We are preparing for Mexico and want to clean out and ship some items home. As we pass through Prescott, Arizona (running from the snow, again) we decide to grab some boxes so we can pack the items while at our next camp. Well, that’s when the problems start. The post office doesn’t have any flat rate boxes of the right size, the UPS store has boxes, but they wanted $19.95! For a box! At this point we are starting to get a little stressed…how hard can it be to find a box?
Finally, we head to Fedex, which happens to be a tiny counter in the local grocery store, and they don’t have boxes either. But, the lady at the counter directed us to Lisa in the booze portion of the store, and we finally find a few scrap boxes! So, after a couple of hours of stress, and driving around we finally have boxes!
Now, to the point of the story.
We walk out with our boxes, and see a couple of overland rigs parked near the Wee Rover. On the side of one of the Jeeps is “The Road Chose Me” and the guy coming towards us is someone that we have been following online for a number of years as he travelled to South America and Africa! Dan Grec! We have a nice chat for a while with him and two other travelers, Jen and Jared.
So, what are the chances of meeting a fellow Overlander, that we have followed for a number of years, in a tiny store in rural Arizona? Our day went from, “How can it be sooo hard to find a stupid box?” to “It’s a good thing we couldn’t find the box, or we would have missed meeting them!”
Funny how things work out, if we just get out of the way!
Update: We get to a FedEx in the next town, after carefully packing our items to ship home, only to find out you can’t ship items in an alcohol box (somethjng about special licenses). The nice people at the FedEx repacked our boxes inside a larger box and they are now on their way home to snowy Vermont.