It Really Is A Tiny World

Early this week, I realized something. I was going to have Friday available for an outing with the girls. Unfortunately Mrs. LB had to work, so it was going to be just me and my little ladies. We had two choices: Disneyland or the beach. I asked the girls what they wanted to do, and we weighed our options. They wound up picking the beach because they wanted so spend some time with their Uncle Jesse, my 21-year-old brother.

After a six-mile run up Mt. Rubidoux, I packed up our stuff and the four of us headed out for a beach. We'd narrowed it down to Newport, Huntington or Laguna Beach, and settled for the latter. On the way there, we zigged instead of zagged and wound up somewhere near Newport. We ended up settling down in Corona del Mar.

The girls had a blast, as you would expect. Since it reached triple-digits out here this week, we all had an enjoyable time playing in the water (even though it was a little chilly), digging up sand crabs (Kennedy and I dug up a lot of them) and we even saw some dolphins.

Of course, we weren't the only ones who went out to the beach. It was crowded when we got there. At 10 a.m. It only got more and more crowded and by the time I started to gather our stuff to head home around 2, there was hardly an empty space of sand. I was packing up stuff when a lady nearby asked me something.

"Do you have a blog?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"Is it Muddy Runner?"

"Yeah," I answered.

"I'm Lisa from Discovering the Meaning of Stonehenge."

I did not believe it. I couldn't. I mean, what are the odds? I follow plenty of blogs but most of the blogs I follow are written by out-of-state bloggers. I think there are maybe five California-based blogs I follow, give or take, and some of them are up north and others down in San Diego.

So when I was staring at a blog buddy right before me, a blog buddy I hadn't intended on meeting up with, a blog buddy whom I have a lot of respect and admiration for, I just couldn't believe. I didn't react much at first because I was like "This isn't happening. It can't be happening. I mean, what are the odds?!?"

But it did happen, and we got to talking about how our paths crossed. I told her we hadn't intended on going there, she told me how it was sort of a last-minute trip some friends had invited her on, and we both marveled at the circumstances. I mean, her group had set up their towels and all that about six feet away from where we were sitting.

I was a bit disappointed that we hadn't realized who we were until we were getting ready to leave. We did talk of course, about the Mud Run (she recently ran the Camp Pendleton Mud Run), about my upcoming marathon, about traffic and freeways and kids. One of the friends she was with had also run that race and we of course got to talking about it with her as well.

I got to see her kids and she saw mine. We both have a six-year-old and a four-year-old, though her oldest is a boy. Still, we seem to have a lot in common (except for the fact that she's much faster than me - her marathon PR is 3:57:17) and she seems like a great person.

It was quite a lucky day. About the only thing I regret was A) not buying a lottery ticket and B) not applying sunblock because the L in LB stands for Lobster today. Ouch.