It's crazy to think how quickly time has been passing this last week. These past two days flew by and now we only have two more days left!
We had a short 48-mile ride from Jackson to Stockton and I had the pleasure of riding with Kris, my friend Peter's mom, who lives in the area. It was an incredibly pleasant ride. For the first half we were on these windy, hilly roads. There were some short, steep climbs, but overall we went down in elevation so it sometimes felt like we were being slingshot over some of the smaller hills. It was so much fun to wiz down these little hills and have momentum bring us part of the way up another hill.
At the halfway point we stopped at a farmers market/bakery. It was only 10 am, but I think as a group we probably ate three pies, several miscellaneous pastries, a huge carton of strawberries, and a pound of grapes. Considering how much we ate, we were thankful that the remainder of the ride was flat and easy all the way to the host.
Today we had our last build day of the trip with Habitat for Humanity of San Joaquin County. I was able to see Kris again since she's a regular volunteer with HfH. She was leading a group doing paver patterns in the backyard, while I was working on putting up a fence. Other groups were shingling the roof and painting the interior of a nearby house.
It ended up being my favorite build day of the trip. I felt so accomplished at the end of the day and was happy by the amount of work that was accomplished by all of us. I was also impressed by the quality of the houses and the minimal amount of wasted materials in the overall construction of the homes. Another cool aspect of this Habitat group is that the houses have solar panels installed! The houses are all made to have greatly reduced construction costs as well as maintenance costs, which is just as important in regards to affordable housing.
As this trip is coming to a close I'm definitely experiencing mixed feelings. I'm so excited to be reaching the Pacific Ocean since that is what we've been working for this whole time, but I'll also be sad to leave these amazing people. Needless to say, we've been cherishing each and every moment (see cuddle puddle below).