This is amazing

[IanC]

A few weeks back I posted about an Australian couple, traveling in a mini van, that I met in the Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas.  OK, fast forward and I'm camped in this super remote spot in the Talladega Forest in Alabama.  I mean this place is REMOTE - miles down a forest road.  Just me in this little clearing.  A half hour ago, who shows up?  That same Aussie couple.  What are the chances that in the whole country - and we went separate ways - they've been in Florida and around New Orleans - that we should run into each other again?  I'm floored.

 

[BradKW]

Sounds like you have stalkers!

 

[Ballenxj]

They're actually NSA and are tailing you under the guise of being Australian tourists.
 Seriously though, that is uncanny. Cool, but uncanny.

 

[Thirsty Boots Nomad]

Any chance you had a good idea where you would be now when you last saw them and mentioned it to them???

 

[IanC]

^
No, I just thought about coming here yesterday

 

[highdesertranger]

cue "The Twilight Zone" music. highdesertranger

 

[IanC]

The rain started coming down in buckets.  I lent them my Easy-up and Carly made some gourmet burgers and vegetables.  She's a chef in Australia, so they have a pretty cool set up for cooking and food storage. 

These guys would be a natural for Youtube.  He's in television in Melbourne and they have been traveling Europe, Asia and South America for 7 years on and off.

I almost didn't come here - missed a turn and GPS, trying to correct my mistake took me through the mountains on the worst dirt roads I've ever been on for 2 hours at 5 miles an hour in low gear 4WD. Finally I got back into town and was going to get onto I 20 and find a truck stop, but thought I'd give it another shot, so here I am.

 

[DannyB1954]

I knew a barmaid in Sasebo Japan . About 3 years later met her again in a bar in San Diego Ca. I thought that odd as well.

 

[Wabbit]

Very neat story IanC! Its a small world when you recognize it. Hope you get many more "coincidences" in your travels.

 

[WriterMs]

Are you both using an online campsite finder like campsites.net? That might explain how they found the remote camping spot... but not how you both ended up there at the same time.

I was going to say cue "It's a Small World After All" but that song sticks in my head... oh dang, I did it. LOL

 

[TMG51]

One day I decided to explore this abandoned air force base in my home state. Lyndonville air force base, look it up - cold war era radar installation that was put in the mountains of Vermont back when we thought the Ruskies might send missiles through Canada.

Anyway, this place is in the middle of nowhere, a couple hours' drive from anywhere populated, into the northeast kingdom of Vermont. When you get near, in a town called Victory, population some several dozen, you then need to drive up unmarked forest roads as far as able, then abandon your vehicle and begin a 6 mile hike uphill to the top of the mountain where the old radar installations are.

I did this one day, spur of the moment, and when I got to the top, who was there? My brother. :huh: We'd never discussed the place, hell we don't even talk, he lives hours from there, but we were there on the same day at the same time. Picture related, from the top of the highest tower at the base.

Small world indeed.

 

[Gunny]

I know there is a mathematical way to figure odds but I don't know it. Probably about the same as hitting the lottery. They look like nice folks. I like Aussies.

Rob

 

[caretaker]

its called convergence,,read Patrick F Mcmanus's take on it

 

[sushidog]

Same thing used to happen to me in the Army all the time. Once I ran into my first Company Commander when we were both on vacation in the Smokies at a motorcycle shop, (not a tourist attraction) and he didn't even ride - he was just there with a friend! Another time I met and befriended a guy when I was in Ft. Riley, Kansas taking basic. Then I ran into him again a couple years later in Ft. Lee, Va. Then we met a third time a few years later in Kaiserslautern Germany though we both had completely different duty assignments, we just happened to cross paths a third time in this wide world. (do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do - Twilight Zone music) What are the odds? 1 in a million maybe? I guess someone has to win the lottery.

Chip

 

[IanC]

Are you both using an online campsite finder like campsites.net? 

Well, here is the first part of the co-incidence.  I often put up a review on freecampsites when I find something good on there.  The first time I met them in Ouachita was because they had, in looking for a spot, read the review I did of it that had just been posted for an hour or so before they saw it.  So, there's 2 amazing parts to the story.

I hate to jump the gun on reasons for co-incidents, but I have had several events in my life that needed so many things aligned for them to have occurred that I have to believe they were spiritual.  One of them completely changed the course of my life and my thinking in a very positive way - permanently, and is the reason that I am convinced that ancient people were not wrong in believing that we are not fully in control of our lives.  We don't choose the time and place for them to happen, they do when you are ready to accept them.

OR, they could just be DEA agents who think my trailer is a mobile meth lab.

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

Here's my coincidence story. My Dad died in 08 and I wanted to get out of town for a bit to relax and clear my head. I had his 03 Chevy Express cleaned out and threw my mattress, kayak, and camping stuff in it and was heading to Key West for a few weeks as I had never been. My girlfriend at the time couldn't come because she had work and a kid.

Stopped in Orlando for the night because the wiper motor on the van was going and Florida is land of the short lived heavy downpours. Grabbed a motel and on my way out the door in the morning to grab some breakfast and check on the van, I see a blue two door civic, "I'm like that's weird, that look's just like Meghan's car." As i'm walking down the outside stair way to the parking lot and get closer "I'm like Massachusetts plates too, that's even weirder". I have to walk right buy it to get to the sidewalk and who pops out.......my girlfriend Meghan! What a coincidence! Except it was not a coincidence, she had figured out my password for my bank account (I used to use her computer when at her house and she installed a key tracker) She then hopped in her car and started following my debit transactions and then saw I was staying put for the night and made it there before I was leaving.

She had convinced herself I was going to Florida with another girl and wanted to see my hotel room. So opened the door and showed her an empty hotel room. We had breakfast together and then she had to hop right back on the road to get back in time for work Monday morning.

I guess the only actual coincidence in this story is she knew the motel I was staying in from my debit transaction online, however it was a 3 sided building with parking lots.....one for each of the three sides, front and back. She didn't know my room number and didn't see the van so she thought she had missed me. She pulled into a spot to decide what to do next and that was the moment I just happened to be walking out the door.

How does this story end you ask? We broke up when I got home.

 

[Theadyn]

How does this story end you ask? We broke up when I got home.

Uhhh... errrr... hmmmm.... I wonder why? Key tracker, driving states away using your debit purchases to hunt you down to catch you in the act.. wow. Not sure what to say, other than, wow.

 

[IanC]

How does this story end you ask?  We broke up when I got home.

That was my guess when I was half way through, though I thought another guy was going to pop out of her vehicle.

 

[ArtW]

How does this story end you ask? We broke up when I got home.

I'm surprised it took that long

 

[Ballenxj]

Here's my coincidence story.  My Dad died in 08 and I wanted to get out of town for a bit to relax and clear my head.  I had his 03 Chevy Express cleaned out and threw my mattress, kayak, and camping stuff in it and was heading to Key West for a few weeks as I had never been. 
<-------->
   What a coincidence!  Except it was not a coincidence, she had figured out my password for my bank account (I used to use her computer when at her house and she installed a key tracker) 
<-------->
How does this story end you ask?  We broke up when I got home.

I'm afraid I would have done the same thing. That, and change the password to my bank account, which I'm sure you did?