Life Is A Box of Chocolates (Lexington, Virginia)

"Do you believe in God? Do you believe in fate? Do you surrender yourself to fate? Do you surrender yourself to God?"

“You don’t talk like any atheist I’ve ever met,” the ex-major league baseball player marveled.

“When in Rome speak Italian," I joked.

The remark sailed over his head like a fly ball to deep left field.

Hang on. I should probably set the scene…

Lexington Cigars & Lounge

I was posing deeply personal theological questions to an up-to-that-moment stranger in the Robert E. Lee room at a cigar lounge in Lexington, Virginia.

A corner cornucopia for cigar aficionados run by a Major mensch. Literally. A Rumanian Jew (above) who led U.S. soldiers into battle in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In my defense, the smoker perched on pleather was up shit creek without a paddle (albeit with a canoeing cigar). Mired in pre-post-marital woe, he was actively seeking my counsel.

Divorce's Big Three – custody, penury, reality – was taking its toll.

Given that he was a True Believer, I couldn't very well comfort him with insight into the fine art of altering subconscious stimulus-response patterns through hypnosis (i.e., the Devil’s handiwork).

"Just because I don’t believe doesn’t mean I don't know how it works,” I explained, hiding behind a triple negative.

"I'm just disappointed,"the Lexingtonian left-hander confessed.

I wanted to say "me too."

Twister? I Just Met Her!

I'd just seen Twisters on a local cinema's napkin-sized Screen 3.

I loved the quirky original. Helen Hunt blessed us with one of the best deadpan lines in movie history: "cow." Followed by one of the best-ever comebacks: "Actually I think that's the same one."

Twisters is a remake sold as some kind of sequel. The pluralized tornado flick offer fans of the previous disaster movie the exact same plot as its predecessor.

Same whooping chasers and CGI swirling dervishes. Only this time with less charismatic actors, worse dialogue and a musical score so overblown it would make a pornstar's jaw ache.

There's no way to put a positive spin on it: Twister is everything Twisters is but better.

Where was I?

Divorced guy, going through Hell

“Embrace the suck,” I advised my new friend. “You can find something positive in a bad situation."

To illustrate my point, I told my spiritually downtrodden amigo how I came to be in (small H) his presence...

The Sperryville Horror

I'd spent the previous night in Sperryville, Virginia, a micro-town lying at the foot of the Shenandoah Mountains, about 74 miles from D.C.

Sperryville came to my attention via my money maven Myles. Taking a break from ensuring I don't have to work for a living, the no-BS UBS exec sent me a link to thrillist's list The Must-Visit Small Town in Every State.

Arriving too early for check-in, I unburdened Fritz and walked the length of Main Street. Ten minutes later, I understood why thrillist didn't use the words "Must-See."

Sperryville. Blink and you'll miss it. Maybe not the best town motto. This is the point where a travel writer would say that would be a shame. Anyway...

Combat medic Jon Wayne Taylor taught me a valuable lesson about food: you don't eat, you die. My Sperryville dining options were limited to one: The Black Twig.

While I could've murdered a burger, the converted high school's ambience was murderous in a Carrie kinda way, complete with a sparkly PVC strip curtain.

I decided to drink my evening's calories in The Ordinary B&B's only slightly less creepy craft beer basement.

My lips hadn't touched beer in 20 years. I hadn't imbibed alcohol full stop in a month. But the journey from booze to bed was measured in stairs and sometimes a man's gotta drink what a man's gotta drink.

Smiggy’s Wee Heavy. A beer named after a Scot's prostate problem, as far as I could tell.

At some point, I couldn't tell anyone anything without sounding like Joe Biden. Nor remember their reply. But I did remember the in-keeper's destination recommendation. Sort of...

“You’ve arrived," SIRI proclaimed triumphantly the next day, depositing me in front of some guy’s farm.

Turns out I should have said Davis, West Virginia instead of whatever SIRI thought I'd said. [Note to self: listen closely to her repeat my instructions before pressing GO.]

I wasn't upset. The countryside ride to wherever was wonderful; the first journey since surmounting Mount Washington where I didn't feel like I was motorcycling in an Easy-Bake oven. Should such a thing be possible.

So I played around with the Apple map, scrinching and rotating the image, looking for someplace to go. Not too big. Not too small.

Lexington, Virginia

“So here I am," I concluded, "sitting talking to you about divorce, a subject near and dear to my heart. Well near.”

“Are you sayin’ God sent you?”

“Are you saying he didn’t?”

I’m reasonably confident my nicotine-fueled therapy session was an outside ball four for the guy who hit a home run during his short MLB career. But whatever.

I reckon I’ve finally achieved a satisfactory level of randomness in my peregrinations. And it paid off in style.

Lexington, Virginia is a veritable Truman Show of a place: a small, self-contained town-more-than-city without a single chain restaurant or big box store blotting the landscape. Far from the beaten path and the madding crowd.

Downtown Lexington's sustained by the existence of the monstrous-in-size Virginia Military Institute and the equally stately but more demure Washington and Lee University (surrounded by Bluto-free fraternity houses posing as banks).

While Lexington rolled-up its Saturday night sidewalks at 5pm, I assume there’s more going on when the cadets are carousing.

A Spoonful of Sugar

I bummed-out at least one regular reader by posting heavy on the whole slavery thing.

Suffice it to say this place is all about the Confederacy. Well that and the world's best coconut donut (which did not fall out of a tree).

Lexington made its first fortune as the breadbasket of the South (not saying anything about the slaves who made that happen).

These days, the city bills itself as as “The Paris of Southwest Virginia.”

How specific is that? More specific than its previous motto: “The Shrine of the South.”

Some might say the old come-on was a dog whistle for a certain type of nostalgia, but I couldn’t possibly comment. Except to say Civil War fans know where to go. So to speak.

Robert E. Lee is buried here. Andrew “Stonewall” Jackson taught at the VMI for more than a decade, before his elevation to Brigadier General and memorialization in the Lexington Cigars & Lounge's other private room.

A nearby restaurant has a Black Lives Matter poster out front. I didn’t see a single Black face in two days. What does that tell you?

All I want to tell you: I spent a night at Col Alto – the swankiest Hampton Inn on planet earth. A converted mansion oozing untrammeled historical charm.

Me, a Wandering Jew. As well as a motorcycle gang (click here for video).

Although the OWFG bikers domiciled in the modern add-on while I surrendered to the arms of Morpheus in a four-poster with the softest sheets this side of Patresi.

Don't Knock It

If only there were more town/cities like this one. Places with elegant and lyrical buildings that weren’t destroyed by the fires leveling so many pre-electricity communities. Repurposed for modern living – regardless of their dubious past.

Fredericksburg is one such place. Knoxville is another, with the added benefit of easy access to some of this world's best mountain roads.

Which is why I’m buying a condo in "Marble City." Adding a coda to my previously homeless Ridiculously Random Motorcycle Tour.

It’s getting late. I’m stocked-up on stogies and Lexingtonian memories, including a visit to General Jackson’s genteel home and the VMI’s insanely great collection of firearms (e.g. Lewis & Clark’s legendary air rifle).

I’m heading out a more relaxed wanderer. No small part due to the plexiglass piece I’ve added to Fritz’s windscreen to deflect the wind and a new, more comfortable Shoei helmet.

Comfort isn’t my goal during my remaining months. It’s surrendering myself to fate. If it's good enough for a former MLB player facing years of struggle, it's good enough for me.

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