Ripples of Serendipity

Cherie and I get emails all the time from people who want to meet us while we are passing through their area. Some great connections and conversations have come about via “meeting our fans”, and only rarely have we had any awkward and/or boring encounters.

Meeting so many and such diverse cool people is one of the best parts about being nomadic.

It is usually very interesting to hear the story around how various folks came to be reading our relatively obscure little blog. The chain of serendipity that lead to our meeting our new friends Richard & Claire and Dave & Julie in Jupiter Florida is particularly amazing.

You see, Richard spends a lot of time gardening, and he had gotten hooked on listening to podcasts while working in his yard. A few years ago while searching through iTunes for promising podcasts to keep him entertained, he stumbled across a show called GeekSpeak, and over time it became one of his favorites.

For those who don’t know… GeekSpeak is a weekly Geek / Technology call-in show on KUSP “Central Coast Public Radio”, the NPR affiliated station serving Santa Cruz and the central coast of California. It is a relatively small station, to say the least. My old friend Lyle is the host of GeekSpeak, and years ago when I lived in Boulder Creek (in the mountains above Santa Cruz) I was one of the regular co-hosts.

I alway make it a point to stop by when I am in the area, and Cherie and I have been on the show together twice now in the past three years.

Anyway, a year or two ago Richard was in his garden working through the backlog of GeekSpeak podcasts, and he heard a show featuring Cherie and I discussing technomadism. Afterwards, he went to our site, and reading about our lifestyle and adventures had a big impact on him.

But then over time he lost the bookmark.

But then, a few weeks ago Richard was talking with two of his local friends, Dave & Julie, who mentioned to him that they are planning to go nomadic in a few years once their kids are out of school. This reminded Richard of us, but he couldn’t remember where to find us. Hours of internet searching eventually lead him to the About the Geeks page, where I am still listed in the “extended community” section as a former co-host. And from there he rediscovered a link here.

When he went to our site, Richard saw the map on the front page, and realized we were actually right now in Florida, and would be passing near his family’s home on our way to the boat show in Miami. He wrote to us, and a few days later we found ourselves camped in his front yard – a perfect stop for us in between Marathon and Orlando.

Richard was very literally thrilled to meet us and to be able to have us over to stay the night on his land. His entire family made us feel like visiting rock stars.

And then he let us know about his future-nomadic friends Dave & Julie, and told us that they were coming over in the morning hoping to meet us for breakfast…. Richard said he knew that they would have a hard time sleeping because they were so excited to meet us and ask us a million questions about nomadic life.

Can’t sleep?!? Because of us?!???!

We are inspiring and influencing the lives of people we never would have connected with otherwise, and making great new friends in the process. All because a few years ago a listener in Florida was catching up on podcasts from a small California NPR station while working in his garden…

The ripples, they astound me!