Autumn is a special time of year for our family. Number Two Daughter is a member of her college golf team and we love to chase her around as she chases a little white ball around various golf courses in the tri-state area where we live (Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio). Since travel is involved and we now have a new obsess…um…hobby, this year we combined the two. Yep, golfing and geocaching. They just go together like, say, Tupperware and trees.

On one particular trip, our little group of Mr. Pip, Grandma Pip and myself, headed southwest into Indiana, near Indianapolis. I have to tell you that Grandma Pip doesn’t quite ‘get’ this geocaching thing, but being a good sport, she goes along. (Like she has a choice.) We have to be careful not to overdose her on it is all.

After a day of walking 153 miles around a golf course, we decided to save the caching for the next day, and after checking into our hotel, we walked over to a nearby Cracker Barrel for dinner. Between our hotel and Cracker Barrel was a local winery. Since Grandma Pip doesn’t drink alcohol, I didn’t mention checking out the winery, but to my surprise, as we walked back to the hotel, she asked if I might want to look in at their gift shop. Mr. Pip was more interested in the football game that was on television, so he went on back to the room while we went to the winery.

Just as we approached the front doors, the outside lights went off. Checking our watches, we saw that it was 10:00 P.M. They were closing. But we could look in the windows, right? Just as we got to the door, a man stepped out and apologized for closing, but could we come back the next day? Being the observant and assertive person that I am, I noticed he was wearing a geocaching cap, and commented on it. For a split second, our eyes met, and there was this frenetic exchange of internal GPS signals between our brains. He stepped out and said, “We’ve got to talk.” We introduced each other as sept1c_tank and Pipanella and as my mother stood dumbstruck and a bit confused (“Cheers,” travel bugs, micros, whaaaaaaaaaat?), there was a flurry of geospeak as if we were long lost friends, found.

We were invited in, tasted some wine (well, I did), toured the winery, took pictures, and crammed more conversation into an hour than you’d think was humanly possible. To imagine that this ‘chance’ meeting came within seconds of not happening at all, tells me that it wasn’t by chance.

As Chuck Swindoll has said, “There are no coincidences, just divine appointments.”