Back on the Hill!

It's a Yackety Yack from 1910 (from the museum)!

Hey Everyone!
So, I'm back at Chapel Hill now sitting in Davis library writing up a journal with some of my friends, but I'll try to catch you up on everything that has happened since I last updated about Belhaven. We got up to leave Belhaven around 6, and Trinity United Methodist made us an absolutely amazing breakfast of pancakes, sausage, grits, yogurt, fresh fruit, breakfast cereals, and really anything you could want. After we stuffed our faces, pastor Sam reminded us of keeping a firm foundation for our "house" of life and presented Bike & Build with a check for $410.00 collected from the community! Once again, I can't tell you how awesome Belhaven is.

After about 35 miles of riding, we stopped in Washington to eat lunch by the river and just relax. After that, we set off at a brisk pace for Greenville, home of ECU. I got pretty exhausted near the end, but managed to make it. We stayed at a spare house owned by the leader of Habitat in Greeneville with this guy named Chris who was a children's pastor in the area. Two families and Texas Steakhouse donated food for dinner, and once again our coolers were overflowing with deliciousness. The day was spent just kind of relaxing, reveling in phone signal, and heading to town to pick up a few essentials.

We left Greenville around 9 yesterday morning and set out on our 80-mile ride to Wake Forest. My friend Cole and I decided it would be a great idea to add 5 miles to the start of our trek by missing a turn, but after that it was pretty smooth sailing. This ride was by far the hardest we had encountered up to this point in our trip. In addition to the strains of riding about 15 miles more than we had ever ridden before, we had been riding for 3 straight days prior to this ride, and we encountered hills for the first time, which make riding a great deal more difficult. We pulled into North Wake Church around 3:45, completely exhausted. Fortunately, we met with a ton of Southeastern students and church staff who gave us Gatorade, energy bars, and massages. I also found out that the pastor of the church, Rob Craig, went to high school with my mom and uncle and had been to my grandmom's house before. What a small world! We hung out with all of those people until after dinner, when we headed to the local go-kart track because we hadn't had enough wheels for one day. After some intense racing, we stopped by goodberry's for a few concretes before heading to bed for the night.

This morning, we headed out from North Wake, once again extremely grateful for all that had been provided for us, and rode towards Durham. After riding through town, we cut down towards Chapel Hill. The ride was difficult, even though it was only 38 miles, because everyone was pretty tired from days of riding for the first time. Fortunately, the ride wasn't too difficult, except when I rode behind Ben for the first ten miles, so I made it here without too many problems. I was so excited to be back at Chapel Hill that I was going to do whatever it took to get here. We walked down to shower in Fetzer Gym, stopping to take photos at the old well and get strange looks from everyone in Student Stores as we walked through in our spandex. This afternoon we have been resting up and trying to relax since we're here building for the next two days before our 80ish mile ride to Winston-Salem and then riding up to the mountains! I hope everyone is doing well and having a great summer!

Greetings from Belhaven, NC!

Note: this is actually a blog from yesterday, but I wanted to go ahead and post it since I wrote it.
Greetings from Belhaven, NC!
We woke up at 7 am to head out from Swanquarter and after a little time spent eating breakfast and cleaning up Soule United Methodist Church, we headed out into the rain for our 35-mile ride. We stopped by a local gas in Swanquarter station to check out a sign that had been painted for us, which was a big deal because only people who are “somebody” get on his sign. After about an hour or so of rain, the weather cleared up and the ride was great. After a few photos with the red and white sign that read “bikers for building,” we headed out to finish our ride. We did hit one hill today – well, actually it was a bridge – but other than that, the ride was nice and flat.
The first groups arrived at First Christian Church in Belhaven around 12 o’clock and immediately were greeted with incredible hospitality. Everyone in the town was so happy to see us, and they even took us to shower in their homes. Some of the riders were even treated to a nice, relaxing hot tub, while others drank tea from fine china in their riding clothes while waiting for their turn to shower. Of course, there were plenty of barbecue sandwiches, apples, Oreos, and chips readily available for our consumption. Several of the riders also checked out FlyBoys, a burger joint in town that served specialty sandwiches and milkshakes, including the steak burger and the pizza burger. Others chose to check out the town museum, which was less of a museum and more of a collection of things from an old lady’s attic, including 6,000 buttons, fleas dressed as bride and groom, and even a tumor in a jar. Needless to say, it was definitely worth the trip. We also had the chance to chat with locals in the town during the afternoon, including the owners of a Tropical Macaw named Albert Einstein, whose favorite word seemed to be “Aflac.”
For dinner, the town was kind enough to throw us an amazing outdoor feast, organized by the pastors of First Christian Church and Trinity United Methodist, Pastor Steve and Pastor Sam, and members of their congregation. The food was absolutely amazing and included such local delicacies as fried chicken, pineapple-cheese casserole, broccoli casserole, and other amazing southern delights. The dessert table was just as promising, filled with brownies, ice cream, cookies, cherry cupcakes, and essentially everything we could want. The town also collected donations for Bike & Build at the dinner. One lady at the dinner made us a beautiful quilt of green and white to furnish a home or use to collect donations for Bike & Build. After dinner, we had the chance to talk to all of the town’s residents, who were all amazing and an absolute joy to talk to. They even gave away some bicycles and other prizes for the kids of Belhaven. After dinner, they made a bonfire for us, where we chatted for a bit before we headed back to clean all of the muck off of our bikes and head to bed. We had no idea what we did to deserve such kindness, but we were sure that we didn’t want to leave. Maybe we can just ride in a circle tomorrow…