Every summer an estimated quarter of a million Jews go up to the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York to enjoy a respite from the busy and noisy city. A majority of these Jews live in bungalow colonies (a cluster of small rental summer homes—wikipedia.org). These colonies typically have a pool, a central clubhouse and a bunch of cottages. Almost like mini-villages, everyone knows everyone.

Before we headed out to the bungalows, we went to Wal-Mart to purchase necessities for our stay. The very first person we met in the Wal-Mart, the greeter by the door, happened to be Jewish. (So far so good :-))

In one colony, we discovered that the owner was Jewish. He told us that his mother is in a nursing home in Jacksonville, FL. One of my best friends, Adam, is going to rove there in a few days, so I offered to ask Adam to pay her a visit. He loved that idea and gave me her name and contact information to pass on.

This past Friday, we went to a town called Rock Hill. Believe it or not, we got lost! We were driving on an unfamiliar road when we realized that we had no idea where we were. We pulled into a driveway to make a u-turn and discovered that we drove right into a bungalow colony. We figured that the reason why we got lost was because we had to go to this colony.

We got out of the car and met the owner/manager. We asked her if she was Jewish, and she answered yes. We asked her if she lights Shabbat candles, and she said no. We gave her some and she promised she would light them that night.

We then proceeded to meet a bunch of nice Israeli and Russian Jewish vacationers.

So we never made it to our desired bungalow colonies for the day, instead G‑d had other plans—taking us to a colony that wasn't even on the map!