Serendipity!
Happy Camperbus 2 months ago // 2 responses // Outdoor Adventure Happy Camper Bus

So I am skipping ahead, just a tiny bit and only leaving out another day of luscious landscapes from the great wide open. Trust me, it is worth it to get strait to this part.

Around what is typically referred to as an appropriate time for brunch, we arrived in Santa Cruz. We checked in with Mr. Map (our GPS) which has in some way become our traveling higher power. We type in ‘coffee’ or ‘gas station’ and pick a place blindly based on the names of that the device churns out. On the list was a place called the Java Lounge. Sounds good, we’re there. Turns out it is a phenomenal place. It struck some sort of gluttonous (and glutenous) nerve that I suppose we both must carry in us, fore we ended up staying there the entire day. While there we consumed in total between the two of us, 3 veggie sandwiches and 3 pastries because well, they were the best damn things we have had to date. Okay, but that’s not the good part. Here goes:

While at the coffee shop we met and had some intimate conversations with a few of the cool katz of Santa Cruz. One of them was a woman named Kristen who shared with us her memories of the late ‘80’s when she lived and traveled in a VW bus, her love of rock climbing (a favorite pastime of Smick’s as well) and some of the things that have effected her over time that allow her to strive to be a more compassionate and community oriented human being. She surprised us by offering us $20.00 to help us out with gas money for the road. We graciously declined but she insisted further stating that it would be the only way she would feel right parting ways with us. We accepted, thanked her and passed out hugs. At the same moment a Rastafarian fellow I had earlier engaged in conversation regarding our shared love of music and Volkswagens (Richard happens to be the proud owner of a white 1973 VW Cargo-style Bus) poked his head around the corner and said “I see you found a sister there”. We began almost frantically attempting to explain our pleasant discourse and commonalities we shared with Kristen when he interrupted stating that he met her over 20 years ago and that just recently they ended up in Santa Cruz, same place, same time, and are currently co-existing quite nicely as roommates all of these years later.

I became giddy at the chance of being witness to such a serendipitous encounter. I adore these types of Universal contretemps, and had even believed at one time in my youth that being amazed at the unique and unplanned ways that things work out, was exactly what life was meant living for. I dunno what you call it. Fate perhaps? Fate is the inescapability of the future, the relentlessness of the present becoming past and the events of our future becoming now. And then there is the very human self-will factor to consider, that any way of changing the future is every way of changing the future – in effect, we have none clad, until we make it so.