Stories from the road...

So we love to blog now. It's pretty cool. But one thing we did realize is that it is really difficult to try to keep up with our blog while traveling. Between the massive amount of driving that we fit into 10 days, covering 3200 miles of the U.S. and having an impressive 35-hour-straight drive back to Richmond from Texas, we missed a few important stories along the way. But, here are some highlights....

We arrive at an elementary school in New Orleans to deliver some books and while we were waiting in the bus for approval to enter the building a guy named Tony approached us and asked us what we were all about. We told him, and he got really excited about the fact that we fixed bikes, and said he wanted to show us his bike. We waiting in the bus, thinking that he was going to hop around the corner and come back with his ride, but instead he returns with a small photo album, proudly handing it to Joel to see his photos. As Ward asks Tony if he can pull out the video camera and interview him, Joel opens the album and sees that the photos are not of a bike, but of a dude pushing a shopping cart. Not sure what to say, Joel continues to stare at the photo, mumbling to himself, "Aww, cool man, yeah, uh..." After Tony and Ward talk for a minute or two, Tony looks over at Joel and sees him staring intensely at the shopping cart photo, and yells, " Naw man, that ain't no bike! That's a shopping cart! Turn the page." To our relief, the next few pages of photos were of Tony, the self-proclaimed Candy Apple Cart Man of New Orleans, who sometimes sells ice cream as well, and managed to leave NOLA after the hurricane and return to save his bike and restore it months later. I think it is awesome that Tony still thinks Joel the intern bike mechanic thought a shopping cart was a bike.

-Shelley