… or just an AMAZING COINCIDENCE?!!!
So I was hiking through Illinois Beach State Park yesterday… headed back towards my car in the North Unit of the park. I had already hidden the first half of my fortune cookies. I decided to take a little side path back to the parking lot instead of along the lake… as I had a done that headed the other direction. The park is always pretty secluded – not a lot of people around. So it was kind of surprising when I ran into these two… Heidi & Steve who live up in the area. Steve even joked about there being no one else out there!
So we talked for awhile about Illinois Beach State Park… and how I “found it” as one my Covid excursions during quarantine. They kept telling me about other areas I need to check-out up there… parks, boardwalks, sweet shops, etc. They were the nicest… and only... people I chatted with all day. Like I said, Illinois Beach State Park is pretty isolated without a lot of people!
And then as we continued to talk, I told them that I would let them “in on a little secret”… I told them that I was a potter… and then I told them that I was there hiding my clay fortune cookies! Twenty-three for 2023!
Hold on… wait for it…
Then Heidi stopped me in the middle of my story and said that she found a fortune cookie like that two years ago at the Sand Pond fishing area of the park. She was even impressed that they rattled! I think it took her a second for it all to come together… but what a randomly strange coincidence that I would run into a random new friend out there… who just happened to randomly find one of my fortune cookies TWO YEARS AGO in a random state park covering over six random square miles!!! Crazy coincidence, right?!
We continued to chat on our way back to the parking lot. When we crossed a little wooden footbridge, I pointed out to Heidi that someone else has been hiding things out there too. Like this little Christmas Tree painted rock… that I had seen earlier while I was headed the other way!!! Heidi was so excited… another fun find for her collection!
