Manhattan, KS-- DAY OFF!

We are in Manhattan, Kansas and we have our first day off! We are staying at an incredible church complete with anything a group of young adults wants: food, Wii, the World Cup games, computers, and of course a giant four foot ball. Plus at lunch we are getting chipotle and.... wait for it... massages! Seriously, life is good.

Since my last update in Kansas City, MO:
--We got free tickets to a Royals game! Working the Bike & Build angle can actually work sometimes-- Emily gor 32 free tickets to the Royals/Astros game on Thursday night and I was pumped! I know the Royals aren't the best team in baseball, but going to a baseball game was wonderful. The stadium was really nice and they actually won! I love baseball in the summer and it was one thing I really missed.

--The Habitat for Humanity in Kansas City was awesome. We got lots of work done on rebuiding a porch and working on some walls for another project they have. The project managers were also really fun to work with and we all had a good time singing and dancing during breaks.

--The ride into Lawrence, KS I was one of the sweeps which means that you stay in the back and carry extra tires and tubes etc. to make sure everyone gets there fine. Alyson and I enjoyed the slower ride by talking in British accents for at least 20 miles and talking about William & Mary (she graduated from W&M in '07 I think...). We were on a bike path which made me appreciate the bike path at home so much. This one had lots of trees and rocks on the path and so many sharp twists and turns but as always, not worrying about cars is really nice. Later in the day we got caught in a crazy storm. It was really cool how you could see the storm coming on and feel it get really cold fast. Unfortunately we were on a gravel road when it happened so it was a littel scary. We ended up knocking on someone's door and they graciously let us into their house to wait out the storm (thanks Tony and Melissa!). We finished the ride and got into our host around 3:30. That night, a motion detector alarm went off (like fire alarm level of noise) around 2am so nobody got a great night of sleep. Still a great day as always.

--Into Manhattan we had a 85 miler day so we started early. We left by 6:30am and had a goal of making it to the host by 1:30 to see the World Cup game. We had an awesome tail wind and rode really quickly and got there at 1pm (one group got there by 11:30--CRAZY). It was great to get going fast and we all had a good ride. I even got a flat but it was an easy one to fix so no problems at all. We watched the game and showered and enjoyed an awesome dinner provided by the church. We went our last night and walked arounf downtown Manhattan which was a lot of fun. The group is really close and it definitely feels like a family now. I love talking to everyone and we all look out for each other. They are a wonderful group of people that I am constantly learning from and I enjoy spending time with everyone individually and as a group.

Yay! Day off in Kansas. We are thinking of checking out Toy Story 3 or maybe the zoo! Depending on how motivated I am I might even put up pictures later today... we'll see. I hope you all are doing well and loving your summer as much as I am loving mine.

Love, Caroline