MY STORY

On January 20th 2010 I departed for my Colorado adventure. Final destination is Telluride, CO. My previous employer closed our Boston office on October 31, 2009 and this seemed to be the most opportune time to do something different. My inspirations are two things really. They are both movies. First is "Into the Wild", a movie about a person who leaves his life behind to pursue a life in the Alaskan wilderness and along the way he meets people that shape his life. The second movie is "The Bucket List", a movie about two terminally ill men who escape a cancer ward with a wish list of to-do's before they die. The #1 item on the wish list is "Witness something truly majestic". My adventures are not exactly similar to these movies, but underlying themes and life changing perspectives are. As far as the location, I thank my sister for that. She lived in the beautiful & remote town of Telluride for five years and met Paul there. Their 1997 wedding was in Telluride (Trout Lake). Telluride is nestled in the dramatic Rocky Mountains of Southwest Colorado.

BLOG 101

If you are new to blogs so am I. Here is an intro. The home page http://mycoloradoadventure.blogspot.com/ has all the posts (the write ups) in order and they work so that most recent is at top of the order. i.e. Day 1, my first post/write-up, is on the bottom page of all the posts/write-ups. On the left side of the blog site there is a "Blog Archive" section where you can navigate to pick and choose year, month and then specific daily posts/write-ups. I wanted to share this in the event you are new to blogs.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Day 2 – 1/21/10 - Columbus to St Louis


“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” –
Samuel Johnson

I think it is appropriate to start off Day 2 by saying thank you to Colm’s friend Vicky for putting us up at her home. Let me take a minute to reflect and say I have a lot of respect for someone I met only 12 hours ago. Vicky is a Stage 4 breast cancer survivor. She plays it off as no big deal. She obviously has a big heart and carries a most humble approach to life. Something to note for the too many times where I feel like my life is a pain. I know some of you reading this have your own trials and tribulations. For all of my close family and friends who are going through your own personal battles, you are in my thoughts and prayers. Thanks Vicky for providing such a great perspective to Colm over the years...and me for this short time. I have no confusion now as to why Colm has known you for 7 years, but never met you until yesterday. And though I did not know it at the time, you are a reason I am travelling.

Our last pit stop in Columbus was to see this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhQSic4zm1w. That's right, "The Buckeye Brew Thru", was a beer drive thru. They even had Colt 45 in the coolers! Dad, you will happy to know they carried your Frito Lay product in the drive thru. I will now be on a mission to see why Massachusetts does not have one. We left Columbus and drove through Indiana. We wanted to drive through French Lick (home of Larry Bird) but it was too far out of the way. We also wanted to stop and tour through the city of Indianapolis, but it was raining. Sorry Mom, but I could not see the sites you mentioned from all your Indy work travels with Anthem. We did drive by Lucas Oil Stadium, home of Peyton Manning, and Colm and I both had shooting pains in our stomachs. After Indiana comes Illinois and I know we had to physically drive through Illinois, but I do not remember anything about it. Oh well, I am gonna go with it is flat…like most of Indiana. We made our way to St. Louis. Priceline put us in a nice hotel, but interestingly enough the city was very quiet for a Thursday night. Hotel seemed empty. They said the atmosphere picks up when the St Louis Blues (NHL) play. Their arena was next door to us. We tried a few bars and ended up at Bar Louie in St. Louis. It was festive. $2 Stella drafts will do this. And this is what I learned. Stella is a key product of InBev. InBev was created in 2004 from the merger of the Belgian company Interbrew and the Brazilian company AmBev. On July 13, 2008, InBev agreed to buy Anheiser-Busch for a total value of $52 billion, which would create a new company to be named Anheuser-Busch InBev. Good news is the Company kept the Anheiser Busch name. Bad news is that our great American beer company was bought by a foreign company. Funny how they were pushing $2 Stella’s in St Louis?? Don’t say my blog never taught you something! And guess what? If there is one city in our country who should be pissed off about this, it is St. Louis. I was told by a waitress never to make mention of it in St Louis. We met waitress Lauren at Bar Louie and I think she had a crush on Colm. Here she is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsO-ehN8sWE.

Good night from St. Louis.

No comments:

Post a Comment