Day 2: A Quick Story From a Few Days Back

A good (true) story for a Friday afternoon -

On Wednesday night after dropping Diane and Zimi at the Salt Lake City Utah airport, Coby and I then drove toward Breckenridge CO, where we would be starting our bike adventure - hopefully making it to Yellowstone National Park and then to Mount Rushmore.

After driving for about five hours we decided to sleep in Rawlins Wyoming for the night - a decent size town that is 200 miles away from civilization in almost any direction.

We pulled into Rawlins at about 10:30pm, and headed straight to the 24 hour Walmart to pick up some necessities for our ride. Suntan lotion, Gatorade Powder - to mix into our water bottles, bug spray, and energy bars. When we walked into the Walmart we headed straight to the back corner of the very large store - the beverage section, to look for the powdered Gatorade, but we couldn’t find any there. We then headed to the sporting goods section where we had found the individual servings of powdered Gatorade in the past, but we didn’t find any there either. We decided to give up on our search and headed to the front of the store where we picked up some bug spray, suntan lotion and a nice selection of power bars. We were about to head to the checkout counter close by, but discussed going back to look for the elusive powdered Gatorade. Even though it was 11pm and we were tired and needed to get some sleep we decided to go back to the beverage section to look again - after all, we were going to need the extra calories and the electrolytes on what would surely be some pretty tough days. In hindsight we had no idea what we were about to encounter, or why we were going back there.

After arriving at the beverage section (again) we started to peer at every shelf. We found powdered iced tea, powdered Hawaiian Punch, but no sign of the powdered Gatorade. As we were looking around we saw a young hispanic looking woman stocking the shelves nearby with soda and juices. She was staring at us and specifically at Coby’s head. She seemed shy, but she worked up the courage to ask Coby -

“Where did you get that hat on your head”

My stomach tightened up as I wasn’t sure where this was going. Coby was wearing a Kippah/Yalmulka, which embarrassingly I have suggested he not wear in places where nobody had ever seen Jews before. But Coby, to his great credit feels like it’s a sign of peoplehood and he can spread goodwill for his people by doing good things while wearing a Kippah.

Coby answered -

“it’s called a Yalmulka and you can get them on the internet”.

We thought that would be the end of the story, but as the three of us stood there in an awkward moment of silence the woman blurted out six words, that were the last six words I thought I would ever hear at 11pm in the beverage section of a Walmart in Rawlins Wyoming -

“Shema Yisrael Adonay Eloheinu Adonay Echad” (loosely translated - Hear O Israel the Lord is God the Lord is One)

Wow - something was going on here, and as Coby and I looked at each other not knowing whether to laugh or to cry, this young stocking clerk who works the night shift at Walmart, hundreds of miles from the closest Jew, then blurted out the “second to last” six words that I would have ever expected to hear at 11pm at a Walmart in Rawlins Wyoming -

“Baruch Shem Kvod Malchuto LeOlam Vaed" (Loosely translated - Blessed be the name of the Lord forever and ever)

Okay, so at that point I was ready to cry.

Neredya told Coby that he was the first Jew she ever met, and you could tell she was quite excited about it, and it was as meaningful to her, as this encounter was to us. She told us that she was trying to learn hebrew over the internet but that it was not easy. She also told us that she asked Walmart to not schedule her for the late shift on Friday night so that she could observe Shabbat.

We will never really know what Neredya’s journey is all about, and we will likely never meet her again. For me, these bike trips are not about the bikes - after all we hadn’t even peddled one mile. For me they are about spending time with my kids, seeing more of this great country, and for meeting people along the way - most for reasons we will never understand, but I believe there is a reason.

And while we will never know the real reason why the good Lord sent us back to get powdered Gatorade so that we could meet Neredya, we do know for sure that it was NOT for the powdered Gatorade - because they didn’t have any.

Heading to Hot Sulphur Springs for Shabbat. A short ride with a lot of hills.

~ES