An Alaskan cruise seven years ago resulted in longterm friendships that spans long distances.
By chance, Oklahoma sisters Gayle Rodebush (Eufaula), Susan Carner (Mounds), and Patty Luther (Bristow) met British residents Laura and Nicholas Warner.
They have been exchanging visits ever since.
Laura was in Eufaula recently visiting the sisters and their husbands while her own husband had to remain in Cambridge Shire, England to work. Normally, he would have joined the group.
The friendships began at breakfast one morning in August 2017, at the Merritt Hotel in Seattle, Washington.
The cruise ship was to depart from there.
The hotel was packed. “We wanted to have breakfast,” Laura said.
The dining room was packed but Nicholas saw a table with only two people, who happened to be Susan and Joe Carner, from Mounds, south of Tulsa.
Nicholas asked if they could join them, and the rest is history.
“We were chatting and found out we were going on the same cruise,” Laura said.
After breakfast, they parted company and thought they would never see each other again.
“But then we kept bumping into each other on the cruise,” Laura said.
All three sisters were on the cruise.
“We made arrangements to be together at every meal,” she said.
“I think we closed the restaurant down that first night,” Gayle Rodebush said. “We laughed and talked our heads off.”
During the course of the conversation they learned that Laura and Nicholas were going to be at Disney World in Florida at the same time in October.
“This started a beautiful friendship,” Laura said.
This is Laura’s fourth trip to Oklahoma.
Susan and Patty went to England for the first time last year to visit with Laura and Nicholas, who own an electronics company.
To make them feel at home, Laura and Nicholas celebrated the Fourth of July with them with barbecue and a special cake.
“The cake was in the shape of a cruise ship. One side said HMS Friendship. The other side said USS Friendship,” Laura said.
This November the Warners will come to Oklahoma and celebrate Thanksgiving.
“I’ve never experienced Thanksgiving before,” she said.
But this trip she did attend a graduation ceremony in Mounds.
Laura loves Oklahoma.
“If we had never met our friends, we would never have come here,” she said.
She isn’t too keen on the weather. Too much air conditioning, which chills her.
“She carries a sweater with her everywhere,” Gayle said.
There are a few differences between Oklahoma and Great Britain.
People here use washers and dryers.
People in Cambridgeshire use clotheslines to dry their clothes. “Freshly washed clothes dried in fresh air,” is what Laura prefers. “I can’t understand why it’s not done here.”
She likes going to Walmart.
“I love walking down the baking aisle. I love to pick up things that we can’t get back home,” she said.
She is surprised at how much some things cost here, like potatoes.
“Potatoes are very expensive. I bought some for corned beef hash. It shocked me how much it cost,” she said.
Since coming to Oklahoma her friends have taken her to the Tabbouleh Festival in Bristow.
“I didn’t know what tabbouleh was,” Laura said.
She has been to the Murrah Federal Building Monument in Oklahoma City.
She visited the Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma Store in Tulsa.
“That was special for me,” she said.
In England Girl Scouts is called Girlguiding. Laura volunteers with Girlguiding.
“I teach Brownies, girls 7 to 10,” she said.
And she has been to the Pioneer Woman Mercantile and restaurant in Pawhuska and to the 433,000 acre Drummond ranch in Osage County where the Pioneer Woman Lodge is located.
