I wonder if anyone will believe me. I assure you it is all true! It happened just a year ago, 2025, early fall. I’d been single for over a year, so I decided to try OurTime.com; a dating site for seniors.

His name was Charlie, maybe ten years younger than me, who wrote more in his profile than most men and was willing to hike with me. We met at a restaurant halfway as we lived four hours apart, me in upstate New York, and he in rural Pennsylvania.

So, after sharing an easy conversational brunch, we decided to explore our adventurous side as he looked up a trail to waterfalls, with which I share a love affair for many years. The Trail map showed a seven miler I was interested in when asking, “Are you up for this distance?” He was probably twenty pounds overweight as I wondered. He assured me with a confident yes.

With water bottles and cell phones in hand, we find the first waterfall after hiking 3 miles of mostly flat terrain, wandering at times along a forested creek. We sit for some time to absorb the flowing waterfalls floating whiteness and musical harmonies. Hiking on what we knew to be a loop, we turned and eventually came to another creek wearing waterfalls, I was excited. As the afternoon becomes dusk, Charlie checks his phone as to our location, as we should have arrived back at his car by then. We find ourselves 3 miles off course.

We are lost.

I see a wide opening of telephone lines, after passing a deer stand shelter where Charlie suggests we could stay overnight if we needed to – keep each other warm – as the temperature would drop into the forties. Really?

In the open field, Charlie calls 911. The dispatcher can locate us and sends a fire truck, and an ATV 4-wheeler that reaches us at twilight, chilly, as we were motored to several vehicles, including an ambulance.

When the RN says we’ll take you back in the ambulance, I say I cannot afford to pay for an ambulance.

She replies, “it will be free.”

As we ride, Charlie and I tell our ‘lost story,’ laughing as we say nearly in unison, “what an amazing first date!”