Meeting at a Crossroad

As garden bloggers our paths cross every day on the internet superhighway. But it is not very often that our paths can cross on actual highways. I was very fortunate to be able to cross paths with two garden bloggers recently, Tina from In The Garden and TC, The Write Gardener.

This meeting was arranged because Tina was going to be traveling to Maine from Tennessee via Pennsylvania! Since she and her family, yes I got to meet Mr. Fix-it and her son Jimmy too, were going to be passing through Western Pennsylvania around dinner time, we made plans to meet at a Bob Evans not far from the highway. TC drove down and I drove over and wham-o, after fighting a bit of rush hour traffic, there were three garden bloggers face to face.

Here's the best picture I have from our meeting. That's TC, Tina, Me, and Lillian.

I was last to arrive to the party, with Lillian the days of getting out of the house quickly are gone. Then it was like Christmas as we all began to exchange little gifts. Tina made me one of her now famous stone markers and brought two gooseberry plants for me to plant in my garden. I will treasure these gifts and think of her each time I see them. TC brought us each a copy of "Tough Plants for Northern Gardens" by Felder Rushing. He wrote the forward for this book and was kind enough to inscribe it for each of us. This book is excellent and will be a good reference in the years to come. I brought some off shoots of my Century plant for both Tina and TC. Each went home with a tiny baby one and one that was a little larger. My original Century plant was a pass along plant from my great aunt and I am happy to continue it's legacy of giving.

The next order of business was the group photo. There were several taken with various configurations of garden bloggers and family. The parking lot had lovely trees filled with berries which made a great backdrop. Of course it was a feat to get everyone to stop chattering away in order to smile for the camera!

We eventually made our way into the restaurant and sat down for lively conversation on all subjects and a good meal to boot. The time just flew by and to tell you the truth I can just remember snippets of conversation, it all happened so quickly and there were often several conversations going at once. Of course there was plenty of garden talk and blog talk, but there were other topics as well. However, we couldn't keep Tina and her family too long because there were still many miles to be travelled that evening and more the next day. And Lillian was ready to be rambling about the restaurant and that is nothing but trouble.

One observation I would like to make about meeting fellow bloggers in person, is that it gives a voice to their blog that wasn't there before. When I read Tina's and TC's blogs now, it will be more personal, and I will hear their voices as I read the posts. Tina and TC, I am so glad we were able to meet and have even a short time to get to know each other a little better beyond the garden and the blog.