Solo Trip 2024

This week I took a solo trip in the middle of the growing season, something I had been wanting to do for a long time.  Traveling in the fall and winter like we usually do is ok, but not the same as seeing other parts of the country in full glorious bloom!  This year we have the right team assembled to cover me, that is not always the case.  And every year there is this brief window in the growing season, right around the summer solstice, when most of the spring crops are harvested and the summer crops are rooted in and growing on, but the heavy summer harvests have yet to start.  So, I vacated our lovely slice of heaven in Morrow and went to the mountains and the ocean.

Let me say here that traveling with my lovely wife Megan is a joy, we travel very well together.  We both get to do what we want to do on most vacations.  Also, traveling with buddies on fishing or camping trips is another great joy of mine.  But I was especially looking forward to spending time with me.  I like me, always have.  I don't have any problems spending many days in a row completely alone with not much of an agenda.  The days always seem to fill themselves!  Also, I get to be the DJ in the van the entire time, listening to whatever I want to, as loud as I want, singing as loud as I want!

My recently purchased Nissan NV200 van was fully packed with all the necessary items.  I knew the van would suit me well for the business and as a camper van.  One of my friends lent me his foam mattress which was super clutch.  I also was able to bring my newly purchased E bike which folds up.  I brought food for breakfast and lunch and a few other essentials.  Departure was a little later than expected on Sunday, which was Father's Day, and we were slammed at the cafe.  I pulled into Greenbrier State Park near the town of White Sulfur Springs in WV around 10 PM and attempted to setup my tent without waking the other campers.

Greenbrier is a nice, small state park and you can see most of it in a couple of days.  On Monday I woke up early and decided to climb a mountain and do a loop on a logging trail and back down the mountain towards the entrance of the park.  The hike took me about 4 hours, and I was whooped!  Farming shape is much different than climbing a mountain shape.  Here are some pictures from the hike.

In the afternoon I found a nice picnic area with some big old growth trees in a grove and meadow, I threw down a blanket and read and napped for a few hours.  The reading for the week was a book by Wendell Berry called Bringing It To The Table: On Farming and Food.  Wendell Berry is a farmer and philosopher from KY and his words were cleansing for me to read this week, as they always are.  Mr. Berry mourns the loss of family farms and that way of life in his books and gives in painstaking detail the reasons for their demise.  Here is one particularly powerful passage from the book.

Later that first evening I had my second adventure of the day.  I showered and took the bike into town and visited the Greenbrier Hotel.  I had been there once before for a wedding but wanted to go back for a second look.  The ride was about 6 miles into town and the last part was a big hill.  On pedal assist level 3 out of 5 and manually pedaling I was able to maintain around 20 MPH and used about half the battery for the round trip.  The Greenbrier is stunningly gorgeous and gives a glimpse into olden times.  There is a full golf course, casino and a bunker, also a rich history.  I had dinner at the bar at one of the casual restaurants, I ordered the asparagus with bacon, hard boiled eggs and garlic aioli with squeeze of fresh lemon, vegan meatballs and side salad (it wasn't as good as ours) ha-ha!

After a full night of sleep and a recharge on the E bike battery, I got up early in the morning and did a quick flat hike by the campsite then packed up the van and made my way to the ocean.  Specifically, I spent the rest of the week at First Landing state park just north of VA Beach.  The next three days were all glorious and basically the same.  I would wake up early and take a walk on the beach, cool off with a swim, then back to the campsite for breakfast and about an hour reading session.  Then back to the beach for reading, swimming, walking on the beach until around 2:00.  Then back to campsite for a fruit and veggie lunch and a nap.  Wake up for another hour or 2 at the beach doing all the same stuff, back to the campsite for a shower then e bike into town for a seafood feast, back to the campsite beach for glorious sunsets.  This is how I would live every day on the beach if it were up to me!

Needless to say, I was in the deepest levels of peace that one could possibly hope to achieve.  By the final sunset my heart was full, and I was in praise and gratitude mode, thankful for all of the blessings in my life.  Then the first hiccup of the trip, and ultimately the biggest lesson.

But first, I must talk about Lucas.  Lucas is a young boy of about 7 who spent the entire day on my final day of the beach looking for hermit crabs.  I had chosen my spot on the beach way far at the end, amusingly far away from other humans, in hope for maximum peace and quiet.  Lucas, however, was intent on finding every hermit crab at my end of the beach and each time crying out with glee when he captured one.  After about 20 minutes of that I told Lucas that I had seen about a thousand hermit crabs earlier in the day at the other end of the beach and he should go try to find them.  Welp, my trick worked, and Lucas scurried off to the other end of the beach.

Fast forward to the end of the evening, I had just witnessed a glorious sunset with dolphins splashing about in the water, seagulls and pelicans dive bombing for fish, hermit crabs in territorial disputes witnessed with my binoculars, and finally the full moon rising.  All was good in the world.  So, I packed up my belongings and headed back to my bike, which was locked to a post on the boardwalk under a light.  As I was leaving the beach I thought I would grab the keys to the bike before I walked the boardwalk, so I started looking for them in my bag.  Let's just say they were not in my bag.  It was now dark, and I did not have my headlamp, and my phone was on 1% from taking so many pictures.  I frantically ran back to where I thought I had setup my chair and went to turn on my phone flashlight, but it died immediately.  The keys were to the bike and to the lock for the bike, and the other set was in Morrow.  Oh yeah, big time panic started to settle in.

On my walk back to the bike I saw young Lucas and his father who were still looking for hermit crabs via headlamps.  They asked me what was wrong, and I told them my plight.  The father said they would look for them and hold onto them if they found them.  I thanked them and told them I would be back in 20 after I retrieved my headlamps at the campsite.

All of the scenarios were running through my head.  I had a small saw that I had brought on the trip that could cut through the post on the state-owned boardwalk if worst came to worst.  Also, all of the prayers were said to Jesus, Father God, Holy Spirit and St. Anthony (Tony Tony turn around, something's lost and can't be found, St. Anthony please help me find my ... keys).

Alas, as I was walking back to the site where I thought I was sitting all day, young Lucas saw me and said he had found my keys!  There was an immediate and huge sense of relief, and I asked him what his name was, he told me Lucas, and I asked him if it was ok that I hugged him, and he obliged.  I then stood up and gave an audible Halleluiah and told Lucas he saved my trip from a major disaster.  His father said they called him Eagle Eyes for his uncanny ability to see all sorts of things.

Needless to say, that was a very humbling lesson for me.  The same boy who I was annoyed with earlier in the day had saved my trip.  Thank God he was there on that beach with his eagle eyes.  I thought those yips and shouts earlier in the day were ruining my peace and quiet, but I could have also just enjoyed watching a young boy have innocent fun on the beach and put the book aside for a moment.  The goosebumps were on my arm as I walked back to my bike with the keys.  I thanked the full trinity for the answered prayers as well as St. Anthony, but also for the lesson on patience I received from a 7-year-old.

Thank you for reading about my solo trip, I highly encourage all of you to do the same!