Riding through Bremen, Georgia, en route to Atlanta, we stopped to check out a local icon, Callie’s Alley. Callie’s Alley is a restaurant that initially opened to give students at a local special education facility a combination of life skills and work experience. Prices on all dishes in the restaurant are in multiples of $1.00 to enable the teenagers to serve as cashiers without worrying about small change. To this end, tax is already incorporated into the prices on the menu.
The workers at Callie’s alley were extremely friendly and even gave us t-shirts with their store logo on it! As we geared up to continue on to our next stop, Callie handed us each a heart she had cut out of construction paper. Now, we may have started to think of ourselves as big strong guys toughing it out cross-county on our bikes, but when she handed us those hand-cut hearts there was no doubt that deep down we’re all softies.
Experiencing Callie’s Alley rejuvenated us and encouraged us to continue biking to raise money so the Friendship Circle can run similar programs. Perhaps one day there will be a kosher version of the Alley.
Our next big stop was Birmingham where we jumped right into a game of “Gaga ball” with the Camp Gan Israel Children and were treated to homemade pizza for lunch. We spent a wonderful Shabbat in Alabama and left on a high note.
Unfortunately our moods began to fizzle when the next couple of days brought one bump after another. We cycled ten miles out of our way trying to find or hotel, hit a major storm, extreme humidity and exhaustion. We stopped to regroup and noshed on energy bars, and high protein and carb snacks to boost our energy. After four flat tires, a tangled chain and a collection of other bike-related mishaps, we arrived in Natchez, Mississippi where we had quite an experience which dramatically altered our sour moods…
(...to be continued)
