Thursday, September 5, 2013

To Lancaster

We left Amanda at daybreak. The drone of the highway in the distance, I decided to take the Hamburg Road. The GPS showed it was one tenth of a mile shorter distance to Lancaster. As I approached the turn off I saw very few cars using it. A more relaxed day was what I was hoping for. What I found was a little more exciting. The road was full of twisting turns around hillsides and steep ditches or guardrails on both sides. The dew was heavy in the grass which made the world heavy and slippery. The scenery was a good trade-off for the extra effort. Old barns and rolling hills dotted with a farms in the distance is not a view you get from the broad-cut highway.
The traffic on the old pike remained steady all morning. Apparently the 45mph speed limit is merely a suggestion. Heavy trucks hauling rock, I later was told, use the road as a short-cut to avoid the Main Street of Lancaster. Adding to it, a local radio station was reporting of World guy sightings, some went out of their way to drive the road so they could get a glimpse. That just gave me more time to patiently wait, take in the sights while holding the weight of the world on my shoulder and stand in a ditch.
A man who had stopped to bring us water six years before found us as we stopped to rest two miles from Lancaster. He offered to ride me back to the van when we made it to the edge of town.
He was a WW-2 veteran who has been working to get all the states in the nation to approve flying The Veterans Remembered Flag to honor all American Vets. He said he didn't have many years left. This was his way to leave something good behind.
After we had gotten to Lancaster, leapfrogged the van to the end of the pike, we made our way to the east side of town where the man then helped with another ride to the spot where we stopped for the night.
The day was relaxing in that few people stopped on the narrow Hamburg Pike. The reunion with the man who I had met six years ago seemed to be, again, worth the effort.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Would love to see you in New Lexington, OH. After reading your stories it would be an honor to meet you and Nice and hear your story ♡