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What happens to a sunken fishing boat or a thirsty truck driver? And what got into Burt Reynolds? The Quest Express continues the wild ride with the authors of Growing Up Aspen: Adventures of the Unsupervised. Buckle up for more stories of four kids who grew up in Aspen in the 70's and 80's... before the paparazzi knew their town.

Inside this episode:

• The significance of Fleetwood Mac's Landslide
• John Denver, Ted Bundy & the pranks of Hunter S. Thompson
• Another gift from Covid that keeps on giving
• The Paepke's Touch
• Aspen's evolutionary timeline
• The influence of community on formative years
• The Tao of Dean
• What to see & do in Aspen

For more info:
Andy Collen: Happy Trails Animation
Lo Semple: Lo's Column in the Aspen Daily News
Dean Jackson: So I Married A Tour Guide Blog
Chris Pomeroy: About Chris

Episode mentions:

1. Don't Get Mad, Get Even by Jack Brendlinger
2. Woody Creek Tavern
3. Jazz Aspen Snowmass - Aug 30, 31, Sept 1
4. Food & Wine Classic Aspen - Next June 20-22, 2025
5. Tyrolean Lodge
6. Aspen Meadows - 98-suite resort
7. The Gant Aspen Resort at the base of Aspen Mountain
8. Hotel Jerome | Auberge Resorts Collection
9. Aspen Snowmass Ski & Snowboard Lessons

For more info about our private events

Next week: Greg Poschman, Pitkin County Commissioner

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Website: https://www.thequestexpress.com

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Say Hi: host@thequestexpress.com

Music Credits: INTRO: Loyalty - Philip Ayers | OUTRO: Grasshopper's Dance - Etienne Roussel

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Read Growing Up Aspen now >> PURCHASE HERE on Amazon
Meet Lo, Dean, Chris & Andy:

LO SEMPLE

Lo arrived in Aspen in 1974 in the back of his parents green Volvo station wagon. He currently writes a local column every Saturday for the Aspen Daily news, and can be spotted around town or on the bike trails and ski mountains of Aspen and Snowmass.

He also helps travelers from all over the world via Suit Yourself, Aspen's mobile skiwear outfitters—renting skiwear for over 25 years.

DEAN JACKSON

In another life, Dean Jackson was a professional actor, voice-over artist, and puppeteer. While living the life of a starving artist in New York City was an adventure, that life transitioned into a more traditional career once he got married and discovered that Ramen was not a lifestyle choice.

Dean and his lovely wife, Kyra, now live in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has managed high-rise buildings and since applying those skills to create the project management division of a local community management company, is the point-person for managing their team and a multitude of community living challenges. He wrote for an industry magazine for sixteen years, and wrote the travel blog, “So I Married a Tour Guide.” He has begun dabbling in voice work and acting once again.

In their spare time, Dean and Kyra enjoy traveling, gardening, reading, listening to Jazz, and slow dancing in the kitchen.

CHRIS POMEROY

Chris was born in the mountains and raised from infancy in Aspen, Colorado. He left the valley in the 1990s to pursue a career in Newspaper management. He worked at three newspapers over the span of a decade, The Aspen Times, the Fort Collins Coloradoan, and the AthensBanner-Herald. He shifted away from the industry in the early

2000s with a short stint in agency work, and then to his current job of 15+ years, consulting in Internet Banking for Digital Insight, Intuit, and now NCR.

He has won many awards for campaigns, layout, and illustration throughout the years, and has done illustrations for national companies, newspapers, and magazines for a myriad of uses.

When not “slaving for the man” he has worked in the art of animation, one of his true passions, for the better part of 30 years. As any animator can tell you, animation is a love of the art and the art of sacrifice.

He currently resides in Athens, Georgia with his wife, two sons, a dog, cats, and a bunch of fish.

ANDY COLLEN

Andy cut his entrepreneurial teeth at the age of 16 by becoming Burton Snowboard’s first Aspen distributor. After his college years, he discovered a culture of independent animators in Portland, Oregon, and moved there, working at Teknifilm, the local 35mm film processing lab while connecting with the local artists and studios. He freelanced for Will Vinton Studios (Claymation, California Raisins, The PJs), Blashfield Studio (Photo cut-out, MTV music videos), and mentored with Tom Arndt of Merlin’s Hammer.

Andy met Amy Blumenstein while producing It’s About Peace, a collaborative short film that Amy and many other local artists contributed animated scenes to. Andy and Amy soon married (at the Portland Z

Support the Show.

Website: https://www.thequestexpress.com

Feedback Survey: https://forms.gle/6yMieXo2iGEE1Qmr9

Say Hi: host@thequestexpress.com

Music Credits: INTRO: Loyalty - Philip Ayers | OUTRO: Grasshopper's Dance - Etienne Roussel

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ASPEN: We sit down with Valery Moore Kelly, Founder & Creative Director of Snowlight Arts in Aspen. With fond memories of how Aspen used to be, we discuss how Aspen inspired her love of nature, art & community.

Episode mentions:

• Snowlight Arts
• Aspen Emporium Gift Shop & Artisan Collective
• Intersect Art Aspen Art & Design Fair

BIO:
Valery Moore Kelly, founder and creative director, was born and raised in Aspen, Colorado. She nurtures her artistic practice and hones her creative expression in her studio & home office, downstream from Aspen, in the Crystal River Valley,

Valery’s dream of creating Art and collaborating with fellow Artists and Art Collectors is coming to life with SnowlightArts.com. She curates Art to add to Snowlight Art’s online gallery, connecting Artists and their creative process to the development of human consciousness. She wants to live in a world where people share a diversity of sensory experiences that bring a meaningful unity to their lives.

Valery writes, “Art provides a holistic and dynamic approach to being consciously human. Reflecting on Nature’s beauty lifts my spirits. I crave colors of sunrise, grey pebbles in the creek, umber bark on trees. I delight in sunlight on water. I yearn for the mystery and beauty of peaks. Horizons and hillsides pour into valleys, drawing me deeper in. Freedom of expression arises most clearly when I am active in pure contemplation.

My response to Nature contrasts to my automatic reaction to politics and news. Golden autumn leaves, distant indigo peaks, a farmhouse roof in red-orange, each align my vision of this complex and complicated life. I seek calm in clouds, reflected in the ripple of river eddy.

I long for uncomplicated days of my youth in Aspen, waking late on a summer morning, the sun high and hot, cumulus building, snow melting, fields greening, dandelions bursting yellow, cool breeze in shadow of scrub oak. Color of life-energy rising from roots into aspen trunks. Weariness and inevitability of today’s news cycles contrasts with the innocence of my youth amidst the beautiful contour of mountains and peaks.

How can I be responsive? Less reactive? What is my natural being? How can I employ my imagination and intuition to comprehend reality? Art offers a way to develop my senses and my inner capacity to live in a sacred manner. When I delve deeply into the heart of my being, there dwells freedom.”

SnowlightArts.com will take you on a journey of discovery to Find Inspiration. Please join Valery and SnowlightArts and our growing community of Artists.

To discover how Art and expression can connect you to a creative community, please follow us on social media @snowlightarts, and join our email newsletter here.

Contact The Quest Express: host@thequestexpress.com

Support the Show.

Website: https://www.thequestexpress.com

Feedback Survey: https://forms.gle/6yMieXo2iGEE1Qmr9

Say Hi: host@thequestexpress.com

Music Credits: INTRO: Loyalty - Philip Ayers | OUTRO: Grasshopper's Dance - Etienne Roussel