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A Friend Dreamed I Bought an Award-Winning Gift Shop
Three Years Later it Happened
It was 2004 and the love of my life and I had recently purchased our first home. It was a fixer-upper in a remote area in the woods near the Russian River in Northern California. A tiny town called Monte Rio, where if you blinked, you missed it. The downtown area consisted of several abandoned, dilapidated buildings that hadn’t been occupied in decades. Only two establishments had open signs: a convenience store and a bar called The Pink Elephant. Although the downtown Monte Rio structures were the definition of woebegone, the town itself is situated on the breath-taking Russian River that leads to the Pacific ocean with glorious redwood forests all around.
One day my partner and I decided to take a jaunt out to the ocean. We were known for having conversations of great length covering topics that were as deeply philosophical as they were light-hearted or amusing. No subject was off-limits. We would entertain ourselves for hours talking about “what ifs”. What if we moved to the beaches in Thailand? What if same-sex marriage became legal? What if her band got famous? What if I finally got a tattoo?
