Breaking 1000 and the 1st Day Off

Well we rode for 7 straight days (our longest stretch of the trip yet without a day off the saddle) and finally arrived in Memphis, TN for our first day off of the trip. To this point the closest we've come to days off are build days, because we (generally) don't have to ride our bikes and get to sleep a little later, etc. We made it count.
We crossed the 1000 mile mark on the ride from Pulaski to Adamsville. It was our longest ride yet, 90 miles.  And in case you were unaware, Adamsville is the home of Sheriff Buford Pusser, inspiration for the movie "Walking Tall" starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and boy are they proud of it. And might I say, I've seen Walking Tall and I didn't know it was based on this guy or Adamsville, but I did think it was a decent film. Anyway, there were signs everywhere for this guy, which made me chuckle because he has a silly name. Daniel's Mom and sister Elizabeth came and made us a superb BBQ dinner and tons of desserts, which was just outstanding of them.  We're so lucky to have people support us like that. Wouldn't be possible without them :) So other than how great Daniel's family is, Adamsville was pretty unremarkable.
Our next stop was Bolivar, TN. When we arrived the church had Subway sandwiches and Gatorade waiting for us...so great. There is nothing like riding hard all day and coming in to find food waiting for you. The really awesome youth pastor drove us in a shuttle bus to the Fire Station down the street for showers. I am sad to report that they did not have a fire pole to slide down, but it was really nice of them to offer us warm showers. And while we waited for everyone to finish, we watched part of one of the sequels to "Men in Black" on their flat screen TV which was pretty cool. Also, our church was literally right next door to McDonald's, so milkshakes were just footsteps away (have I told you guys yet that my favorite thing to have after a ride is a milkshake? It's wonderful). The youth pastor also made us a spaghetti dinner.  After we ate we did affordable housing presentations (which Jeremy and I rocked, I might add) and then began a really serious game of 4 square with a playground ball we found in the gym. I'm talking hours of 4 square. I won't get into details about how the King's rules panned out, but it was a pretty hilarious spectacle by the end.
Our ride day into Memphis started out really well, excellent roads and nice cloud cover to save us from the sun...then we hit the city. It was the most stressful, hot, frustrating, unpleasant 10 miles of riding we have done thus far (and this is including climbing the practically vertical Daus Mountain).  Traffic was terrible and people were driving like buffoons, the roads were full of potholes and giant metal plates and it was just terrible.  Luckily Laem, Dave, Stutte and I stuck together and made it through. Once we got here it was all gravy. Dinner wasn't provided, but dinner crew made us some awesome Chili and we still had leftovers from what Daniel's mom made us so it was a very solid meal. We went to an "Urban Salon" with some local authorities on affordable housing here in Memphis and got to hear about the issues here and how they are working with them...it was pretty enlightening. After that it was party time. The people here at the church offered to drive us downtown to Beale Street so we wouldn't have to pay a cab. We had an incredible time. All but about 3 of us came out so we just took over, sang karaoke, danced to live music...top night for sure. Definitely provided some good stories to recap over breakfast, which we had after we SLEPT IN because we didn't have to bike or build for the first time in 27 days. We ate at a local place called "Brother Juniper's College Inn" and it was fantastical. They even gave us a 15% discount after we told them about Bike & Build. The rest of the day was nice and relaxing...we all just sat around and enjoyed one another's company, which we don't get to do very often. I'm on laundry crew this week, so we had to hit the laundromat this afternoon while some others went to the Civil Rights Museum (heard it was really powerful and I'm bummed I missed it). For dinner we all went to Central BBQ and I had some delicious ribs. Also Molly ordered this Peanut Butter Pie which was so good it didn't make sense (she let me steal some bites). If you're ever in Memphis, go get some Peanut Butter Pie (and anything else on the menu) from Central BBQ. Tonight after dinner was fun because we all just hung out talking and laughing about stuff while simultaneously trying to get our act together before tomorrow's 5am wake up and ride across the Mississippi River into Arkansas. Stay tuned for how tomorrow goes, I hear it's a pretty silly set of instructions for how to legally get across the river on your bicycle (can't ride it).
Two states and one-third of the trip mileage down already...get ready Arkansas.