Back in the autumn of 2007, Galen was just a single guy living in Seattle, and Kim was just a single gal living in Olympia. How did two great single people ever meet while living in two cities an hour apart? Well, they have a lot of friends in common, it turns out. But they really have Al Gore to thank. For creating the internet.
Yep, Kim and Galen met online. On Match.com to be specific. He winked at her. She winked back. That started an email exchange. Then one fateful Friday, just a few days after they'd started emailing, Galen scored free tickets to a Brandi Carlile concert. And, as luck would have it, the friend he'd planned to go with got sick that morning. So he emailed Kim the morning of the show, knowing it was a long shot, to see if she happened to be both free and interested in trekking up to Seattle that night to see the show with him.
And then he waited.
And waited.
And then he got a phone call. At 5:30pm.
It was Kim, calling with tremendous excitement. She had just seen the email after getting home from work (the government doesn't hold truck with people accessing untrustworthy websites like Yahoo! at work), and she wanted to go! Galen didn't know it at the time, but she was excited not only to hear Brandi Carlile live, but she was also SUPER excited to meet this interesting guy she'd been emailing. November 2, 2007 seemed to hold great promise!
They planned to meet at the Paramount Theater whenever Kim could make it. The show started at 7:30, and who knew what traffic would be like on a Friday. But Brandi smiled upon the young people and helped Kim drive up the freeway in record time (they later referred to this as "the Brandi effect"). After a fantastic show, they decided to move to a nearby bar to continue the conversation they'd started between songs. When they finally said goodbye that night, they made plans to see each other the next day.
And the rest, as they say, is history, full of lots of laughter, bikes (Galen built Kim a beautiful bicycle), cooking (Kim cooks fantastic food), adventuring, and love.
To be continued....