Meeting New Friends, and Visiting Old Friends

One of the very best things about travel is the chance to see old friends along the way, and the delightful experience of meeting new people too.

Lori J.

My parents have been dead a long time now but my mother had a friend named Carol who is still living and when I lived in Paso Robles, California she lived only 15 miles away and we got re-acquainted after not seeing each other for about 20 years.  Carol has 2 daughters, one who is 2 years younger than me and one who is about 3 or 4 years older.  The youngest one I played with growing up, but the older girl was quiet and I didn’t really know her very well.  Plus, she got married young and after the age of 11 or so, I didn’t see her again.  Her name is Lori.

While we were in Corpus Christi, Texas, Lori called me out of the blue.  Her mother had apparently given her my number and told her I was in Texas.  Lori lives in a little town outside San Antonio.  Over the course of a couple of weeks we had a couple of long telephone conversations and we agreed to meet.  We decided we would go up to see her for a weekend when we left Corpus Christi, and then head to New Orleans after that.

Dan had a cold the weekend we went to visit her and the weather was raining and cold the whole time so he stayed home while I spent 2 full days visiting with her.  I was a little bit leery of seeing her again because I didn’t really know if it would go well or not, nor whether we’d really have anything in common but I needn’t have worried.  We got on like a wildfire!  I got to hear her life story and many blank spots were filled in.  I love peoples’ life stories.  I find most people fascinating to some degree.  And when I left, I knew I’d made a friend for life.  She turned out to be intelligent, thoughtful and kind, just the kind of person I like best!  I feel lucky because not everyone you knew as a child is someone you’d want to know as an adult.

In Corpus Christi, the rv park was filled with Canadians and we made friends with Guy and Elise and when we left we traded addresses and phone numbers.  The same went for a pair of Australians we met too, named John and Maria.  And we’ve stayed in touch with them as well.  In Vernonia, Oregon we met Geri and her husband and traded addresses with them.  They invited us to stay on their Yuma, Arizona property anytime we wished.

With travelers and other RVer’s, the relationships are often fleeting and superficial which is fine by me.  I’m not really looking to make any deep connections.  Deep connections are wonderful when it happens but I enjoy the fleeting aspect of travel friendships.  We like the people, we are all helpful to one another, we love sharing stories and ideas, and then we all move on.

But once in a while, something kind of magical happens.  You meet someone who really touches you.  That happened to me 4 times on this trip, the first being my friend Lori.

Fellow Book Lover

In northern California on our way to Oregon we stopped in a little town called Healdsburg.  I love thrift shops and flea markets so that’s what we did there.  We went to a thrift shop.  I was looking through the racks of clothes with one hand while my other arm held a stack of books I was going to buy.  I became aware of a small presence next to me that wouldn’t go away so I looked down and discovered a shy little Mexican girl who gave me a big smile and showed me her stack of books she was going to buy.  I could recognize a fellow reader immediately, and a kindred spirit.  We chatted about books and favorite stories for a few minutes and I was grateful for the little Kodak moment.  We book lovers come in all sizes, shapes and ages and we always instinctively recognize one another, like secret societies which have subtle signs making it easier for the members know one another.  At last, I went on with my shopping but a little while later I felt the little presence again and looked down to see her holding a baby, struggling not to drop the poor thing.  It was her little brother and she was proud to show him to me.  Well.  I can also recognize a fellow baby fiend, so of course, I admired him and complimented her on her big sister skills.

I went away blessed to have met a little old soul who touched me and to this day, the experience of being able to tell about it.  Little children like this one always touch my heart but I don’t actually have the experience of meeting a kindred spirit in such a small package very often.

Lorraine
In Ocala, Florida I got to meet up with an old friend from my teenage church days, a friend who I spent a lot of time with when we were pregnant together.  I was pregnant with my son Joe in 1981 and she was pregnant with her second child, Glenn.  We ended up giving birth within 3 weeks of each other and stayed close for a couple of years until she moved away to Michigan and later to Florida.  In 29 years, I’ve only seen her once, so the opportunity to visit her was wonderful.  We only had a day together but still, it was great to chat and try to cram all those years of news into a single day.  I have been working hard to convince Lorraine to move closer to us, but so far no luck.  But who knows what the future will bring?

Chris & Kasey

One of the most delightful meetings took place once we came to Florida.  We stayed for a week in a little town on the Panhandle called Carrabelle, a little old town with a wonderful RV park right across from the beach.  We discovered a delightful little café just up the road—the kind of café the locals go to.  It is called 2 Al’s and we discovered that father and son, Big Al and Little Al, owned and operated the restaurant for years until the elder passed away and it was just the younger Al, who seemed to be about my age now, running the place.

