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Published: December 8th 2013
Back on June 19th I received the following message from
Maisondubonheur: "Hi Bob, I'll be in Beaver Creek for two nights, the 5th and 6th December...hopefully having some snow and skiing all day long the 5th, 6th and 7th December. Will you be far away? Regards, Pierre-Alexandre." Just how he knew he would be in Colorado in December when the two weeks prior to arriving would include Sudan, Dubai, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Scottsdale, and the Grand Caymans, I'll never know. But never one to miss an opportunity to meet a fellow Travelblogger and fellow Moderator, I responded positively.
My friend is not a normal Travelblogger. As indicated by his itinerary above, he is probably the most traveled blogger we have. In a six month period he visited all seven continents, and given that the seventh, Antarctica, is really hard and expensive to get to (although a number of spammers seem to have moved there), that's not shabby! Besides, he was one of the first to Follow me, so I was looking forward to meeting this amazing person
A couple weeks ago, my daughter Rosanna, who lives in Virginia, brought to my attention a Christkindlmarkt being held in Denver. She
Christkindlmarkt in Denver
Bob warming up with gluhweinknew that having lived in Germany for seven years, and having visited most Christkindlmarkts during our time there, we would definitely be interested. I was looking forward to some gluhwein! It's interesting that I find out about local events from my daughter in Virginia. It made sense to add that to my plans for the day.
6 December 2013 Friday. I had a number of errands to run before heading up to Denver. I took Linda to Choices, a pregnancy resources center where she volunteers on Friday mornings. While she was there, I met at Starbucks with a citizen who had questions about the proposed Woodland Aquatic Project. After dropping Linda home, I drove to Colorado Springs to visit my Mom in her nursing home...a bit late to have lunch with her. She loves for me to read to her as she is blind. We finished reading J. Maarten Troost's humorous book "Lost on Planet China." Then I was off to the H&M store to find a dress for each of my daughters as a Christmas present. I couldn't find parking at the local mall so headed to several malls in Denver. There I learned that the dress in
question was a limited edition designer dress, which sold out the first day. Hmmm...
Time was marching on so I drove to the Christkindlmarkt venue in downtown Denver. Amazingly I found free parking nearby. The market was very small by German standards, only about a dozen stalls selling German items, but they did have a heated tent where I enjoyed a mug of gluhwein. This warmed me up as the temperature outside was 9 F or -13 C. After finishing my gluhwein, I drove to the airport hotel where I would meet for Peter (short for Pierre-Alexandre) for dinner at 7 pm.
As Peter was checking in, I tapped him on his shoulder. There was immediate recognition and rapport although we had never met before. This is what is so great about our travel centered community! He dropped his bags off at his room and then we walked a minute to the nearby Ted's restaurant where the specialty is bison raised on Ted Turner's ranches. Friday nights are very crowded, with a 35 minute wait for a table, so we ate at the bar (a bison burger for him and bison meatloaf for me).
Peter is turning
40 next week (Happy Birthday!!!), a significant milestone in anyone's life, so this provided the setting for our conversation. Our talk soon turned pretty philosophical. We shared about relationships...especially our kids (Peter is a great dad to Leslie and Tiffany); what it is like for him to be a global citizen, able to live anywhere and to travel most of the year for business and pleasure...and how this impacts his children; what our passions are...both of us are passionate about travel, which we could have talked endlessly about; our common backgrounds, he is from Belgium and lives in Thailand, and I was born and raised in Thailand and lived in Belgium; and as Moderators for Travelblog how it meets our needs and our thought on its future success.
Soon it was 10 pm and time to go, with Peter having to be at the airport at 6 am for a flight to Hong Kong and with me having a two hour drive home in snow. We agreed that our paths must cross again.
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Maisondubonheur
Pierre-Alexandre
Great to meet you Bob!
Wow, that's a blog! Am I allow to draw a tear or tow? Thanks to drive all the way to Denver. I had a really great evening with you...and sure we shall meet again pretty soon...somewhere. Made it to HK...and the little ones are back with me tomorrow night...I cannot wait!