Vacation - Friendly Visit

The trip to Ogden to visit my friend Laurie was great!  Due to various circumstances (primarily that until recently she lived on the East Coast and I live in Alaska), I haven't seen her since shortly after high school.  It's amazing (in a Really?-Are-you-sure?? kind of way) to think that it's been more than 15 years since I last saw her.  But since this year was our 20th reunion (I didn't go), I suppose that it's got to be true.  She was my best friend through junior high and high school.  We sang in the choir, had Mrs. Coon for English, and were part of the year book staff together.  She was my confidante and co-conspirator (early on, we even owned imaginary herds of Arabian horses together - including naming them and giving them pedigrees)...

This visit was especially nice in that we'd lost contact for quite a while, and then about two years ago she found me online.  We've chatted and kept tabs a bit since then, but in-person visits are always nicer.  She met Greg and I got to meet her husband and boys.  We chatted about The Old Days, caught up on the years in between, and made some new memories.  I learned the whereabouts and whatnots of her family, and passed on the updates from my own.  (I'd swear her sister is still in diapers, just like I remember her - not grown enough to be living on her own back East.  She remembers my sister's broken femur and the body cast she had when she was two, but had issues reconciling the current pictures with what she remembers.)  It's incredible and very comforting to reconnect with someone who shares so much history - and to find that the intervening years haven't taken as much toll as I thought they might.  This is someone who knows my warts from the Teen Years (shudder) and put up with me anyway, and now I find that those old ties are still there, still binding.  I'm grateful for that.

It was a short visit - time seems to go so quickly when you're enjoying yourself - but there will be more to come.  I'll for sure be letting her know the next time I'm down to visit family so we can get together some more.  And I always love company coming to visit...  =)

And now we're heading south...