A Real Snow Day

I woke up to the wind screaming at my window, a wind chill of -20 and half a foot of new snow on the ground. Schools are CLOSED for the day. It's a snow day!

Amount of snow it typically takes to cancel school

A snow day in Montana is a rare occurrence. If you don't believe me, just check out the map of how much snow it generally takes to cancel school across the U.S. I live in the dark blue area (24"). I grew up in the green area where a 'snow day' simply meant snow - any snow - half an inch, a light dusting, freezing rain that kind of looks like snow, or a rumor from the next town over that there is a slight chance of snow coming our way. It didn't take much to incite panic among Memphis' already awful drivers, burden the busing system and shut down schools for the day. While I do remember missing school several days as a kid for these southern "snow days", I don't remember any glorious knee-deep snow days full of life-size snowmen and epic sledding adventures. Our snowmen stood a foot off the ground (two if there was a lot of snow), and the sledding we did at Overton Park was more like a makeshift ice luge down a long driveway. It usually ended in tears. If anything, we spent snow days in the South bundled up inside, fearful of the bad drivers and temperatures that had dropped below our comfortable 60s. 

In the 3 years that I've been working at a school in Missoula, I've had 2 or 3 snow days, despite dozens of winter storms and feet upon feet of snow. When you get a snow day in Montana, you know it's legit. There have been many days in February that I've woken up, looked out my window at the new snow fallen overnight and thought, 'This HAS to be a snow day,' to much disappointment. The reason I haven't posted in a while is because I've been buried under a mound of snow. This Monday, 7.9 inches fell in Missoula, breaking a 74-year record for snowfall on that day. And we are going to come very close to beating the all-snowfall record for February of 43.3 inches set in 1936. If only it was a Leap Year.

My snow day plans are not as imaginative as they would have been as a kid. Heck, I woke up at 6:00 on a snow day excited about writing a blog post. After that I’ll probably shovel snow for anywhere from 1-3 hours, a task I actually enjoy since I never had to do it as a kid. Or I’ll just pay off the neighbor kid to do it if he stops by (please!) – not out of sheer laziness, but rather to support his entrepreneurial efforts. I’m pretty excited to do some much-needed laundry and cleaning. Then I’ll spend the day doing Bike & Build work – checking in with my riders, making calls to confirm overnight hosts and build days, and sending out another batch of fundraising letters.

And if the wind dies down, the wind chill warms up and I finish my to-do list, I might actually get out and enjoy the snow. A tour of the neighborhood on cross-country skis sounds quite nice.

View from my sunrise ski up Crazy Canyon this week

Un-affordable housing

I've yet to delve very far into the affordable housing subject, mostly because I'm not as familiar with it as am with biking, training, fundraising, and other aspects of my trip that I've highlighted thus far on this blog. Well, it's about time I dug a little deeper, and I hope you'll join me. First off, there are a few terms you need to know:

Housing Wage - the hourly wage a full-time worker  (40 hours/week) must earn to be able to afford a 2BR unit at an area's fair market rent. You may have heard the term "living wage", which refers to a wage that is high enough to sustain a "normal" standard of living. A housing wage is kind of like that, only related to affordable housing.

Fair Market Rent - the estimated amount of money a certain property with a certain number of bedrooms in a certain area will go for. FMRs are set by HUD and used to determine amounts for rental vouchers for housing programs like Section 8.

Affordable Housing - housing is considered affordable if a family/individual pays no more than 30% of its annual income on rent and utilities. Those paying more than 30% are considered cost-burdened and may not be able to afford other necessities like food, clothing, medical expenses, transportation, etc.

So I checked out the Out of Reach 2013 report  put out by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and here's what the numbers say for the Missoula metropolitan area where I live:

$738      - FMR for a 2BR apartment (state FMR - $696)
$29,520 - amount a worker would have to make
               per year in Missoula to afford FMR,      
               without spending more than 30% of
               their income on rent
$14.19  - housing wage for Missoula
               (state avg. - $13.39)
$7.80    - minimum wage in Missoula
               (same across the state)
73         - number of hours/week a minimum wage
               earner in Missoula would have to work
               to afford local FMR on a 2BR apartment
$9.01    - average wage for a renter in Missoula
               (state avg. - $10.45)
63         - number of hours/week a mean renter
               wage earner in Missoula would have to
               work to afford FMR on a 2BR apartment
0           - number of counties in Montana or the U.S. where a full-time minimum wage worker
               can afford even a 1BR apartment at the Fair Market Rent

I strongly encourage you to take a look at the report on the state and county where you live. It is very simple and easy to understand, and you can find it here at the Out of Reach 2013 Report. You may be surprised at what you find.

