U.S. 29 wagon, ho!

Ralph Casey orders another side of Pig ’N Steak baked beans to go with his ribs, coleslaw and Budweiser. But he isn’t just another lunch-time customer in the downtown Madison restaurant and it’s more than the cowboy hat he wears that sets him apart. It’s how he arrived: in a covered wagon.

The 1800s-style wooden wagon is parked outside in the restaurant’s rear parking lot off Washington Street, complete with its only power source – two horses – one named “Leftie” and another named “Rightie.”

Casey made the stop Tuesday on his three week-long cross country trip to Washington, D.C. from the North Georgia mountains, where he operates a horseshoeing school. He is traveling with Melissa “Missy” Wilkerson, 33, and a cattle dog called “Blue.”

Casey has adorned his wagon’s canvas top with big, hand-painted messages that read things like, “Going To DC/To Get Answers for/The Small Businessman.” Once in the nation's capital, Casey said he wants to have a conversation with “someone in charge” and to ask him or her “five business questions.” He said he will not divulge what the questions are until then.

"That way, they can't prepare their answers," he allowed.

The Pig ’N Steak waitress serving him -- Lori Rice -- took pictures of the covered wagon for her children.

“I didn’t think my children would believe me,” Rice said.

The horses, which Casey said are members of a rare breed he pronounced as “exmores,” looked calm as they waited in the parking lot.

“The best thing for a horse is the best thing for you – exercise,” Casey said.

He had expected to stay overnight Tuesday in Brightwood at Erika Andrews house in the 5800 block of North Seminole Trail (U.S. 29) before he pulls his wagon into the D.C. Beltway traffic, which thankfully won’t be at peak, because he expects to arrive on Sunday.

While heading north on U.S. 29 through Madison County Tuesday, he stopped at the Food Lion in Madison. He drew a small crowd in the grocery store’s parking lot, where he waited with Blue as Wilkerson went inside to buy chewing tobacco and other supplies. One man offered to drive to the Orange-Madison Coop to buy some horse feed for Leftie and Rightie – Casey accepted. A woman who owns horses herself offered the travelers a place to stay overnight. Another man said to “give ’em (heck).”

“One thing everyone can do in Madison County is to e-mail their congressman and tell them I’m coming. I’m a real working person. I have a Ph.D. from “The School of Hard Knocks,” Casey said.

Brightwood resident Andrews said she offered her house to Casey and Wilkerson because “horsey people help horsey people. We can’t help it. The horse community is a very generous community.”

She said Culpeper Horseowners Association President Gardiner Mulford contacted her and she said she was more than happy to oblige.

“We can’t wait to hear the stories, since they have been coming all the way from Georgia,” Andrews said. 

Clad in a well-needed cowboy hat, denim jeans, spitting Beech Nut juice, Casey will talk to just about anyone. 

In a pedestrian way (letters on his wagon), he shouted out a message for small businesses that quickly and typically resonated among local town folk, perhaps complemented by but certainly not cemented through the digital-age reality.

In other cities, people flocked, because it was an "Oh my God" turn-your-car-around-level reaction. People stopped their vehicles to get a closer look. To a person, they grinned widely and eagerly greeted him, oblivious of the heat.

"It's amazing, the people really are concerned with what's going on," said Casey, 69, a native of Dubois, Wyo.

He runs a horseshoeing school in Villanow, Ga., in the far northwestern corner of the state near the Tennessee border.

Casey says; he has been stunned by how his message has resounded throughout the small-town Americana he has navigated since they set out April 30.
In one town, a police chief pulled him over and tried to give him a 100-pound box of food.
"The people have been phenomenal," he said.

He said he has garnered 2,000 business cards already.

"I'm not out to collect money," but people give him cash, Casey confided.

It might not make the cable TV news, but his odyssey is a happening that local people embrace along the way.

Wilkerson said of the journey, “It’s been really scenic. It’s interesting to see how people want to help.”

He's traveling U.S. 29 north. Vehicles travel faster than his wagon, and hazards happen.
"As long as you don't get on the expressway, they (his horses) still have the right-of-way," meaning the four-lane, median-divided U.S. 29, Casey said.
"We got hit by a lady texting," four-and-a-half miles out of Jefferson City, Tenn., in front of a dealership that sells Kubota tractors, he said.

The accident warped one of his axles. The dealership employees "worked on it all day, and didn't charge a dime."

"They wrote her up," he said of the driver. "She didn't have a dime of insurance."
To follow the journey of Casey and Wilkerson, visit them on Facebook at "Where Is Ralph Casey," find videos on YouTube with "Ralph Casey Wagon to DC" or follow him on Twitter @GA9thDistTparty. Visit his horseshoeing business’ Web site at www.caseyhorseshoeing.com.
(Madison County Eagle Editor Don Richeson and the MG News Service’s Scott Marshall   contributed to this story.)