Dinner with the Mayor

Hey Everybody.
Sorry it's been a few days...west Tennessee is a little rough on internet connection, and we've been moving at light speed across this state.  Since I last posted in Winchester, we headed to Pulaski, TN, which we learned is the origin of the KKK.  Apparently they've been trying to make up for that little lapse in judgement ever since, because Pulaski was pretty awesome.  The ride was glorious.  It was our first ride in a while where we stayed on the same road for extended mileage, which usually makes for a boring ride BUT...it was also our first taste of anything remotely close to flat land, which meant we could ride in bigger groups...and the road shoulder was as wide as a regular lane, so we could double up.  This combination meant 30 miles of group a-capella singing of 90s pop songs.  It was the most fun I've had riding yet this trip, and the miles flew by like nothing.  Also, I rode with Kevin and John (the perpetually fastest riders on the trip) the entire day.  It was exhilarating.  We rolled into town first and the van and trailer hadn't arrived yet, so someone called Sanna and she told us to wait at Martin Methodist College for our contact person, Dan Spear.  We were waiting around one of the dorms when a woman walked out and we asked her if she knew where we could find Dan Spear, thinking she might know because she appeared to be a Resident Assistant or something else involved with the college.  She paused for a moment then said, "Umm...Dan Spear is the Mayor of Pulaski..."  We obviously became very confused/excited, and found out shortly after that Mayor Dan Spear has hosted the riders every time Bike & Build has come through Pulaski with a dinner and pool party at his private home.  Bank. 
We stayed the night in a dormitory of Martin Methodist College, which not only meant we all got to relive our freshman year of college for one night, but we got to sleep in real beds on real mattresses and had such glorious showers (especially when you compare them to a week straight of cold showers).  We played music and had a short dance party in the dorm hall, then went to Reeve's Drug Store for milkshakes.  Yes, I realize that sounds strange, we thought so too, but a local suggested it to us so we took our chances.  We walked into the drug store and...it looked like a drug store, so we thought we'd been duped.  Then we walked further to the back and there was a whole fountain shoppe with ice cream, sandwiches, snacks, and 5 cent Cokes.  That's right, 5 cents.  This place was amazing (and really cheap).  I had a delicious mint chocolate chip milkshake and nachos.  The people were so great too, they were all so interested in what we were doing, and this really cute boy in his little league uniform came up and asked if he could write an article for the newspaper about us.  The people at the table next to us offered to buy us all Sun Drop sodas if we'd never had it...it was just a really great, friendly environment.  We walked back to campus to find 3 guys from a local bike shop cleaning bikes for free.  Then a shuttle came to pick us up to take us to the Mayor's house...
Mayor Dan Spear is a great American.  When we arrived he welcomed us to his home and walked us down to his pool, a table full of snacks and a cooler full of beer.  Sitting in that pool in the afternoon sun, having a beer and laughing with my fellow Bike & Builders is absolutely my favorite moment of this trip so far.  They catered some Tennessee BBQ for us for dinner and we all got to introduce ourselves and chat with the Mayor's people at the party, it was a really nice evening.  Suffice it to say, nobody wanted to get on the shuttle back to the dorms.
We were all pretty beat by the time we got back so we just hung out a little while and then treated ourselves to a night's sleep on an actual mattress. 
Best day ever.