One of the things we loved the best about Jim and Laurie Hall is that they are inveterate travelers and adventurers. They are both airline pilots, though Laurie has recently “retired”, and this has given them great opportunities to see the world. They’ve got two daughters, and the whole family has gone on numerous trips, both as a family and individually. That means we have a lot to talk about – sharing stories, if nothing else!
Laurie was so delighted with what we are doing that she sat down and sent off a few emails to local media, and guess what? By return email (meaning instantaneously) she got a reply from a television station out of Orlando. She called them, made the arrangements, and less than an hour later we had a TV crew at their place, filming us! Laurie and Jim got it on tape when it was on TV later that day, so we’ll try to get it put on the website. (We haven’t figured out the video side of things yet). We were all delighted, as you can imagine, and we celebrated by going out for a massive pizza.
Check out the photos in our photo gallery of Jim standing next to the pizza – it was the size of a coffee table!
We’ve heard from Jim and Laurie recently, and they successfully sold their coffee shop and rented out their condo in Satellite Beach, and they are now in Orlando. Everything is falling into place for them really well.
We have to give both Jim and Laurie Hero of the Day for the lodging and food they supplied, along with the television coverage they managed to get for us.
And there was one final fun note – during the course of swapping stories, we told them about our time in the castle in the Czech Republic, and how we used to eat popcorn, have Snickers bars, and how I would have local Czech champagne while the kids had local sparkling cider. I told them how that tradition has continued, except that now I have Korbel Brut champagne from Costco, along with the Snickers bars.
The last evening we were there, Jim and Laurie had to go to Orlando on business, but they were back by 8 pm, and so help me – they came in carrying small bottles of Korbel Brut champagne and Snickers Bars! After laughing pretty hard, we all settled in for yet more stories, while we ate the Snickers Bars, drank the champagne, and of course, followed it up with popcorn.