Stop - Hazleton, PA
Today's miles - 739
Total miles - 3,221
At this stage of my life, clearly closer to the end than the beginning, spirituality basically boils down for me to "noticing." What do I see? How do I make sense out of what I see? How do I see God at work - as artist, as surgeon, as friend - in the world around me and in my own life?
So this morning the first thing I noticed was it was an absolutely beautiful cloudless and relatively cool day. It was perfect for riding and it stayed that way all day. I left the hotel at 8:00 AM again and headed north on I-95. I noticed the trees lining the road. You can't help but notice them. It seems like from the moment you enter Mississippi, all you see is a tunnel of a road between trees. It stays like that through Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia...until you get to Richmond. More on that in a bit.
I was amazed at how many trees there are in a densely populated part of the country where people have been developing things for a long long time. That tells me both how God creates such naturally regenerative beauty and that people have been a lot better stewards of creation than they sometimes get credit for. The trees are beautiful and it is fun to watch the varieties change as you move farther north.
I noticed the power of marketing today. There is an outlet store in North Carolina called "J.R.'s" that seems to have bought up most of the billboards along the way. They sell everything under the sun! I think it was at exit 97...well, the signs got me. I needed gas but mostly I needed a gas station but I waited until I got to J.R.'s exit. I got the gas but one glance at J.R.'s was all I needed to know that wasn't going to be using up any of my precious time. More on marketing in a bit too.
Everything about the ride changed for me as I approached Richmond, VA.
It wasn't long before that that I finally reached the last song on my iPod. It took from Houston to just south of Richmond to listen to all 640 songs, in alphabetical order, from "Abracadabra" by the Steve Miller Band to "99 Days in Jail" by George Thorogood. I had already decided that tomorrow was going to be a ride in silence day so I just got a head start on it.
I think all the time when I ride. I never get bored and I have fun jumping from subject to subject. Today I noticed a pretty bad blind spot I have in my personal prejudice world. They say that people from the midwest are provincial and ashamed of it. Well, I am and I am. (By the way, people from the east are provincial and unaware of it. Those from the west coast are provincial but don't really know what that means. And people from the south are provincial, they are well aware of it, and they really don't care what the rest of us think.)
Here's my blind spot. I know next to nothing about the southeastern states and yet I don't think very highly of them. All I think about is the Civil War, slavery, and SEC football (go A&M!) Which got me to thinking a long time about the Civil War and race issues today. Which brings me to Richmond.
Last year I read "A Team of Rivals" which gave me insight into Abraham Lincoln as well as how complicated the war really was. It was never as simple as the good guys versus the bad guys. It was horrific, gut wrenching, and utterly senseless. But it was what it was and the memories of that war are all over the places I road today. As I approached Richmond and Petersburg I kept thinking about what I've read. With no more iPod, I kept noticing the signs by the road - it feels like most of these roads are dedicated to fallen veterans, signs for Civil War battlefields, etc.
Then I left I-95 and took 288 around Richmond. What a shocking surprise. It was like 32 miles of tranquility! Very little traffic, everything moving smoothly, it was so nice after the cat and mouse games of I-95. And then, right after 288 merged with I-64 West, I took the first exit to get gas. Lo and behold, the sign said that there was a Wawa store just 2.7 miles from there.
For those unfamiliar with Wawa stores - they are the East Coast version of what we know of in Texas as Buccee's...except Wawa only has gas and great food. I first found out about them when I spent a week at our seminary in Philadelphia. When I got there they told me that there wasn't going to be food service on campus that week but there was a Wawa across the street. It was great - that and a large endowment is about all that seminary has going for it.
Would I drive 5.4 miles out of my way for a Wawa chicken salad wrap?
From the Wawa store I got to enjoy 90 miles of bliss on I-64. I had a choice. Go far out of my way and spend several extra hours just so I could ride on interesting roads while skipping the urban freeway madness of the DC/Baltimore/points north route? Seriously? Next question, please.
I-64 West was great. Very few exits. Only a couple of towns. And, for one brief moment as it crossed the Blue Ridge Parkway near Skyline Drive, it gave me just a sniff and a quick taste of the gourmet meal of beauty that ride is. I did it several years ago on my Goldwing and it was gorgeous.
From I-64 I took I-81 North to Highway 30 East to Gettysburg. As I said, I had the Civil War on my mind. I wanted to see our seminary there that was founded in 1826. The main building was used as a field hospital during the battle. It served both Union and Confederate wounded. Fitting. Besides, having passed from Virginia to Pennsylvania, I was entering the "Land of the Lutherans."
Once I got on 30 I started looking for Lutheran churches. Didn't see one. But I did see a few billboards for Lutheran Home Health and Hospice Care. Again, that was fitting. More and more I see salvation primarily as healing and that has never been far from the heartbeat of Lutherans.
So I got the the seminary and I finally saw the building. It is now opening as a Civil War museum. This is a big time for them as they anticipate 80,000-100,000 visitors as the 150th anniversary of the battle approaches next month.
It just so happended that the president of the seminary, Dr. Michael Cooper-White, was hosting a bit of a reception on the porch when I rode up. We chatted a bit and he invited me to come and spend a study week there. Sounds great to me.
But I still had miles to go before I sleep so I headed out. Since I am thinking about maybe squeezing in a quick visit to my hometown, it seemed only fair that I take my bike to the place where it was born too. So we stayed on Highway 30 to York, PA, and the Harley factory where Ultra Classics are made. It felt like a pilgrimage.
(To follow up on the power of marketing... I refill my coffee at every gas stop. Sometimes today you find a mind bending array of coffee choices. 99% of the time I choose 100% Columbian because there is still a little voice inside me that says I am supporting Juan Valdez, his donkey, and his family. And I still buy Folger's at home because Mrs. Olson makes the best coffee. So don't even try to tell me that violent video games don't affect young minds.)
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