Belhaven Hospitality

Yesterday I volunteered to drive the van and this morning, it was raining. What are the odds? Oh well, I'd rather have been riding. We stopped by the gas station in Swan Quarter, and the guy has a sign outside that he paints sayings on, but always spells something wrong. It is an honor to make the sign and we were privileged to have it. The miss-spelling was "Biking For Buildings" (Instead of Bike and Build). I wish I had a sign that I could paint comments / sayings on. I am sure that I could come up with some sarcastic / funny things to post.

I got into town early and hoped to get the laundry started early. I opened up the trailer, and after first finding out that the water cooler was double stacked and spilled out all over, the laundry detergent was all the way in the back under all the bags. I stopped at the church to see if I could start to unload the stuff early, and ran into one of the members of the church. After telling her the situation, she said not to worry, that she was headed to the store and would get laundry detergent. She then flagged down another member of the church who opened up the church. 30 minutes later, she brought me the detergent to do laundry.

The southern hospitality in the town of Belhaven is unbelievable. The church did not have showers, so we went to the houses of members of the church to shower. I was talking with the pastor of the church and ran into him in town 5 minutes later and he insisted on buying me an ice cream cone - which I could not turn down. We were also able to stay at the house next to the church and they gave us apple slices, orange slices, bananas, and other snack food and even let me go upstairs and take a nap - talk about making yourself at home. Dinner was at the park down the street with several members of the church. The food was great. We were supposed to have a bike ride with the kids and I was sent to ask the pastor about it, but got distracted and walked over and had a cupcake. I turn around and several fellow riders are laughing and Angela is taking a picture of me eating the cupcake - all while I had no idea why since I had already forgotten that I was supposed to talk to the pastor and not go get food. They gave us all the leftovers including oatmeal cookies that were spiced with a hint of spiced rum. Just need to make sure not to eat them while biking or driving. On a side note, we saw a stoplight. I have not had phone reception since leaving Nags Head but should get it tomorrow in Greenville, as it is a larger city. Too bad Sprint's nationwide coverage is not nationwide.