My friend Lara Schiffbauer‘s first book is entitled Finding Meara. Since I finally got to meet last week after several years of online friendship, I thought I’d entitle this blog about that meeting “Finding Lara.”

When we planned our vacation to visit my sister and her family in Washington and Montana, one of my first thoughts was that I’d finally get to meet Lara. We would drive from Billings, Montana, to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and spend the night there. Wrong!

Little did I know that Cheyenne’s famous Frontier Days began last Friday—the night we intended to stay there. What few motel rooms were available were priced at double or triple their regular rates due to the demand from rodeo-goers who gather from all over the country for this event. We drove on down to Loveland, Colorado, to stay in a room that was only overpriced rather than ridiculously obscene.

Anyhow, we did arrange to meet Lara and her family at the Outback Steakhouse for supper. It was conveniently near I-25 and easy to find.

Lara posed for pictures with me after dinner. In the photo below, my wife Sharon joined Lara and me and Lara’s husband Rory and sons Spencer and Blake.

In addition to her book mentioned above, Lara blogs every Friday with funny photos of animals. Click her name to see her blogs. She also works full time as a social worker in addition to keeping house and raising two boys.

Several years ago Lara joined a group I belonged to called the Life List Club, which was founded by Marcia Richards and Jess Witkins. I’ve never met Marcia in person, but I’ve met Jess and Jenny Hansen, another club member, and now I’ve met Lara, too.

When I finished Fancy, the first volume of my novella series by the same name, Lara volunteered to edit it for me. Since then, she has edited each of the other volumes as well as the first volume of another series which I haven’t published as yet—and she has not asked for a penny for doing all of this. Her suggestions have been invaluable to me, not to mention her doing it for free.

The dinner was enjoyable. Spencer and Blake were probably less than thrilled to donate their time to meet with a couple of strangers, but they were friendly and well-behaved anyhow. Rory works for the state of Wyoming, but we were at opposite ends of the table and didn’t get to visit much. Actually, I guess Lara and I sorta ignored the rest of the group as we talked about writing.

It was a fun time, and it was great to meet this wonderful lady who has been so supportive of my writing. She keeps promising to let me help her with some editing when she gets her next book finished.

What social media friends have you met in person? Which ones would you most like to meet?

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.