Meet Fred.  He asked about the trike just as we were about to roll.  In turn, Jeffrey asked about Fred’s line of work, thinking that he’d found a foreign-born agricultural or construction worker.  Wrong!  Like our client K, Fred fled persecution in his own country, was denied asylum in ours, and found status here through other means.  Fred is an engineer for NASA.  Like Fred, K works in a defense-related industry.  Our country foolishly tried to keep both men out, then decided (correctly) that we need them.

Pocomoke City looks like a typical old American small town.

We sped over quiet roads in the last few miles of Maryland.

Soon we crossed into Virginia. Chicken farms are prominent there, as they were in peninsular Delaware and Maryland. To get an idea of the scale of a chicken barn, look at the view through one left open. The white dot in the doorway is light coming in from the same size open door at the other end!

We enjoyed an outdoor rail museum in Parksley.

In Exmore, we saw this Easter-eve display, complete with a live (and very patient) Roman solider. And free spikes! Jeffrey was urged to take one.

Pastor Debra (shown here with one of her young congregants) said she’ll pray for the success of our Ride. She told us that although we hadn’t seen many locals whom I could identify as foreign-born, the area soon will have many foreign-born migrant workers who come to plant crops. The pastor said some American-born locals welcome these workers, who are largely Mexican, Guatemalan and Haitian. But others, she said, either want the workers to do their jobs and leave without using local services, or they want them not to come at all, even though the migrants’ labor and purchasing power are vital to the local economy. She is very sympathetic to the workers; her own ancestors were Mexicans who became American only because Texas was admitted to the Union.

Yesterday, turkey vultures flapped away before we could snap their pic. Today, near Franktown, we got lucky. These turkey vultures were dining on a dead deer. One bird seemed playful, climbing the deer twice and sliding down to the other side. We saw hawks today, too. Maybe the hawks gather above fields to feast on the rodents and birds that are attracted by the seed corn newly planted in the ground and scattered along the road.

Mac, Chris and William think the trike is really cool and were taken with the idea of riding to Florida. Mike is a supervisor at a chicken plant; he says the plants are what drive the local economy.

We reached the end of the DelMarVa Peninsula. Tom, who works for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge & Tunnel Authority, drew the short straw and had to drive us and the trike across the 19-mile no-bike bridges and tunnels. (We don’t count this mileage, nor the distances we cover by ferry, in our totals. The miles we claim are the miles we pedal.)

From there, we had another 18 miles to ride through Los Angeles style traffic in sprawling Virginia Beach, to our hosts for the night, Jeffrey’s high school friend Douglas and Doug’s spouse Nancy.