A House in Minneapolis Gets a New Roof

Well, to be strictly accurate, many houses in Minneapolis have gotten new roofs this past summer. But if I were being completely honest, I don't care about the vast majority of those houses. I care most about one little house—mine.

Here are a couple photos of the new-roof-putting-on process (I believe that's what professional roof installer technicians call this kind of project).

Every good new-roof-putting-on project calls for the right materials.

Dad starts to remove the old roof.

And this is what it looks like after the old rubber roof has been removed.

We added these 2x2s to the roof deck to provide clearance so the new roof could be ventilated. This should clear up some of my problems with icicles and ice dams.

On top of the 2x2s we installed a new roof deck of OSB.

Daniel demonstrates the strength that made him an award-winning member of the Wheaton Thunder football team. He's holding on his back a 200+ lb. roll of rubber roofing. I'm honestly not sure how we would have gotten this onto the roof without him.

And here's the new rubber roof being glued down to the new roof deck.

Now for the other side. This plane of the roof is pitched so it'll get shingles (after we add the new roof deck). Note the new OSB sheeting toward the bottom of the roof. That was a repair I made a few years back when I discovered that several years of ice dams had almost completely rotted away the roof boards and rafters.

After the new deck was installed, we started putting on the new shingles.

This fun little project is the side porch, and was supposed to be a quick part of the roof project. Instead, the existing roof was so rotted away that we had to remove it completely and rebuild the roof. I'm pleased to say that it's probably the most solid part of my entire house.

As you can see, I had excellent, dedicated help. These two were tireless on the project.

Here I am, trying to look impressive and rooferly.

"Build a little fire," I told Daniel. "Make sure it doesn't get out of control," I told him. "Don't take your eyes off it." I'm not sure why, but something about Daniel and fire makes me a little uneasy...

Now, I know what you're all thinking at this point. "Why didn't I get a chance to work on Ben's roof?" And never fear, there's more than enough roof to go around. I'll be working on the front roof (the side that faces the street) and the back roof (over the kitchen) this fall. I'm sure I'll need to establish a lottery system to deal with the intense clamor of wannabe professional roof installer technicians showing up at my door to work on this new-roof-putting-on project.

Caption This!

Let's bring back the photo caption posts, and kick it off with this one. Add your caption in the comments and the winning entry (judged by a very stringent, independent governing body) will be added to the post.

Four campers thinking this thought: "I've made the fire almost every time so far, I'm sick of making the fire. But I'm not saying a word about it. I'm just going to sit here and wait for one of the other three to make that fire even if it takes all day."

Congratulations to Dad for the winning caption here. I think that captures the look of extreme laziness and resignation on all our faces.

Runners-up were Lisa and Anonymous! Where's Edmund when you need him most? 

Kids Carpool

Levi - "There's no more room!"

Muskegon History

Found this and thought it was pretty cool. It's a history of Muskegon with a lot of pictures from when mom and dad were little kids growing up here, and even before. Check it out.

I was in the newspaper!

I forgot to tell anyone about this, but they ran an article in the Wheaton Record (school newspaper) that they quoted me in. Check it out!

Here it is

Finally, a house

After a lot of sweat and uncertainty, we were finally able to close on our house late last week! 

Conveniently, I had to head down to Atlanta this week for work, but I've been closely supervising the packing from afar. Andy has come out to do some painting, and he and Amber already have a bedroom painted.

We already had the inaugural house problems. With all the rain lately, we had some water starting to seep into the basement. We're planning to dig a giant trench around the house to alleviate the drainage issues. I've bought a spade shovel and I'm just waiting for Dad to pass back through the area. He's got a lot of practice hand-digging giant holes, I believe.

Hopefully we'll be mostly moved in by late July and will be ready to have some visitors!

Mountain Climber Jr.

Levi gets a brief lesson in climbing walls and mountains. One of the things he likes to do is stand up and hold himself on the backyard fence, watching cars go by. I fashioned a harness for him out of my belt, and he told me that he's planning on scaling Mt. Everest next weekend.

A Sampling of Colorado

I traveled out to Colorado after the Chicago to New York cycling trip to attend my good friend Hunter's wedding. He and his wife Lindsay had a beautiful ceremony and reception up on Keystone Mountain that we had to take three different gondolas up the mountain to get to, where the ceremony was around 10 or 11 thousand feet. These pictures are from the day of the wedding, during which Sam and I had some time to do some exploring, when Sam and I traveled up an old road to a mining town that was abandoned and did some hiking and sightseeing. 

A note about the moose: I didn't know they were dangerous and tried walking up to it. Luckily it was really docile, but even then they can charge without any warning. I got within probably 10-15 feet and it looked up at me and started walking toward me slowly, while I instinctively raised my hands making myself bigger and backed away. The moose stopped walking after that and turned away. But now I know...don't get close to mooses. 

The end of the road map

Added the last leg of the journey to the kitchen wall map

WE MADE IT

Day Twelve, Day's End

Day Twelve, Day's End: a great one. We made it 20 miles through some of the most beautiful hills I've ever seen through northern New Jersey to @princekahleeb's neck of the woods. Huge thank you to @_christianmingles family for so warmly welcoming us and taking us in last night, it was truly wonderful. Looking forward to some really fun times with the Demoss family, seems like were already fitting in just fine with GaGa ball, hanging out, and having a blast old school style. Tomorrow or Monday Reece and I will ride the last 40 miles into the great city that never slept herself, New York. Total mileage as of today: 800 miles.

