Old Friends From London

My wife and I were expats in London for almost five years from 2001 to 2005. We leased a home in Gerrards Cross. It was a small community with several other expat families. We were both in our in our early fifties and our children save one were in universities in the US. Our youngest was attending the local American high school. Our next door neighbors were young expats with 2 young sons. We became close friends, especially my wife as I travelled extensively. He worked for a French bottled water company and was the UK rep. We were neighbors for 3 plus years until he was asked to return to Japan with the company. They had lived there before and did not want to take their family back, so he decided to move back to the US and seek employment there. Her parents had a place in Martha's Vineyard and her father had a family business. We were excited for them but would also miss them and wanted to stay in touch. Needless to say this never happened and life moved on. We moved back to Houston Texas in 2005 as I assumed another position with my company. It entailed a great deal of world travel for both my wife and I. On one occasion, we travelled to Carefree Arizona for an industry conference for a few days. This was I believe in 2009. We arrived a day before the conference started and decided to take a sightseeing tour of some local rock formations. It was a leisurely trip to the sight and we both enjoyed the scenery. On the way back, we were on the main highway and we both decided to we wanted something to drink. As we were on the highway, we were not very close to any major population grids and I remembered we had just passed a small country gas station a mile or so back so we turned around to fill up the car and get something cold to drink. The store had a small gift shop and as I was outside fueling the car, my wife inside buying the drinks. As I finished, I heard someone say, "I don't believe this". I turned around and saw our old neighbors standing next to their vehicle, all smiles and arms outstretched approaching me. It was the strangest thing, never expecting to see someone you know in a place you have never been before and realizing that had we not decided to turn around, this would have never happened. We spent about 30 minutes getting reacquainted and trying to exchange contact information, which at the end meant me giving them my business card and telling them to contact me with their information. I am sorry to say that never happened and now we are only hoping that we have a similar experience sometime and somewhere else.