Cycling Coast to Coast

Happy new year!

I’ve been home in California for winter break, and it’s been pretty relaxing. The donations have kept coming in (thanks so much to everyone!), and I’ve also done some shopping for bike gear. Performance Bikes has a retail store in San Francisco, so I picked up my first pair of spandex cycling shorts, a wind shell, and arm & leg warmers.

Last week, I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity SF, who is building 12 single-family homes in the Outer Mission neighborhood. They’ve already finished a few houses, and the first family moved in just before the holidays. It was really inspiring to see what’s possible with volunteer labor. They’ve started laying down the foundations for two new houses, but because it started raining, most of the work we did was indoors in one of the houses nearing completion. I spent the day getting my hands dirty painting all the windowsills and door frames in the house.