I don't get out much, so my stories aren't very exotic. Actually, two of them aren't even mine. (I
really don't get out much!)
OneWhen I was 11 or 12, my father decided to take his poor deprived desert-dwelling offspring to see some snow. We set off for Flagstaff in northern Arizona - roughly a three-hour drive. When we arrived there the main touristy spots were really crowded, so we piled back into the car to try to find a more solitary spot.
After much driving on back roads, we found what looked like the perfect place. We located a pulloff, parked the car, got out, and walked a few yards around the bend - where we ran smack into our neighbors who had found the exact same out-of-the-way spot on the same day.
TwoIn 1990, shortly after I graduated from the University of Arizona, I took a trip to England, a bit of Wales, and Scotland - the first and so far only time I've been out of the US. The trip there was long and tiring: first the drive from Tucson to Phoenix, then a flight from Phoenix to Houston, then another flight from Houston to London. By the time I arrived in London I hadn't slept for over 24 hours but I was so excited to be someplace so new and foreign and far from home!
I collected my baggage at the airport and made my way to the train. Glancing across the tracks, the first thing I noticed was some guy wearing a University of Arizona T-shirt.
ThreeA friend of mine who lived in Tucson went on a business trip to Philadelphia. She'd never been there before, nor did she know anyone who lived there. During a little free time she took a stroll around the city to do some sightseeing. Rounding a corner, she came face to face with her ex-husband, who had moved there on a whim a couple of years prior following their not-terribly-amicable divorce. She had no clue he'd relocated there.
FourSome friends of a friend were on a road trip from Phoenix to Tucson and were driving at night. As they drove through Casa Grande, they hit a large piece of debris on the road (part of a car engine, if I remember correctly) that did serious damage to their vehicle. It was fortunate they weren't injured or killed and their car came just short of being totaled.
Several years later they were making the same trip, again at night. As they approached Casa Grande, the wife said to the husband, "Hey, remember what happened last time we were here?" And then *WHAM*. They hit a large piece of road debris that did serious damage to their vehicle.