4/27: Delaware

This day will go down into my personal Hall of Fame, right up there with the train ride, Florian, Pat, Ciel, and Ken.

After the events of the night before, I awoke at the familiar time of 8:30 in a fittingly calm state of mind with the impressions, conversations, and realizations still resonating loudly in my head.

I was in no rush to do anything. In fact, one could infer that I was just dragging my feet. That was far from the case, I simply felt... synchronized. Doing things in their own time, and it was good! Chris was in the same state, and it took us nearly 4- hours to eat, shower, shave, and re- pack. The weather was again nearly perfect, for me anyhow, with a blazing sun and approaching 90 by the time we left the campground- at around noon.

We set up again on 404, but further out of town than before. We were now completely away from the Food Lion and Shell station, by a stop light. We figured that if we had no luck here, we'd try to swoon some unsuspecting Lewes- bound traveler at Food Lion but, after finally getting our thumbs in the air to go along with our sign, the idea quickly became moot.

We had only been there for 30- 45 minutes when a Prius pulled over and offered to take us as far as Laurel, Delaware. He assured us that Laurel's route 13 would take us straight to Lewes, and that Laurel was about half way there. That was good enough for us, and we were finally leaving the hospitality of Denton, and Maryland, behind us.

Brian looked to be in his mid- 20's, and was the perfect person to be our first ride. He is a biology grad who had recently returned from Osaka, Japan where he had taught English. Portland and Nicaragua were also on his list of possibilities. We got a kick out of that, especially considering our Latin America aspirations. He was very, very interesting to chat with, and we both felt that we would have enjoyed getting to know him more, if only we had longer than 30 or 40 minutes. He got our cards, and he's one I genuinely hope makes it to the website.

Brian dropped us at a busy intersection in Laurel, right at route 9, and hurried off to his dental appointment. Chris and I crossed the highway, bypassing the gas station, finding a sign that said "No Stopping or Standing". We found this appropriate... since we'd be sitting.

We never got to even sit down; Ben and John are now officially the quickest ride I have ever gotten. They had seen us walking, and turned around to catch us offering to take us to Georgetown, about half of the remaining 28 miles to Lewes. These two seemed to be a couple of guys that I would love to guzzle beer with. Ben was a direct, borderline abrasive, guy that told you precisely what he thought whether you liked it or not. I liked his authenticity immediately, and felt right at home. John was a big guy who reminded me of my nephew. He struck me as a person who liked the notion that he has a rough exterior, but once you got to know him, you would realize that there was much more to him. I enjoyed this ride immensely, and when Ben said he would have taken us all the way to the Lewes Ferry if he had more gas, I was more than happy to offer him $5 to finish this leg of the trip. He accepted, and before long we were all the way thru Delaware and sitting in front of the Lewes- Cape May Ferry terminal. I snapped their picture, and we were off to get our $10 tickets.

We had gotten thru Delaware in less than 2- hours, and I had not gotten to get to know it nearly as well as eastern Maryland. I did see enough to realize that it is a pretty, albeit flat, state with a very "Oregon" vibe. I had not seen much, but liked what I did!