The hardest part for me about these statistics is the faces behind the numbers. I can't help but think of individual families - families who are working their tails of to make ends meet, families who are scraping by from paycheck to paycheck, families who just can't seem to get ahead. To me, this is the real tragedy behind the affordable housing crisis in our country. Not the shocking statistics, but the hard-working individuals and families who simply can't afford a place to live based on the wages they earn and the high price of housing. Thinking about it makes my heart cry out for these families, but it also motivates me even further towards my goal with Bike & Build.

More to come on some solutions to the problem...

10 Ways to Roll Across America

In my last post I mentioned a couple who roller-skied across the country. Well, that got me wondering what other quirky ways people have completed the trans-American traverse. What I found turned out to be a lot more than the classic cross-country bike tour:

Roller skating newlyweds, via Reminisce Magazine

1. Unicycle: This guy has been unicycling across north and south America since last summer. Crazy? Perhaps just slightly unbalanced.

2. Tandem: This couple rode a tandem bike across America to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in 2004.  No word on if they are still married or not.

3. Inline Skate: The organization LiveGiveSKATE promotes inline skating across America for the Special Olympics.

4. Roller Skate: In the 1920s this newlywed couple became the first people to roller skate across America. He was a professional skater, and she was a good sport who face-planted as soon as they started. That's love.

5. Skateboard: In 2013 a five-person relay team skateboarded across America to raise money for Alzheimer’s research in a fundraiser they called A Push to Remember.

Velomobiles. I had no clue what they were either. 

6. Wheelchair: Last summer this guy rolled his wheelchair 3,100 miles across America. Now that takes some serious arm strength.

7. Velomobile: Two dozen velomobilists rode their human-powered bicycle cars across the country in the 2011 Roll Over America .

8. Tricycle: In 2012 this couple completed a tricycle crossing to raise money for the Wounded Warrior project, and in 2007 this gal crossed the country on a recumbent hot pink tricycle. Talk about style.

Thomas Stevens on the cover of
Adventure Cyclist magazine

9. Penny-Farthing: In 1884, Thomas Stevens completed the first transcontinental bike ride on a penny farthing (high wheeler). He went on to ride around the world.

10. Rickshaw: In 2012, this guy pushed a 400-pound rickshaw from California to Florida in his third attempt to break the Guinness record for the "longest walking rickshaw".

And if all else fails, you can always just hoof it like Peter Jenkins did in 1973 when he set out on foot from New York to Oregon, documenting his journey in his book A Walk Across America.

So as you can see, crossing America by some form of human-powered, wheeled vehicle is nothing new. And combining it with charity seems to be a trend. Wheelies for Whooping Cough? Cruisers for Crohn's? What other cross-country charity rides can you think of?

Cross-Country Cross-Training

Jeans - the preferred clothing for enjoying snow

Remember the Victor-y Ride post where I said it felt like Spring in Montana? The roads were clear of snow, the wind was calm, the temperatures were in the 40s. Yeah, that was short-lived. Last week we received a glorious dumping of snow, but in the past few days we've succumbed to an arctic blast that has made winter a little less enjoyable and little more, well, wintery. Trying to start my car in -30 degree wind chills isn't exactly how I prefer to begin my day. Nor does my car, based on the pathetic wheezing noises it makes when I turn the key. And when the wind chill is below 0, which it has been for two days straight, the kids at school can't go outside for recess. That means nearly 400 kids (and teachers) cooped up indoors for 8 hours straight. This is kind of how I envision the apocalypse.

Caught Dylan having a good time - hah!

While Missoula looks great in white, it hasn't allowed for much outdoor training. Spin classes can only hold my attention for so long, so I've channeled my energy into cross-country skiing. Since my first wretched attempt to cross-country ski up an icy road on treadless skis, it has become my favorite winter activity. I love the full-body workout, the rhythm, the gliding motion and the quiet whooshing sound across the snow. Dylan is a born-and-raised alpine skier, but I've managed to bring him to the dark side and at least tolerate cross-country skiing. I even convinced him to sign up for the 32k Broken Binding Ski Race at the end of the month. This is my idea of fun and his idea of torture, but the training together has been a blast. This led me to wonder if anyone has ever cross-country skied...cross-country. Which led me to this website. Yes, a couple roller-skiied across America in 2012 to raise money to fight hunger. And here I thought biking cross-country was cool - silly me.