Australian Friends at Wally World, Loudenville, OH

Wednesday, 6/29/11 - As I was taking my 3 mile walk this morning, a woman called out to me, "remember us, the Australian couple touring the USA and we met in Little Rock, AK?" I was shocked, I never would have recognized Alison, but as soon as we started speaking, I remembered immediately. When I got home I told Will and he was amazed. What are the odds of meeting someone in a campground June 3rd in Arkansas and then again June 29th in Loudenville, Ohio.....it has to be small. Jeff and Alison purchased a reconditioned class C camper in the USA and are driving and touring the USA for 6 months. The amount of time they can stay here. The also unbelievable thing, when they are finished touring they are storing the camper (for when they return here next year) in Bakersfield, CA and taking a bus to the LA airport to return home!!!! What a small world it really is.

Will and I walked over to their campsite and sat out and visited with Jeff and Alison for a while and shared travel stories, what great fun. They showed us pictures of their family and then two fabulous pictures of the view from their condo where they live on the Gold Coast of Australia. It is a condominium and they live on the 23rd floor, which there is only ONE condo per each floor. The spectacular views are of the Pacific Ocean, a soccer field and city from their place. They said they drive their car only once a week as they can walk everywhere and there are 82 restaurants within walking distance. When they retired they moved from Sydney to the Gold Coast which they said is a world class surfing area and by the way, Jeff is my age and has been surfing (and still surfing) over 50 years. I'm telling you Will and I are ready to pack up and go visit them......but we will wait until they get home.

To celebrate our "reunion of sorts" we took our car and had dinner back at The Iron Pony, a big bar and dining room. The ladies had fish, the guys had roast beef and we must have sat in that booth for a couple of hours just talking and laughing. It was a very fun evening and although Jeff and Alison leave tomorrow we hope our paths will cross again, someday. The fabulous trip across the USA continues and I send much love to all family and friends and especially our new Australian friends.