Waking up on a cool morning in Shenandoah National Park, I knew I’d be back to hitchhiking in an hour and was told that on a Sunday morning in the direction I desired to go it wouldn’t be easy.  I took my time to get to the road and decide what the best thing to write on today’s sign was.  When I finally arrived I could tell it wasn’t going to be easy.  One car came by every two minutes or so and half of them were going to Shenandoah.  I decided today’s sign was going to say “New Market” which was a town maybe 30 miles down the road.  Right as I was about to get out a piece of cardboard, I noticed a car coming so I threw out my thumb.  They stopped.  Seriously?  I didn’t even have a sign out and someone stopped.  In the car was an Indian couple with their two young sons.  They told me they were going to Luray and that they could take me that far. Luray was about half way to New Market, so I gladly accepted.

As we traveled towards Luray they offered me some chips, so I accepted them.  Their one son couldn’t care less about me being there and was reading a book, but the other was quite interested but a little shy.  I asked him his name and he was silent and turned away.  He then threw on some sweet shades and kept looking at me.  His father asked him why he got so quiet since he was talking up a storm before I got in the car.  He stayed quite the rest of the way, but I could tell her was really curious about me.

When we got to Luray the couple continued on, I had misunderstood that they were actually going to Luray Caverns down the road.  It was a bit further so I didn’t mind.  When we arrived the husband asked me if I had ever been to Luray Caverns.  I told him I hadn’t and he offered to buy me a ticket to go in.  I was hesitant to accept because I didn’t want to take advantage of his generosity, but remembered something I had read about the most challenging thing to do is to accept a gift purely because it will make the other person happy.  So I accepted his generosity and got a ticket to see the caverns.

When I went into the caverns I was so happy I had accepted his offer.  They were quite beautiful and I particularly liked the body of water in the caverns that perfectly reflected the top of the cavern.  As I was enjoying the sights a woman came up to me and asked if I had any rope.  I told her I had some parachute cord.  Her prescription glasses had gotten bumped off of her and over a ledge about ten feet down into one of the caverns.  She was hoping I could possibly fish them out.  I told her I’d give it a shot, but wasn’t overly confident I could do it.  I spent maybe fifteen minutes trying to fish them out.  I was able to lasso a side of the glasses, but knew it’d just come off if I pulled.  I mentioned that one of the staff was probably able to get it a lot easier than I could, and eventually a staff members came by and just snuck around a railing and walked down into the cavern and grabbed them.  I didn’t mind my efforts, it was kind of fun and I’m sure entertaining for the spectators (we gathered a bit of a crowd).

The woman thanked me for my efforts and introduced herself as Kris.  She was a really sweet woman and we ended up walking together and talking for awhile.  She even gave me some money and wished me well on my endeavors. I thanked her and eventually we parted ways.

When I was done in the caverns I checked out a few of the other attractions and then headed off to New Market.  This time I knew I’d be needing a sign so I wrote it up and got to a half decent spot along the road.  I was surprised to see yet another Indian couple stop and pick me up within about fifteen minutes of waiting.  I found this a bit peculiar because so far only white people had picked me up.  I don’t really care what ethnicity a person is, but I had read that typically it’ll only be white people that pick up hitchhikers.  I was glad to see this not turning out to be the case.  The couple was able to take me half way to New Market from Luray Caverns, so again I figured that’s further than I was and accepted.

When I arrived there only a minute or two went by and a truck full of people drove by me and they were pointing at me.  I figured it was the typical “oh look, a hitchhiker” response I get a lot of the time, but a few moments later they had turned around and stopped on the side of the road.  They told me they could take me to New Market, but I’d need to sit in the bed of the truck.  I was thinking “heck yeah, that’s cool” and jumped in.  As we started down the road they opened the back window and told me “You just can’t get rid of us today!” I was a little confused and they told me they were the family that I helped with the fallen glasses.  I didn’t even realize!  I had only really spoken with Kris, her brother, and a young man who was part of their family.  In the truck I could only see… everyone else in the family.  So when this was now understood, I thanked them again and said how fortunate I was to have helped out.  They dropped me off in New Market and I wished them well and off they went.  I’m glad I took the time to help out!

I hung out at a gas station in New Market and headed to the local gas station’s dumpster for some cardboard.  I opened it up and saw a bag full of recently trashed hot dogs and various other grab-n-go items.  I was half tempted to eat them, but figured I had money so I didn’t need to do that.  I grabbed some cardboard, went inside and bought myself a delicious hotdog and sat outside for a bit.  I made a sign saying 81S and and hung out in front of the gas station to see if anyone would happen to take interest.  I ended up speaking with a gentleman who had recently hitchhiked from Richmond, where I hoped to end up that night, and said it’s really hard to hitchhike in this area.  A little bummed at this, I decided I needed to get to the on-ramp and maximize my exposure.

I was hardly there a minute before a van stopped with a family visiting from (I think) Brazil for one of the men’s son’s graduation from college.  They were really nice and friendly.  They told me they could take me to Harrisonburg, the next town.  That worked for me and off I went with them.  They were really into what I was doing and asked me all kinds of questions.  The driver told me about how he and a friend rode motorcycles all the way from the southern tip of Argentina to Prudhoe Bay and back once.  I thought that was so awesome.  We talked some more and eventually got to the next town.  They dropped me and one of the men wanted a picture with me before they left.  After they took the picture they were on their way and I was off to the on-ramp again to get to the next town.

I was standing on the second on-ramp to 81S of the day, and hardly before I could be there a few minutes another car stopped.  Inside were two young guys.  The conversation went like this:

Me: “Hi there, I’m trying to get to Staunton right now, are you going that far?”
Them: “Yeah, we’re going through there.”
“Oh, you don’t by chance happen to be going through Richmond as well, are you?”
“Actually, we are!”
“Oh… so where are you headed to?”
“Miami!”
Here I was flabbergasted because I was also going to Miami ultimately.
“Wait, seriously?  That’s where I’m trying to get to! Would you be willing to let me ride with you the whole way there?”
“Absolutely, jump in!”

And off we went.  It turned out these guys left just minutes before from the Harrisonburg, VA, a relatively out of the way town that didn’t seem to have a whole lot going on, and were headed towards Miami.  Just like me.  At exactly the right time.  Stuff like this just makes you wonder.

I really enjoyed the ride with them.  Half the time I was quiet in the back and Xose and Iban, as I learned their names were, spoke in Spanish up front.  I could tell they were really good friends by the way they spoke to one another.  As the ride continued we’d all talk about this and that, and I found it funny how similar they were to my best friends Evan and Ashton.  I mean, it was uncanny.  These two guys were basically the Mexican/Colombian/Honduran versions of them.  Similar appearances and personalities.  We all got along really well and the next 17 hours of driving went by in total comfort.  Iban even got an extra bonus because a friend of mine saw a picture of him on my Facebook, thought he was really cute, and they’ve been talking for a bit and will be meeting up next month.  Just call me cupid. 😉

We eventually got to Miami and I had them drop me off in the Fort Lauderdale area.  We all shook hands and they headed off to their destination in the city.  I spent the next few hours enjoying my accomplishment and relaxed on the beach.  I did it.  It took me seven days, but I made it to Miami from Pennsylvania purely by Traveling on Kindness.