One of the more serendipitous chairlift rides I’ve taken was on the Silver Queen Gondola in Aspen on 7 March 2013. I get in the singles line and breeze on in to a gondola, and a dude a few paces behind me in a red jacket gets on with me, we sit across from each other. He takes off his goggles, it’s Joel Cummins! Keyboardist for Umphrey’s McGee! See, that’s why I was skiing at Aspen that day, I was seeing the band that night at the Belly Up club.

The Silver Queen Gondola is a 15 minute ride on a good day. So we shot the shit, had a very pleasant conversation. Found out he had a degree in theology from Notre Dame and was *gasp* an atheist. We took a couple of runs. We got someone to take our picture.

(this was taken on my old iPhone 4S, I put all the pictures on a couple of hard drives before I replaced the phone, I don’t know why it’s sideways)

I tweeted the picture, he retweeted it to his followers. Folks at the show that night recognized me, “You went skiing with Joel!”

Completely by accident.