An Amazing Coincidence

When we arrived at Port Orford, we promised ourselves we would treat ourselves to some clam chowder at a local restaurant. Port Orford is a small, artsy community. I read somewhere in the tourist literature I picked up that there are no fast food places in town, and I believe that is true, as I didn't see any. I would have liked to have had our chowder at the “Crazy Norwegian” restaurant, just because of its name, but it was closed on Monday, so we chose another restaurant. For budget-conscious people like us, who think a splurge is the value menu at (insert favorite fast food franchise name), the clam chowder seemed scandalously expensive at $4.95 a cup, or $5.50 a bowl, but a promise is a promise, so we each ordered a bowl. They were still making it, the server said, so it would be a few minutes wait, and freshly made.

A couple sitting at the next table said hello and asked where we were from. We gave our now standard answer, “Mostly Montana, but for the last couple years we've been Washington residents.”

“We're from Wenatchee,” the man offered.

Well. Jan has several relatives in Wenatchee, so he asked the man if he knew any of the family. Did he ever! It turned out that the man's sister is married to Jan's first cousin, who shares our last name, so we know his sister well. There's no reason these people would have gone to any of Jan's family reunions, so we'd never met them, and probably never would have if we hadn't decided to have clam chowder at that restaurant on that day as they were passing through town on their way back to Wenatchee from Arizona and decided to stop for a bite to eat.

It was some time before the clam chowder was ready, so we had a wonderful conversation and exchanged contact information. They left about when the chowder arrived, which was indeed delicious, and we decided it was a bargain, considering the wonderful bonus we received.