I noticed the shoe just after dawn. It was lying on the gravel in a weedy, deserted parking area.

It certainly wasn’t the only single, abandoned shoe I’ve ever noticed. Over the decades, I’ve seen more lonely shoes in random places than I can possibly remember.

But this shoe caught my attention because it triggered a memory about something that happened in almost that exact same location last summer.

In both cases, I was peddling my bike down a straight stretch of road after conquering a particularly long and steep hill.

But that time, I wasn’t alone on the road. Instead, three bedraggled teenagers with two suitcases and an extremely, unenthusiastic dog were trudging along the shoulder. As I rode by, the boy yelled at me to stop.

My curiosity outweighed any concerns I should have had, so I obeyed.

“Hey, is this the way to Oregon?” the boy asked. In one hand, he was holding a rope that was tied loosely around his poor dog’s neck. One of the suitcases sat at his feet.

“Where?” I asked. We were currently standing on a rural road in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. People with no motor vehicle generally don’t ask directions to a state that is 2,500 miles away.

“Oregon,” he repeated.

“The state?” I asked.

One of the girls gave me a look I knew well. It’s the one every teenager gives a clueless adult.

“Yes,” she said. “We are going to the state of Oregon.”

When I asked why, I was rewarded with the same look again. “Because we want to,” she replied.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s a really long way to walk.”

“We’ve already come all the way from Hagerstown,” the boy announced proudly. “Are we going in the right direction?”

Since Hagerstown was only 20 miles away, his efforts to impress me weren’t very successful. At the same time, they were heading northwest. So that’s what I told them.

They seemed satisfied with my answer, thanked me, and continued their walk down the road. On my return about 20 minutes later, they were still trudging along. I waved, and they waved back.

Shortly after I passed them, I noticed one of their suitcases on the side of the road. My first thought was that it must have gotten quite heavy. My second thought was relief that at least they hadn’t abandoned the dog. And my third thought was to wonder how much more they would abandon before they simply abandoned hope of getting to Oregon.

Or maybe, against all odds, they actually did get there.

I’ll never know.

For a few a days after our encounter, I paid attention to the news in case there were any reports of three missing or runaway teens. There weren’t any.

And so, I forgot about them. At least, I forgot about them until the sight of that shoe last Monday morning reminded me of the discarded suitcase, those kids, and of impossible dreams.

For years, I’ve considered single, lost shoes – or other personal items – on the side of the road as a mystery. I’ve never understood how a person could just lose one shoe or why they wouldn’t go back to get it.

Maybe what I’ve been missing is that, to the owners, the shoe wasn’t important. It was an item that could be replaced. For them, going back for one thing wasn’t nearly as important as moving forward down the road of life – wherever it may go and toward whatever dreams they were following.

Personally, I’ve spent too much time looking for things I’ve lost only to lose sight of where I wanted to go.

But this past week, the sight of just one shoe served as a reminder that getting where we want to go sometimes requires letting go of what we already have.