Held on September 5, 2009
Originally two people signed up to attend the NAVBA Annual Picnic but only one person showed up. At first I was a little disappointed but I realize that it was the holiday weekend and many of our members live outside Colorado. However, everything turned out for the best. Since Robin Harvey was the only VBA to show up, I had the opportunity to get to know Robin on a personal level. This would have never happened if she would have been part of a group. Robin also agreed that all of this happened for a reason.
Besides, Robin and I had an absolute blast. We began the day taking a tour of Manitou Springs. This little community of about 5,000 people was bombarded with tourists over the Labor Day weekend. There were celebrations being held on almost every street corner of this cool little town. But since I am a local resident, I was able to take Robin to less crowded places that tourists do not go. She loved it.
After the Manitou Springs tour I took Robin to the Garden of the Gods. In fact, I bring everyone to the Garden of the Gods when they come to visit me. This is one of the most awesome places you can see in Colorado Springs and admission is free. Since words cannot describe the beauty of this area, if you are interested in viewing photos of the Garden of the Gods, visit:
http://www.gardenofgods.com/
Next, we drove to Cripple Creek, Colorado. Cripple Creek is a smaller version of Las Vegas and was filled with a lot of excitement. Although Robin and I do not gamble, we knew the restaurants would serve good food since they cater to a gambling type crowd. Our suspicions were right; the pizza and salad were excellent and we were there to hear someone win $9,485.00 in cash while we were eating. It was exciting!
As we were leaving Cripple Creek we noticed a history tour of the town by train. We took the trip and it was so much fun. The train tour took us up to the 10,000 foot (above sea level) mark. We viewed a lot of different gold mines and most of them generated from $2 million to as high as $37 million for their owners. The mines generated gold from the early 1800s until just before World War II. That is a long time!! So, when you hear the phrase [There is gold in them there hills] you can believe it.
Other than the gold mines, the thing that amazed me was the difference in the atmosphere at 10,000 foot versus 5,000 foot (the altitude in Denver). The trees are much thinner, the temperature drops significantly and there are absolutely no bugs flying around. Additionally, the wind constantly blows but the views of the mountain ranges are so magnificent that I did not care. When I look at this type of beauty that is beyond words I always acknowledge God as the greatest artist in existence. His work is always awesome but I think it is especially awesome at 10,000 foot above sea level.
By this time Robin and I were both very tired. We drove to downtown Colorado Springs and ate dinner at the Phantom Canyon Brewing Company. In my opinion, this place has the best fish and chips dinner in southern Colorado. Check out their website at:
http://www.phantomcanyon.com/
The next day, Robin had to leave to go back to California. I drove her to the Denver airport so that we could spend some extra time together. I was so impressed with Robin. She has been with 713Training.Com since the early days (2004.) Although she may not have decided to take an active part into building her virtual bankruptcy assistant business until now, she has purchased all the training products, followed all the discussions, subscribed to all the newsletters and even has a print out of all these materials which are placed into binders and categorized in her office. Wow! I was totally impressed that she cared so much about her career that she went to these measures to preserve the training materials. This was why I offered her a choice of Board Member positions within the VBA. There is no doubt that Robin will work hard to help the NAVBA grow. Take a moment and view her photo and contact information at:
http://navba.org/BoardMembers
Summary
This was the first NAVBA Annual Picnic that we have had for the organization and it turned out to be more successful than I could imagine. Hopefully you can attend next year. I plan to have them either in September or October, but I will make sure that next year I do not hold it on Labor Day when so many tourists are visiting the area.