Day 12

It's been an incredible and eventful past couple of days. A good friend from Wheaton of mine once said "you don't walk into heaven, you're carried in on a stretcher". That sort of sums up how yesterday's riding felt. We started outside the town of Catskill, NY and continued on little mountain roads through small towns that wound their ways through the foothills of gigantic mountain ranges. There were many, many hills to climb, which is good at this point in the trip because we're the strongest and best in shape we've been thus far, but it was still pretty tough. With a steady headwind and well over 100 miles to cover for the day, we rode long and hard for over seven hours to finally reach the town of Sparta, where my housemate from last year at Wheaton-Christian-lives. My phone with the GPS directions died as we rolled into town, so we called Christian from Reece's phone and he offered to come the four miles to pick us up because we were both pretty dead. Lucky we are that he did...little did we know all the rolling hills we had climbed would completely pale in comparison to this last four miles to his house, which was all uphill and would've been extremely difficult to manage traversing. Here's a picture of the elevation to give an idea, and keep in mind everything before the very end of the map was already really hard riding even though it looks almost negligible:

So we were very blessed to get a ride back with him and his dad the last four miles to his house. They have a beautiful home in one of the highest points around New Jersey, and we ate like kings as they made an awesome steak dinner for us. So that was last night. We're resting up today and then at some point riding 15-20 more miles to our other friend Caleb's house that we were originally going to stay with in NJ, but wasn't ready to have us until Saturday night. 

Here are some pictures from the last couple days-the riding yesterday through New York and New Jersey was some of the most beautiful landscape and countryside I've ever seen:

So yeah, that's been the last couple of days. Riding out of Buffalo, I met a Vietnam vet that was drafted in '69 who fixed my broken spoke. We've met so many interesting people like that, it's really fascinating. I think on these kind of journeys that's a large part of the experience, and it's certainly been that for us. 

Day 10

Good day. Took the train from Rochester to Albany to avoid mountains, which are apparently huge in New York. Made about 30 miles after the train ride and are camping out for the night. Will ride 105 miles to our buddies house in New Jersey. No picture for today, but the country is beautiful here!

Progress shown after the cheating train ride

The dotted line shows the cheating train ride.  I'll let others make the judgement call on this, I will not judge.

Day....10?

Road 70 miles yesterday to Rochester and set up camp in Genesee Valley State Park. After camping out there for the night, we woke up this morning and are currently riding the Amtrak from Rochester to Albany, where we'll have 150 miles left to ride to get to Mendham, NJ where our buddy Caleb and his family live. After staying with them (and riding the remaining 30-40 miles into the heart of NYC) we'll catch the Amtrak out of Penn Station back to Chicago, arriving back in the Midwest on Wednesday.

Here's a picture of the old train bridge, which had been now converted to a pedestrian bridge, that we put our bikes under and camped out nearby next to the river. 

Day Eight, or the day of rest

We took today to relax, hang out, and rejuvenate our bodies before the final push to New York City tomorrow. We did a little sightseeing and really enjoyed exploring Buffalo. We visited some awesome battleships at a marine museum, and I got to see another Gato-class submarine like the USS Silversides, as well as a couple other cool battleships. We then went to the original birthplace of "buffalo wings", called the Anchor Bar. They had really great pizza and really great wings! Then in the evening Reece and I drove up to see Niagara Falls for the first time. And everyone was right-the Canadian side was a way better view than the American.

Tomorrow we head out for New York City. Pray for strength for us and that God will continue to aid us in this journey!

My Part in the journey

So as a retired old fart, my only part is to put this map on the kitchen wall and mark off the progress each day.  It takes a lot of effort on my part, but so far I'm keeping up.

Day Seven Part Two

Day Seven's End: Reece and I abandoned all conventional travel plans and decided to just start walking through the forest hoping something would happen and we would arrive somewhere eventually. Actually, Google Maps said there was a road here, but it was more like a medieval cattle trail through the enchanted forest. Today we made up for yesterday's delays and road nearly 105 miles to reach the wonderful Herskind household in Buffalo, NY. It's good to be back in America, although Canada was a pretty phenomenal experience. Tomorrow will be a day of rest, and then we'll put our heads together and decide how we want to tackle the Adirondacks.

Also, check out this sign we found!!

Day Seven

Day Seven: heavy rains and everyone winds yesterday slowed progress to a grinding halt. We trekked not even 20 miles through torrential rains and hurricane winds before stopping outside a house with a bible verse sign out in front of it. Knocking and asking for a lift, we meet some very humble, loving Mennonites that gave us a ride to the next town up the road where we got a motel for the night. Today we're covering the remaining 105 miles to Buffalo and right now we've gone 60. Thank God for Tim Horton'sv restaurants, the Canadians seem to love them up here. They're in almost every major town. Without good old Timmy's, our steady diet of champion food and WiFi connection would be non-existent. Next stop: Buffalo

Day Five

Day Five of the Great Bicycle Journey to the New York City: Phenomenal day. Reece and I trekked some 101.42 miles all over Ontario, pounding the pavement into submission with our tires. We started in Marine City Michigan and crossed by ferry for $1 apiece, and while doing so happened to meet a lady and her husband who kindly paid for us. On the ferry, she shared that her dad had played football with Vince Lombardi at Fordham University back in the late 30's and was one of the "Seven Blocks of Granite". His name is James Hayes, class of '39. Really cool. Anyway-we covered a lot of miles through Canada, I mooed at a lot of cows we passed, and at one point we got chased down by two giant dogs that we barely outpaced on our bikes at 30 mph. It's been an incredible, awesome, memorable day. Buffalo, we're coming for you.