For the love of a mule and more...

I spoke to my husband and his daughter this afternoon. They had arrived safely in Wyoming and had met Niki's sister and Eric.

Rich said an ugly storm was raging towards them and he and his daughter figured by the time they'd meet up with the others~~the storm would be in full swing.

As it happened. The sky did open up.
But with sunlight, bright beautiful sunlight that bathed the area where two horse trailers parked. One from Wisconsin and one from Washington.
Niki's sister and Eric commented that this had to have been Niki's doing.
It was as though spiritually this was the way things were meant to be.

They visited and I gather from the emotion in both my daughter's voice and hubby's voice, that this was quite a meeting.
Dinah, the mule was touching more people with her story and her life.

All this started simply by a photo comment on Flickr years ago between two strangers that had a love of photography and a common interest in mules.

A friendship developed between us ... first by comments on Flickr; soon they became emails, then many phone calls, cards, and letters.

My only regret is that I never got to meet my friend Niki face to face.
But our promise is good...for forever.

~~~~~

There is another aspect to this story.
I wasn't able to go because of work.
So I asked my step-daughter [I don't use the 'step' normally] if she'd like to accompany her dad on this trip.
It would be a once in a life time chance for her and her dad to do 'the road trip' thing.

All I can say is that when I've spoken to them on the phone, I could hear excitement and wonder in both of their voices.
I also heard between the words spoken something else~~~for lack of better words, let's call it a special tightening of the dad and daughter bonding.

And these things make my heart sing.