My friends like to take advantage of my "have to say yes to any invitations" rule while I am on these trips and yesterday was my friend Mark Shaver's turn. Mark says "Ralph, you are going right through Roanoke VA, do you want to go by the Shaver family burial plot?". My answer? "Why yes, Mark, I sure do!" And so I did. The directions were all a mess but he also gave me the geo coordinates (Lat and Long) and my GPS knew exactly where to go. But something was amiss - the location was directly besides the Blue Ridge Parkway, I mean like immediately beside it. So thinking it was wrong I decided to just go there and see if I can figure it out once I get there. And blow me down - as I approached the location the woods stopped, a wide meadow unfolded and there was the Shaver family plot. As I was examining the plot a blue pick-up truck comes rambling by and I yell at the driver "Are you a Shaver?" And he yells back "Sure am". I f'in freak out, call Mark, ask the man in the truck if he'd talk to my friend who is another Shaver and the two of them talk for 29 minutes. It turns these two complete strangers share the same great, great grandfather. Ladies and gentlemen, Jerry Shaver:
I talked to him for awhile after he and Mark hung up and he is a wonderful, generous and kind man. He is also 84 and the last Shaver in the area. Mark, you need to get up there and meet this wonderful relative of yours. It was a wonderful gift to have met him and to have enjoyed how generous he was with his time and openness (to say nothing about a having a stranger like me crawling all over his family plot.
As I get back on my bike my mind goes to how special this whole trip has been. And how fortunate I have been to experience so much time alone - time which felt like purgatory after the party that was time with high school friends, Amalia and her friends, Mike, Beth, and Sam / Kristy and the biker entourage. These last two weeks alone have been so good for me - the black to the white, the ying to the yang, the me to the us. I had pulled over at an overlook and was just thinking when a crazy guy on one of those reclining bicycles pulls up next to my bike and gets off with a smile the size of Virginia on his face. He meanders about for a while and eventually we talk. "Norm" is from Marietta (a suburb of Atlanta) and is in the midst of riding his crazy bike from Washington DC to Atlanta. He is about 2/3 complete.
His optimism and excitement are contagious and the next thing you know we are talking about the benefits of taking long trips like these alone. We share stories of similar crazy thoughts and how freeing this time is. It was such a good conversation for me as I bear the end of my journey. Thank you Norm!!! You gave me the gift of appreciation and gratitude for what's been given to me. I really do hope you contact me so we can have a beer back in Atlanta.
And now I stopped in Little Switzerland NC and grab a room at what seemed to be a bit run down hotel. And then I stepped out the back lobby:
Oh how I love these trips.
Ralph - what an amazing day and trip. Glad I was along for the ride on this blog. Looking forward though to seeing you.
ReplyDelete