I met my now girlfriend in America last summer (2014), me and a friend had booked a trip through a company called TrekAmerica and we were travelling around the West Coast visiting places such as San Diego, LA, Salvation mountain, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, San Francisco etc.
On the 4th of July we rolled into Las Vegas which everyone was looking forward to as it was our first night in a hotel after 3 nights of camping in the hot weather of Lake Havasu in Arizona then onto two cold nights in the Grand Canyon. The first night was a crazy night on a party bus being driven down the strip with my trek buddies all drunk it was good fun and everyone had a great time!

The next day was a free day so we could do what we wanted and most of us spent the day shopping and going round all the casino’s collecting $1 chips as souvenirs, that evening most the group decided to go to see a magic show but it wasn’t my sort of thing so I decided just to have a little walk down Freemont street and watch the world go by, it was really busy and there was a lot going on, I ended up going down some random streets and ended up getting lost (not my best move!!) as there was a lot of people around I couldn’t remember my way back to the hotel.

I decided to ask someone for directions and the first guy I asked couldn’t help as he was going the other way, I ended up just looking around and spotted my now girlfriend Shannae and her step dad, they were talking and were slowly walking up the street in my direction, I decided to ask them for directions hoping they could help, they are both so lovely and offered to walk me back to my hotel as they were off to meet the rest of their family on Freemont street, so we set off and Shannae got really excited when she heard my accent and started telling me about how she wants to visit England and was saving up to go next summer (2015) she asked where I was from and what I was doing in Vegas, I explained to her about my Trek and we just made small talk.

We ended up back at the hotel and I was so thankful to them for walking me back and I said goodbye to them and they disappeared into the crowd, we didn’t swap any contact information or anything because I was never going to see her again right?

Wrong!! 2 weeks after I came home I decided to log onto Facebook and there was a message in my ‘others’ folder, when I opened it I couldn’t believe my eyes there was a message from Shannae saying she had seen my profile on a dating site (okcupid) and had sent a message on there but I hadn’t replied so she had spent ages looking on the TrekAmerica Facebook page looking for photos my group had put on and had tagged me in to find my profile information. That was the start of everything and we started talking every single day, we became official in October 2014 and she is getting her wish to visit England and she gets to see me too, it will be our first time officially being together as a couple and we are very excited and in June I will head back to Arizona for a month to stay and travel with Shannae round her state and a trip to California is planned too!!!!

I’m so glad I plucked up the courage to ask her and her stepdad directions, I think you are lead to have certain people In your life and you cross paths in strange ways, I sometimes think would we have met o okcupid if not in real life? Who knows but she makes me so happy and I’m so glad she is mine, we have so much to look forward to together.