Old Friends Who've Just Met

Day 116: Eight years in the making! That's how long I've "known" John, my Canadian photographer friend through the internet. We met in a geocaching forum when I noticed that hs avatar was the International Harvester (FarmAll) tractor logo. My daddy drove a FarmAll tractor, so I inquired and found out that John restored them as a hobby. Some time later, we discovered that we shared a mutual interest in photography, and knew that sooner or later, we'd have to meet face to face.

That said, every time we seemed to be on the verge of connecting, either scheduling wouldn't work, his plans would fall through or my weather would pin me down. So near and yet so far away, he visited another friend on Whidbey Island, but I was unable to free up time to join the gathering. We've been trying to get this together for several weeks now, but again, changes in John's travel plans made it look impossible.

When I turned on the computer this morning, I had no idea I'd be driving to Seattle today, but a flurry of emails sped through the ether as we tried to arrange a place to meet with neither of us knowledgeable about the city. John was going to be strictly afoot because his Canadian credit card wouldn't work to rent a car. In a last-ditch measure, I picked a street corner near his hotel and said, "Meet me there!" and out the door I went at high speed. I hadn't been there five minutes when he knocked on the car window.

The two of us went out to lunch and then spent the afternoon prowling the Museum of Flight, both of us intrigued by displays of engines and flying machines from bygone days. For a few hours, we joked and teased just as we do in emails daily, old friends who'd just met for the very first time.