Day 1: Orientation

My family made sure to get me to orientation right on time, and to my surprise, there were already a lot of bike and builders there! Immediately, I was greeted with hugs and we all pretended like we didn't know each others names so you didn't seem like too much of a Facebook stalker. But I definitely knew everyone's name. One of the leaders actually made a joke to call me Creeper Currey since I saw one of the leaders on the highway to Charleston and snapped the pic below. 

        I think I see Lacy (creeper alert)"

Austin, Brian, Nyx, Mike, Rae, Kevin and I all decided to go grab lunch before our ice breakers officially started. It was really nice getting to hang out with them before all the chaos began.

One of the things that has amazed me the most on the trip is how different you are depending on your hometown. Everything from your habits, speech, ways of living are vastly different in the various regions of the US. My team as a whole represents 16 states which is pretty amazing. At lunch, other riders were already calling out my barely there southern accent with saying "y'all" and "folks."

For dinner, a bike lawyer came to talk to us which was very interesting. He talked to us about safety on the bike and better to be defensive than trusting on the road. Some of the facts were terrifying, but it made me feel better when it said it was very rare bikers got hit from the back. He was super knowledgable and gave us awesome water bottles.