminar really fun.
Dan Carmody, thanks, but yes I still win.
Victoria Martin, gas bill+ Ravi Kumar-like interest on top. Well done!

$2593.50/ Floss and then discard on the side of the road.

The MULLINS ARE AWESOME

Kara has noted that thanking people is really boring, and makes my writing altogether uninteresting. noted, Kara. I will try harder in the future. But I have to play catch up.

First:
The MULLIN Family in all their greatness.

Also to thank:
Miss and and Mr. Vito
Stephen Indyk, water bill + extra because he is great.
Justin Olschlager, awesome all the time.
John Wyatt for the intense amount of change
Connie Lowe, Geology Dept. Mom.
Bruce! My basement dwelling roommate.
Bryan Wuest thanks a lot, plus the further encouragement for better health in order to make use of the rest of your birthday present, and uniform grass detail.


Kara, also said it was boring when I wrote about my bike rides. Sorry, that is what is is all about.
So Tuesday, amazing and beautiful outside. Trash seen on ride: about 6 or 7 single-use teeth flossers. I see alot of trash while climbing-- alot of front wheel staring, which is probably bad technique.
This morning: ice, sleet. no ride. garbage.

I have also decided to go to Caltech for the fall. Good deal. Pretty happy about the decision.