THE GIFT OF THE LAMP

One of the best parts of my travels is always the people I meet on these trips. Whether we stay in contact afterwards or just meet for a moment, I love learning how other people live and hearing their stories.

On our trip to the American Southwest, we stayed in a small campground in Kanab, Utah. In the evening, I was seated on our picnic table, writing in my journal as the sun was slowly going down and it was getting darker. This nice woman approached me from the RV parked behind our van with a small lamp and said I looked like I needed it. I just said "Thanks" and she walked back to her RV. 

At the end of the evening, when I was ready to go inside, I pulled a page from my notebook and wrote her a note to thank her and left the lamp and the note on the steps of her RV since it was late and all the lights were off inside. 

The next morning, we woke up to their RV gone, but there was the lamp on our picnic table with a note saying we reminded her of her grand-daughters and she was happy to see us traveling by ourselves and wishing us a nice trip.

​I don't remember what she looked like, but it has been years and I still have the note and the lamp and think about her everytime I use it. It might not have meant much to her, but I will always remember the kindness of this stranger that I met for barely a minute. I hope one day I get the chance to do something similar for a stranger that I meet along the way.

For more information on our road trip, click here.