When people ask how we met, my wife and I always exchange a big smile with each other. We know our story will always be the best one in the room. We met on a cross country trip where she was driving from Denver to California by way of Seattle with her friend Linda. I was driving from Maryland to Alaska by way of Denver and Seattle with my friend Nick.

She was dating a marine stationed in Seattle; I was dating a girl in the air force academy in Colorado Springs. My friend Nick and I drove his jeep Cherokee and camped as we went. It was our first trip west and we were blown away by the Rocky Mountains, but after several days of camping through Wyoming and Montana, we were ready to find some other company. As we drove into Washington state, we expected to find a lush rainforest, but we were near Spokane and it was a really hot day.

There were dust devils on the sides of the roads, grooves in the pavement, and we started to see overheated cars by the sides of the roads. Nick and I actually said to each other, "Wouldn't it be cool if there were a couple girls broken down so we could stop and help them?"

Over the next hill, low and behold, there were two girls broken down. We stopped and found out they had a flat tire and were having trouble getting the lug nuts loose. We immediately paired off and talked to the girls we liked, Nick with Linda, and me with Sarah. She was a cute young girl in a tanktop, I was a guy without a shirt and with a bandana on my head. While Nick chatted, I jumped down and changed the tire.

The girls were very grateful and asked if there was anything they could do for us. They suggested we join them for dinner in Seattle, so we readily agreed. Then Sarah said she had to call ahead and let her boyfriend know what we were doing. I thought, "Darn it."

But we headed into town and went to dinner with her boyfriend, the marine, Wayne. He wasn't terribly happy about the situation, especially since we guys and the girls had lots to share all through the dinner about what we had seen driving from Denver to Seattle.

We had seen many of the same sights. Then after dinner, Nick and I made sure to lament out loud about how hard it was going to be to find a campsite this late. Sarah invited us to sleep at her aunt's house, and we again readily accepted. Nick and I slept in sleeping bags in the living room.

In the morning, Nick and I got up early because we wanted to catch a ferry to Alaska, so we wrote the girls a nice thank you note and then left, but without getting their phone numbers, and figuring we'd never see them again. When we went to get ferry tickets we found they cost too much, so we changed the plan, and stayed in Seattle a few days.

The next day we did some sightseeing around town, and started doing the same the following day, when we pulled up at a red-light. The car behind us honked and we looked back, and it was the girls - by coincidence they had pulled up behind us at a light and recognized our car!

Well, it turned out that Sarah's boyfriend was at the base for the day, so we offered to keep them busy. We bought picnic supplies and then took a short ferry out to one of the islands. We played and swam on the beach, ate our picnic lunch, and had a great time talking. On the ferry ride back, Sarah and I snuggled up together and talked, and talked.

Then we went back to the motel where Nick and I were staying, and while our friends got some privacy in the motel room, Sarah and I decided to take a walk outside. We ended up sitting on a curb with my arm around her. Then I gave her a little shoulder massage while we talked, and I longed to kiss the back of her neck, but since she had a boyfriend, and I had a girlfriend, we just talked. She ended up giving me her phone number and said that if things didn't work out in Colorado Springs, and if I wanted to extend my vacation, I could drive her car to San Francisco.

I thought that wasn't likely but I thanked her and we hugged goodbye as her tussle-haired friend emerged from the motel.

The next morning I then flew back to Colorado and spent a few days with my sometimes girlfriend at the Air Force Academy, but she decided to tell me that the long-distance relationship wasn't working for her. I called Sarah and told her I would drive her call out after all.

She called her dad and said that a boy named Rob would come to pick up her car. He asked who I was and she realized she didn't even know my last name, but she told him I was very nice and had changed her tire for her.

My now ex-girlfriend dropped me off at Sarah's dad's house, and I had as quick of a conversation as possible with her dad and step-mom, before hopping in her car and driving off toward California. I then spent three days sightseeing with Sarah and Linda. On the boat ride back from Alcatraz, I finally got to kiss that neck and those lips I had been longing for.

Later, back at the house we talked and kissed and kissed and talked and stayed up half the night. But all too soon, I had to leave, so I flew back home. Sarah's mom said, "He was a nice boy, but he probably won't be the one you end up with."

But then her phone bill went up quite noticeably over the next few months.

After many letters and poems flying back and forth between Maryland and California, we were both pretty obsessed with each other, so I decided I would move out to California. We made plans for Sarah to fly out to visit me before Christmas. But the day before she was supposed to fly out and drive back with me she called on the phone. She sounded distracted and sad.

As the conversation developed, she expressed major doubts. It turned out that she thought I was too much of a party guy, and drank and smoked too much. Also, she had been dating another guy and she wasn't sure, but she thought she might like him a lot also. One day before I moved out, she broke up with me.

The next few months were the blackest and most difficult of my life, especially because I was so convinced we were meant to be together. I also quit smoking and cut back on my drinking, and few months later I decided to send her a letter. She sent back a letter, and then letters and poems started flying again. Then she told me she had had a dream where I flew out to see her but I was wearing yellow Converse high-tops. So I ran out and bought a pair of Converse high-tops and spray painted them yellow.

Then I wrote and committed to memory three poems. Then I flew out to see her, stepped off of the plane and became the 'man of her dreams'. Two months later, she packed up her things and drove her car across the country and moved in with me in Maryland.

We are now married and have now been together for 15 years with 3 beautiful kids added to the picture, but we are still passionately and romantically in love!