Best Friends on an Adventure

The Picture that started it all!!

Best Friends...yet such Individuals!!
Four years ago, Bill and I journeyed out on yet another of our Epic Adventures - this time to the Maritime Provinces of Canada for a month: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. At a lobster festival in New Brunswick (I got my picture taken with the lobster king and it was in the local newspaper the next day), I saw a young woman walking toward me with the "coolest" shoes. They were white sneakers BUT the amazing experience was how she expressed her individuality!! The shoe laces were big and bold and different. One was flurescent pink...the other - fluorescent orange! I stopped right where I was and just looked and looked. Then I stopped her and her friend and chatted with them. I told her I found her shoelaces soooooooooo exciting and could I take a picture??!?! She and her friend laughed and said "sure". Little did I know that this picture would start me on yet another kind of epic adventure. Since then, I can't help but notice people's shoes and their styles.
I have come to realize that in one way, everyone is the same because they all wear shoes. Yet, I have also come to realize that each person is so unique and that their shoe choices express their uniqueness and individuality!!
They represent choices...comfort...appearance...color...style...types of materials...laces...velcro...slip ons...boots...heels or flats...and I could go on and on and on. Instead of using words ...yet...to tell about the shoes, I take pictures. It is so much fun to "chat people up", compliment them on their "cool" shoes and then tell them about my project. We laugh together and then they are pleased to provide me with a photo op!! Some are concerned that they haven't had a pedicure lately and only twice has anyone said no. I could almost tell before I even asked that this would happen. It's just my intuition at work.
Now, I am still finding unique shoes...like the ones I saw just yesterday at the Trenton train station and you see here. I asked if they were "best friends" out on an adventure and they immediately said "YES". I then pointed out how they could be best friends and yet express their uniqueness - boots, awesome colored sneakers and flip flops with red painted nails. It is a great conversation time for me with people (one of my favorite things to do) and people truly LOVE the attention. In my way, I am CATCHING THEM DOING SOMETHING RIGHT - making a shoe choice and expressing themselves through their choices - and I am affirming them for it!! It is such a WIN WIN situation!!