Robert......the legend of the ICW

Meet Robert Peek.

He provided breakfast to me this morning. Robert is the historian, lock keeper and bridge tender for the deep creek lock on the Great Dismal Swamp Canal, and has been entertaining travellers on the ICW for 20 years. He has developed a reputation as a conch blower and he performed a pretty mean "When the Saints go marching in" for me. His reputation has spread far and wide so much so, that boats coming up from the Bahamas, usually give him a conch.

Does this next picture look familiar?

Now I am sure that his boss thinks of him as just another one of 27 employees, but in my mind, anyone who out of their own pocket, would go out of their way to provide coffee, fruit and donuts to weary travellers, who are total strangers, deserves an accolade or two. There probably isn't a marina up and down this country, that hasn't got 2 or 3 people who know Robert. So Robert, along with all the other unappreciated good Samaritans, ........thank you, thank you, thank you.