Al waited on us while we were there and we just loved him and his restaurant.  What a nice man.  All over the walls of the restaurant is the history of his life and the town—newspaper stories of old floods and storms, paintings of his father and he.   Because we bring our Cribbage board to play at almost every restaurant we go to, Al chatted with us about the game.  Bringing a game, especially such an old obscure game as cribbage, has opened lines of communication with people, something that is really nice to have while traveling.

A young couple in their early 20’s stopped by our table on the way out, to comment on our game.  We were amazed they knew it was Cribbage and knew how to play, since most young people have never heard of it.  We got to talking about how we’d like to improve our knowledge of Backgammon, since we had recently learned how and weren’t convinced we were playing it right.  Chris offered to teach us, and touched by his friendliness and our desire for new experiences, we agreed to meet at the restaurant the next day, a Sunday.

So, we met on Sunday, enjoyed lunch together, and learned how to properly play backgammon.  Like Cribbage, Backgammon is a nice portable game you can take with you anywhere.

Chris and Kasey struck us as this very nice couple and they surprised us by inviting us for dinner the next night at their home.  I knew they had to work—Chris works in some sort of land deal for the government, and Kasey works at a law school as a tech support. I knew they had to get up early to go to work so I didn’t really want them to go to this kind of extra work.  But Chris insisted.  He loves to cook and he wanted to make us some real Florida folk food—alligator tail (from the alligator he caught and killed), hush puppies and corn grits.  They confided to us they are crazy about boats and their dream is to live aboard a sailboat one day and travel, a dream I confess that I shared in my youth.

So the next night, we went.  They live out in the boonies on the banks of a river in a little home with their 2 dogs Boss and Willie.  On the ride out, it was after dark, a little foggy, and felt very eerie.  I began to worry.  What if these people are serial killers?  What if no one finds our bodies?  Chris had us wait on the road by a church as he was going to come by on the way home from work and have us follow him home.  While we waited, my worries began to multiply, and to ease the tension Dan turned on the radio.  As luck would have it, Jim Morrison’s song from The Doors, Riders On The Storm came on, with the verse, “There’s a killer on the road….”  Yikes!  Now I wondered if that was a sign or something.  Dan quickly turned off the radio.

Before long here came Chris and Kasey, and for better or for worse, we followed them home.

Well.  More delights awaited us.  They couldn’t have been more fun to be around, and been more kind to us.  They told great stories.  It was some of the best intelligent conversation we’ve ever had.  Chris is very vibrant and sharp as a tack.  He’s got a very handsome face with good bone structure, very Nordic looking.  I told him that if he did some modeling, say for Calvin Klein jeans or something, it would be a way to pay for that sailboat they want, and the life they would like to have. Kasey is equally pretty in a very healthy way, but she is quieter than Chris although just as pleasant and funny.  The food was great, and they taught us how to play doubles in Cribbage, something we’d never done before.  They have a very unique cribbage board—it’s kind of miniature and is shaped like a canoe, a gift from a relative.  Cribbage boards often do come in very unique designs.  Their dog Boss is very sweet and they have a little black Chihuahua puppy named Willie.  Now, he’s quite the feisty character, especially in contrast to Boss’ mellow nature, and we enjoyed the excellent entertainment of just watching his antics.

At the end of the evening, Kasey was referring to Chris as ‘Pretty Boy', for all my encouraging him to be a male model!  We found their healthy bantering to be quite charming.

So, we had a really good time.  It got very late and we needed to make our goodbyes, knowing they had an early day the next morning.  And surprisingly, they asked us to return the next night for more Cribbage, although we insisted no dinner.  We didn’t want them going to any more trouble. 

Would you believe they even asked us back the following 3^rd night?  Chris wanted to make us Venison Chili, and helpless to refuse, we went.  It was our last night in Carrabelle, and of course they overwhelmed us with their kindness.  One of the sweetest things to witness was their genuine love for each other.  How rare in life is that?  And they’ve been together for more than 6 years, since high school.  Chris still treats Kasey like she arrived in a Tiffany box—gentle, loving, respectful, precious.  To be able to share such moments with such good people, well, it made me hopeful for the future of the world.

As we were saying our goodbyes, I thanked them and said to them that Dan and I found it amazing that 2 young people would even want to hang out with 2 old geezers like us.  Kasey deadpanned, “Oh, we hate people our own age!”  This sent us into peals of laughter!

And did I mention the food was great?  Chris can add the title of Chef to his many accomplishments!

I came away with this thought—how rare it is in todays’ world that someone would even be brave enough to take you home with them.

You never know who you’re going to meet while on a journey, nor what kind of experiences you’re going to have, but if you keep your mind open, all sorts of possibilities can happen.