Luray accommodations - Jeff and Julena's wedding

OUR STORY

OK, since you came to this page it must mean you REALLY want to hear these stories! Here we go…

Jeff’s story:

The first time I remember meeting Julena was at work a couple of weeks after I arrived at my new job in Shenandoah National Park. A number of rangers were called to a medical emergency on the Dark Hollow Falls Trail. I was riding with park ranger/medic John Patmore and we started down the trail first. After a short hike to reach the sick person John called for extra people to help since we determined that we were going to have to carry the person out of the woods on a litter. Enter Julena! Julena and a few of her employees from the visitor center arrived with the litter. I didn’t know what Julena’s search and rescue experience was but it was obvious that she was in charge. We prepared the patient and walked her out. After the call I asked John if Julena was single. Of course, the answer was NO.

After that day I didn’t see much of Julena for another year or so. One day I remember driving down the road near the visitor center and seeing Julena and another girl pass by in her car. As we passed each other I could see that Julena started laughing when she saw that it was me. At least that is what I thought. A few days after that I was called to the visitor center for a call of an injured person. After I was done with the call I went back inside to ask the staff a few more questions about the incident. This is when Julena asked me if I had heard about her dream. I had no idea what she was talking about and asked “what dream”? She then told me she had a dream about me a few weeks earlier and had told some people about it and she assumed that they had told me. Now, of course, my interest was piqued and she had my full attention. To this day I still don’t know the exact details of the dream but I knew enough then to start visiting the visitor center (i.e. Julena) on a daily basis.

After weeks of “visiting” we finally got around to discussing our doing something together outside of work. Shortly after, Julena asked me out (this should come as no surprise to those who know me!). We met for dinner and went to a movie on our first date. As Julena likes to say “it was like going on a date with my brother”. I guess I didn’t make much an impression but I was able to get a second date. Since you are reading this you know that things worked out just fine from there!

Julena’s Story:

I also remember meeting Jeff on that carryout in June of 2002. After arriving on scene and watching him package the patient in the wheeled litter, I remember thinking to myself, “hhmm…that cute new guy looks like he knows what he’s doing”. But I’m sure that what I actually said out loud was something more like, “Where’d you learn to tie knots like that? That’s not the way we do things here in Shenandoah”!

Over the next year, Jeff and I went to several of the same parties and had many mutual friends, but we never talked to each other. I was dating someone else during that time, and Jeff, being the ‘strong silent type’ that he is, never spoke to me that I can remember. So, it is rather surprising that over a year later, I had my now infamous dream. I was battling flu like symptoms in July and actually went to the doctor for antibiotics the day before my dream. I’m claiming it was the meds that helped produce my vivid dream that night.

So I remembered the dream later that day while at a SHEN employee picnic. Of course, I shared some details of the dream with my co-workers sitting at the table with me. A number of them were friends with Jeff also, and mentioned how red his face would turn when they told him. It was such a random dream and I honestly thought several of those folks would have fun telling Jeff and getting his crimson response. News travels quickly ‘round these parts, and I spent the next week or so confirming that I did in fact have that dream to many other coworkers, so of course I thought Jeff had heard about it also.

This brings us back to that day at the Visitor Center when he came to fill out a report. All I did was say “by the way, that wasn’t a rumor, I really did have that dream about you”. And you’ve heard the rest of that part of the story. What Jeff left out is that he began to visit the visitor center with such regularity, that we began calling it “Martinelli Time”, since he showed up sometime around closing almost every day for a couple weeks.

Our first date at Calhoun’s Brew Pub in Harrisonburg really wasn’t that boring, I may have exaggerated a little J. Jeff was adorable though, and because he was so nervous, he didn’t even try holding my hand or stealing a goodnight kiss that evening. He did talk about his parents a lot, which I found interesting and a good sign. I was intrigued enough to ask him for the second date (ask for that story sometime, it involves a head injury!), and as you can tell, things have continued to progress nicely since then!

Jeff & Julena on windy Old Rag Mountain, Shenandoah NP
about 1 month after our first date, October 2003.