The Circle of Life

In 1988, my family was camping at Molas Lake in Colorado--between Durango and Silverton.  This is still one of my favorite spots on earth--a beautiful mountain lake where we parked our pop up camper and ate fried fish for dinner right out of the lake.

Up came another camper and parked right next to us--and it was Linda and Steve Kot and their children Lauren and Dan, traveling cross-country from Cape Cod.

One day it rained and I had a sprained ankle and stayed in the pop up while Linda and Steve took all the kids on a hike.  Will had a little puppy named Spike that year and he wiggled out of the pop up during the night and trotted over to the Kot's pop up where any dog would be sure to find love.

The first year after we met, Linda flew to Texas (Day's senior year of high school) and went with me to the Miss Helotes pageant where Day got first or second runner up.

Ten years later, Day and Tom married in Washington, D.C., and the Kots came to their wedding.  Several times I have visited them on the Cape and "got the sand in my shoes."

Day and Tom honeymooned in Cape Cod 17 years ago, and here they all are this week on their vacation in Cape Cod: Steve, Linda, Jackson, Tom, Day, and Marcus in front in yellow and orange.

This picture makes me smile--thinking what a serendipitous thing it is to meet friends at a campsite and stay friends all these years; thinking about how they introduced Day to Cape Cod and what a special place it now is for her whole family.

The summer we met, our children (all but Day) were younger than my grandsons are now.  On the way to Molas Lake, Linda was reading a book called RIBSY to her children--which is exactly the book I had just read to Will the night before.

As we shared a fish dinner at the picnic table one night, Linda and I both had paperback books we were reading.  Turned out we were both reading Prince of Tides!  Not only that--we were both on the same page!