Memphis, Bike & Build style

So we just finished with our day off and I have to say that Memphis has become one of my new favorite towns. Beale St on a Saturday nights feels like Madri Gras. We had a relatively short ride in to the Methodist church we stayed at in Germantown, an eastern suburb of Memphis. After arriving, we played some basketball in the gym, showered up, and too a nap in preparation for a long night out. About 20 of us shuttled downtown in cabs which was kind of a hassle, but it got us there. A few of us tried out the local hot spot for BBQ, Rendezvous. I'm confident in saying I had the best ribs, BBQ sandwich, and baked beans that I've ever had; the hype definitely was not misleading.

After a filling dinner we started walking towards Beale St, but took a pit stop at a mall to get cash from an ATM, and it turned into an ice cream stop as well. Beale street was crazy. There were almost as many neon lights as the strip on Las Vegas, and the whole street was closed off to cars. Each bar had a stand outside so you could just buy a beer and walk down the street. There were some street performers doing acrobatics in the street, they were amazing. They did gymnastics style back flips down the street and finished with some serious air, they were above everyone's heads on the street for most of them. I tried to attach a video to the blog, hopefully it works.

We ran into the rest of the group who didn't go to Rendezvous shortly after getting there which was nice. We made our rounds between the bars and ended up all together at one small bar that we pretty much took over with our own dance party.

We got a late start the next day, and some of us made a trip to the "Exotic Italian Sports Car Show", which was a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity. It was cool to see some of the cars, and it was nice to meet the people with Habitat that I had been talking to. They have applied for a grant from us so it was nice to put some faces to the application, and they helped us get dinner from the Macaroni Grill that night so it was also nice to thank them in person.

Our ride out of Memphis was an interesting one. There are two bridges that cross the Mississippi there, and they're both interstates. There was a walkway on the I-55 bridge, but we still had to jump on the shoulder for about 3/4 of a mile after crossing over to get to where we needed to go. No one likes getting onto the interstate on a bike, but the only other option would have added about 40 miles to the day. After crossing into Arkansas, we ditched the hills of Tennessee behind for some flat ground, but we had our first day with a consistently strong headwind. It was kind of demoralizing for everyone, but we rode in groups more so than we had in the mountains which helps get through the wind.

We arrived in Brinkley, AR to a warm welcome from the 1st United Methodist Church. They fed us a great dinner and were really excited to meet us. They're giving us a full breakfast tomorrow too which will be nice. Our next stop is Little Rock and we have 2 build days there which should be fun.