To Good Friends

To Chapman, ACT, Australia

We were out of the campground and on the road by 9:30 this morning, quite an unusual feat for us. A simple breakfast of cereal and milk certainly helped. Although the drive today was mostly inland as opposed to the coast, it was as beautiful as ever. Once again, we remarked that the countryside could easily pass for the rolling hills of Northern California though with only a fraction of the people.

Our mid morning stop for a cup of coffee quickly turned into lunch -- ham and cheese croissants, a meat pie and an egg sandwich. Nevertheless, by 3:30 we had found our way to Bluett Place on the outskirts of Canberra, the Australian capital.  Helen, Rosie and Tom met us out front. It had been almost 19 years since I had last seen Helen. We had originally met in Nepal in 1996, had spent time together in 1997 when my travels took me to Australia, and had last seen each other in California in 1998, soon after I had started at Intuitive Surgical. In the intervening years, we had both married and started families.

We had plenty to catch up on. Helen, Shane, Rosie and Tom had just visited Nepal in December, just a few days after we had left left the country. In 2015, they too had left their home and work for a year long tour, which started in Southeast Asia, included China and the trans Siberian railroad and ended in Europe where they pedaled an impressive and conversation-starting four person, “quad” bicycle through Holland and France for three months. Clearly we had much in common, and coincidentally the first names of their children happened to match the middle names of ours -- Dexter Thomas and Kylie Rose versus Tom and Rosie.

Meeting the guinea pigs

Good dog, Fluffy

Ridge trail behind Shane and Helen's house

When Shane arrived home, we took Fluffy out for a short hike behind the house and enjoyied a wonderful dinner of coq au vin and little more “vin” to go along. It was great to meet up again after so many years, this time with family and spouses, and so nice to pick up where we had left off. Here's to good friends.