4/27- The Bounty of Rest

We awoke to another lackadaisical morning. Lazy just doesn't seem like the right word so I say lackadaisical despite really having no idea if I'm spelling it right or not. Alas, spell checker, I now see your curse with your absence. Anyway, lazy doesn't seem right because to me it implies a sluggishness, or sense of feeling no worth to the moment, leading to a degenerative complacence about anything that happens. This couldn't be further from our feeling that we've been riding since the end of that conversation over breakfast Saturday morning. We have been feeling so in tuned and at ease with trusting the moment's pace, that it removed any feeling of need beyond whatever pace felt right. That morning the pace was a quiet meander of taking showers, repacking, laying on the picnic bench staring up at the clear blue sky. That pace dropped us next to 404 again by 12:30 despite being up four hours by then.

We started to assume the same positions we'd had the day before by the guardrail. Old Blue was the sign bearer as we leaned against the rail ten feet away giving the overt, but subtle, impression that we would please like a ride. I think that lasted five, maybe ten minutes before Todd remembered his lessons in hitching last year. He moved us up to the roads edge with Ole Blue and hung our thumbs out at every passing car. By one, we had met Brian.

Brian picked us up after having just returned a week earlier from two years living in and traveling around Asia, mostly teaching English in Osaka, Japan. He drove us a good half hour into Delaware as we talked about our travels and his up coming plans to possibly go to Portland, Oregon and maybe a month or two down in Nicaragua. It struck me as intriguing that these places have all been mentioned quite a few times specifically in the past week or two. I like wondering if there is reason behind these strange coincidences.

Dropping us off at the cross roads of 9 and 13 in the town of Laurel, we parted ways giving him one each of our cards for the site. We crossed the intersection to a Shell station and dropped our packs below a Speed Limit sign, with the addition of a No Stopping, Standing, or Parking sign beneath it, which I thought was funny since we'd be sitting. However, we didn't make it to sitting down because another car pulled right up offering us a ride 12 miles closer to the ferry, putting us 16 away. We piled in and off we went.

Ben was driving and John rode shotgun as we barreled down the road. We told tales of our travels as they pointed out hometown landmarks, like the blue wood fencing covering a Rite Aid's windows due to Ben accidentally throwing one of his friends through them when they were 13. Good people, I liked these guys as well.

That particular landmark was beyond their offer of Georgetown because in talking with them Ben said he would take us all the way there had he the gas to do it. The two were just tooling around that day since Ben was off work for a bit due to a nasty tangle with a chainsaw. Todd suggested floating them a five for the gas plus and soon enough they dropped us hale and hearty at the door step of the Cape May- Lewes Ferry. Relax, let life lead and teach you what it deems necessary, and the bounty will come.

Purchasing our tickets from the lovely Audrey, she told us stories of her travels down into Mexico and Belize with her husband via RV, and on up to Alaska then back to Delaware to see the kids again. We then dropped ourselves on the deck outside and soaked in our achievement of getting to the crossing. I finally phoned my Mom as well to catch up with what was going on with her. It seemed like good timing since she was feeling a little down about things.

The ferry ride was gorgeous. Like true tourists we snapped pictures of the same water most of the way over, and stared off into it the rest of the time. What was foremost in my mind as we floated over was my genealogy studies of my Swedish and Finnish side. That line dates back to arriving in America back in the 1630s with the Swedish bid to establish colonies in the New World. They sailed right up the Delaware where I was now crossing about 380 years ago, many of them aboard that first boat, the Kalmar Nyckel.

Once we docked and disembarked, we threw our packs back on and strutted about half a mile around the corner to the beach. We had dinner to the sunset then dropped our bivys up in the dunes with a clear view of the huge night sky and the ocean before us. Neither of us could resist the urge to make calls to tell everyone.

The first person I had to call was my Dad, I just knew he'd love it. I don't know that I've talked much about what's going on with him these days, but his health was recently dealt a pretty bad blow. He suffered his third stroke in December and was literally knocked off his feet from it. He is also a devout and dedicated Christian Scientist, as I was raised but have since lost touch with, but for those of you who know nothing about the religion its widely known for trusting in God to heal you rather than doctors. He has stayed to impressively true to this faith and has also seen a relatively speedy recovery from being fully paralyzed and unable to speak the first few days after the stroke, to now being able to move about, go up and down stairs steadily, and communicate thoughtfully, albeit with a bit of a struggle often times. Its obviously intensely hard for me to watch my adventuresome Dad fall into this very definitive phase of old age and waning health, but it also intensifies my need to reconnect and strengthen our old bonds. Anyway, I mention all of this because I believe quite strongly that will has much to do with good health, and that happiness has everything to do with will. I know he too feels a strange distance with my sister and I and that every bit closer we come back to each other brings him more inward happiness.

I talked to him that night for maybe five or ten minutes, which I think is all his physical energy can handle these days. As I told him that I had just crossed the Delaware, was sleeping under the stars in front of the ocean, and I think even just the excitement in my voice his speech became suddenly much clearer, much more comprehensive and articulate. For a moment he seemed to me healed of this stroke from just talking to his son about camping. Take those impressions for what you will, but I see that conversation and feeling as very much a part of what this journey on a whole is about.

Afterward I had another really good talk with my friend Ang in Denver. She had quite a few revelations of her own to add to mine from this month. I then laid back on my pack and chatted all of this up with Todd until about 2am.

Click here for Todd's perspective.