NYC -2- ATL

Today we got going early in the morning so we could be at the nearby Ocracoke Ferry terminal at 7:00 sharp. It turned out, we would have been perfectly fine sleeping in and getting there with minutes to spare, but we wouldn’t have seen the same beautiful morning scene in the marina. The long shadows cast across the boats and docks; the lighthouse standing boldly in the salty morning breeze.

When the ferry loaded up and pulled out of the harbor, I secured the bike and walked around the ship. Standard procedure now, I got a few pictures and saw the different areas there were where passengers could stand or go inside. This ferry to Cedar Island was to be our longest ride yet—almost three hours.

After exploring the options and a nice morning FaceTime with my family back home, I decided to grab the computer and head inside to get a little work done. The ferry’s internal passenger lounge was almost deserted. I kind of assumed that the man sitting in the first booth worked for the ferry system as he had on some sort of uniform, and on several of the other ferry rides, the only people sitting inside were employees.

As I unpacked my laptop and got situated in the next booth, the sun shone in and I decided to move to the opposite side of the table. I got all set up again, and again the sun overpowered my view of the screen. As I hopped up to find another booth, I remarked to the man “The sun just doesn’t want to cooperate today.” The man replied and began what would become what has to be one of most interesting conversations I’ve had during this trip, and maybe of my life.

In a very thick accent, he offered “well… the captain’s about to turn us out of the channel here in just a few seconds and I think he’ll bring her around enough where you’ll be okay.” And in the time it took me to decode the words I was hearing him say, as if on cue, the ferry turned, and the sun no longer shone on the table. When I say my new friend had a thick, country accent, I mean the entire dialect and form of language was probably the most foreign version of native English I have ever heard directly.

I never got his full name. He mentioned his surname at one point, but by then, I had heard so much else and was so fascinated with listening to him speak and answer my questions that I didn’t feel right asking. He asked if we were the ones on the bicycles, and once I told him about our trip, he told me how he is a dredge operator and had been out working on a barge where we arrived onto Ocracoke at the last ferry.

We talked for over an hour straight. He told us all about where we were going, Cedar Island, his home. He told us how his kinfolk had all been in the Pamlico Sound area for generations. We would pass many of them where they lay in the graveyard along our route later. He knew every mile of where we were headed as there’s really only one main road to follow. He knew exact distances to the isolated stores we would pass and told us of the exact kind of spot where we like to grab lunch about 17 miles off the terminal. I told him we’d be hungry by then but we’d need a nice shady picnic table a few miles later, and damned if he didn’t know about one of those too.

I learned a lot about dredging, fishing, life “down east,” the ferry system, and many other topics of conversation, but mostly, I trained my ears to a completely foreign breed of southern drawl. I wish I could’ve gotten a picture with this guy, but when Dad asked if he would mind, he respectfully told us he wasn’t much for photos. We told him we understood and agreed the modern connected world comes with both the good and the bad.

When we departed the ferry, we talked for hours on the road about the things he had said. I think the words that took me the longest and most repetition to understand was when he was telling me about piling clusters. If I could write a word that sounds like how he pronounced this phrase it still would not do justice to how different it sounded than piling clusters. I don’t think I’ll ever see a piling out at sea without thinking of today.

The ride south was beautiful, and the weather was absolutely perfect. We’ve hit the golden temperature now where its just plain blissful all morning, then later it may even be slightly warm when you’re standing still in the sun, but start rolling down the road on the bike and you’re back to perfect. And the tailwinds! We’ve been so lucky to have north northeasterly winds at our backs the entire time we’ve been in the outer banks.

We were in a great mood from my epic conversation in the morning, and we continued on with a handful of other great talks with strangers along the way today. There was Anthony, a nice fella who happened to be standing in front of a small airport we turned off to visit. He told us how Michael J. Smith, the pilot of the ill-fated space shuttle Challenger had grown up nearby, and first learned to fly from the field than now bears his name. He also gave us great recommendations on which town to stay in and where to eat dinner.

From there, we entered into the town of Beaufort (pronounced Bo-fort) along the East Coast Greenway route. It was mostly the same highways we had been on all day, but here the route overlapped and we were both excited to be on the ECG. We stopped and had a quick chat with Joe and his son while they were shooting hoops at the playground. He liked our bikes, and when I told him about our journey, he expressed how inspiring it was to hear of people getting out and doing something like this, just because they can. I wished we had more time to talk, but sometimes, you just get a little glimpse into someone’s life, and that just has to be enough.

We briefly saw the town and it’s waterfront and headed over the final series of bridges towards our destination for the evening, Morehead City. Our new friends had warned us, the first bridge had a nice wide shoulder, but the second, taller bridge did not, and was only a single lane in each direction. When we got to the bridge, we made sure all of our lights were on and got serious and ready for a treacherous stretch of road. As we pulled into traffic and began the climb up the fairly steep bridge, the very first car slowed to a crawl behind us, blocking the lane and letting us cross the entire bridge without anyone squeezing by! As our blocker eventually came past once the lanes opened up, we gave her waves and thumbs up and she honked back and waved. About twenty cars took maybe two extra minutes to get down US-70 to where they were headed this afternoon, and these two guys got to their hotel safely and without wondering if they would be run off of a bridge. Thank you courteous driver!

When the BBQ restaurant Anthony had recommended was closed, we found the chef was there stocking the kitchen and when we told him we had come on such a recommendation, he sent us two blocks down to the chef/owner’s other local restaurant Dank Burrito. Dinner was great, but what happened next was even better. We had biked a mile or so from the motel to this area with restaurants. I saw a Cookout and decided I was definitely getting a milkshake for dessert later. But in the mean time, we decided to randomly ride around through some of the nearby neighborhoods. A few blocks in and we were on the waterfront and rolling through some beautiful homes.

Dad was telling me, as he has a few other times during the trip, “This is the right time. This is when people are out in the evening, walking their dogs or drinking a beer, and you never know who you’ll meet or get to talking to.” Seconds later, we came around the corner to a couple of locals out for an evening stroll with their pup. When they waved hello and mentioned how great the weather was to be biking, I think we both knew we were in for more new friends. We spent the better part of an hour talking with our new friends Nancy and Cole and their corgi, Sir Wigglebottoms. Delightful. Magical. Strangers are truly just friends you’ve yet to meet.

What’s left? I got my milkshake - I chose Peanut Butter Oreo and when the gal said she liked it with just a little Chocolate added in, I tried it her way. She knew her stuff! We cruised back to the hotel and had one last great stranger encounter with our motel neighbor, in from Bathe, NC on a girls trip. I called and said goodnight to my son and talked to my wife. I’ve never been away from either of them for this long before, and that truly is the hardest part of this endeavor. But for today, I found comfort in the rambling conversations I held with five different strangers.