Day 7 - Good evening Mr. Jefferson! (Welcome to Charlottesville)

Today started slowly but definitely ended with plenty of excitement as we arrived finally in Charlottesville where we'll spend the next few days working with Habitat for Humanity.  I found myself still quite groggy after sleeping crammed in like a sardine in the tent and tossing and turning in my ~15" of sleeping space.  We're all smiles at our bright and early wake-up calls, see?

One rider's birthday (Raleigh) was today so her bike was completely decorated with fake flowers and streamers and shiny aluminum foil, much to her surprise (creativity on a budget!).  I'm pretty sure she biked all the way to Charlottesville with the majority of the decorations on the bike, taking off only the things she needed to get it working.

I ended up biking at the front of the group with two of my fearless leaders, Derrick and Aileen, chalking the turns and attractions for those riders that followed.  We saw (among many other surprising sites) a giant white rooster outside of a roadside diner in Scottsville, a sign for Yogaville (a well-known yoga retreat) and lots of funny road names such as The Barn Rd, Self Rd and Fiddlestick Road.

Once we got into to Charlottesville we got a brief tour of the UVA "grounds" as they call them there along with an impromptu info session from a friend of Emily Frost, one of the riders who's a UVA alum.  From The Lawn in front of the Rotunda, UVA's original library, we made our way to the tri-Sigma sorority house that will be our home for the next few days.  Dinner was prepared for us at The Haven, a new community center with a large industrial kitchen that also acts as a homeless shelter and teaching kitchen to help people get culinary jobs.

After dinner the festivities began.  With a little liquid courage for the first time on the trip, so fell many people's guards and we all just had a great time.  Given that school is now out for the summer, the bars around campus were able to easily accommodate the large group of us wandering around looking like lost freshmen (aka first years!).  One place had karaoke and it was a blast to see my fellow riders belting stuff out I never expected and singing along to familiar songs.  On our way back to the sorority house a bunch of us stopped by The Lawn and went up the steps of the Rotunda and peaked through the keyhole where you can see the statue of Thomas Jefferson (they're obsessed with him here!) and people are supposed to say "Good evening, Mr. Jefferson!"  The whole evening was lots of fun and I'm already enjoying myself here.  I can tell everyone's relaxed and excited about being here for a few days and to have our first build days.  More to come soon!