Maryville, Tennessee

It has certainly been a dry spell since our last post! In the days that have passed, we have been really lazy. All we did was bike across the Appalachian Mountains and build with Habitat for Humanity for a few days.

It took three days of climbing to get through the mountains, but we can finally claim that we have biked over the Appalachians! It feels good. Especially since I thought the first day almost killed me… death from physical exertion. The major climb of that day was a 14-mile stretch on Highway 181, one of the climbs Lance Armstrong has used to train for the Tour de France! When we arrived in Linville Falls that night, we thought the worst of it was over, but we were sorely mistaken. The next two days were just as tough. Day two of ‘near-death-from-physical-exertion’ was along the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic mountain passage – easily the most beautiful day we have had on the road. The neatest part of the day was that we climbed to the highest point of our trip to date – almost 6,000 feet at the base of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi! Day three was equally as difficult, as we climbed two mountain passes. The second pass was particularly special because it was through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (which I was really looking forward to) and the final peak demarcated our first state line – likely the only thing that kept my legs pedaling! We arrived at the top about 6:45pm, 11 hours after we started our journey for the day. The reward for making it to the peak was that we literally coasted the 15 miles into Gatlinburg. The next morning we prepared for an easier ride: a trek down the foothills. We rode uphill for 5 miles and then lost elevation for the rest of the day, ending in Maryville, Tennessee. We arrived on June 8 and we will be here until the morning of June 15. This week we were supposed to be a part of a Blitz Build, meaning that we would have seen an entire house go up from frame to finishing touches. Unfortunately, the local executive director is new and, as a result of a lack of communication, Bike and Build wasn’t notified. Fortunately, Habitat has been working really hard to find worthwhile projects for us to work on. We are really blessed that there is a lot of work to be done here so our labor will not be wasted; we are working on four different houses and at a Resale Store which makes over $300,000.00 each year for the local Habitat chapter. We are being hosted by Camp Tipton, about 15 minutes outside of the city, where we are privy to a central gym (with a full kitchen, bathrooms and showers, basketball hoops, fooseball table, pingpong table, and a big screen tv), soccer field, bonfire pit, horseshoes, slip-and-slide, beach volleyball court, etc. And we are staying in cabins with mattresses… for the first time in weeks.

I’m quite sure everyone is enjoying our time in Maryville – it is giving us the opportunity to get to know one another outside of our bike shorts and in a more community-friendly venue. We are still sharing limited common space, but we have more free time and less chores and bike maintenance. We have been able to cook meals together, visit a Blues Festival, the local bar scene, Maryville College, and the booming downtown. Just kidding, it is quite calm.

On another note, we don’t always have internet access at our host sites (ie the camp we are at right now), so it is not always possible to post a blog for each day. If you want to hear from us more frequently, we both have our phones with us.

Also, we have been really happy to receive mail!! If you still want to send us mail, here are the addresses again:
June 21: Memphis, TN 38128
June 28: Bartlesville, OK 74003
July 5: Lamar, CO 81052
July 12: Durango, CO 81301
July 19: Williams, AZ 86046

Address mail to:
Bike & Build
Attn: Eric Immel/Molly North
General Delivery
CITY, ST ZIP

Hasta pronto,
Molly