Great list Machka!! Just reading through there reminds me of all the wonderful people we met on our trip. It's fun to think back about all those people...
Take, for example, the couple in New Jersey who rescued us from the pouring rain. We took off like a herd of stampeding buffalo to reach the ferry after discovering the last ferry of the day left in 30 minutes from a pier five miles away. While stopped at a stop light, a black car pulled up alongside me, its window rolled down, and a face emerged. “Where are you headed?” the woman asked.
“We’re trying to make the ferry! And it leaves in 30 minutes!” I replied as I took off through the red light.
Pedaling like mad through the torrential downpour, I crested the top of the second hill and readied myself for the final push to the ferry. The same black car pulled up beside me. “You aren’t going to make it,” she announced. “The ferry leaves in two minutes. There is no way.”
My face fell and my shoulders sagged. I looked around at my dismal surroundings. Rain fell from the sky… puddles filled the road… we were soaked to the core, along with all our gear. This was about as bad as it gets. “Do you know where a hotel is?” I asked.
“The nearest hotel is about ten miles away. And it costs around $250 per night.”
Life just doesn’t get any lower than that. We were stuck out in the pouring rain with our precious children in the middle of a massive urban sprawl. No place to pitch our tent… no hotels… nothing but rain and more rain. What kind of parent was I to subject my darling boys to conditions like this?
“Would you like to stay with us tonight?” she asked. “We live just a couple miles from here.”
Once again, America’s Road Angels had reached out and added magic to our journey.