I balanced my half of the “little friends” on the welcome plate of chocolate-dipped strawberries on the bedside tray that had been left for me by the hotel manager, replacing his welcome note to me with one for my boyfriend. He was due to arrive while I was getting a Nordic Princess massage at Stein Eriksen Lodge’s spa in Deer Valley, Utah.
Vic and I were meeting up for a close of the ski season weekend in late March. In fact, the only times I saw my boyfriend were on rendezvous such as these as I live in Los Angeles and he in Tucson. We’d met each other a few years prior on a mountain biking/river rafting/elephant safari/trekking the Himalayas multi-sport trip with REI Adventures in Nepal. We shared the same love of adventure and our long-distance relationship consisted mainly of traveling together.
The “little friends” collection began when we started referring to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. It was just before a hiking/cycling/kayaking trip to New Zealand over Christmas. I’d given him a card with a miniature Santa glued to the front. “Secret Santa,” he would soon be called, as he mysteriously appeared in unsuspecting places—peering out of a fleece pocket while hiking Mt. Cook or cinched into the harness on one of three bungee jumps we did in Queenstown.
At a roadside stop after sea kayaking in the Milford Sound, Vic got on the bus with a second new friend, a kiwi finger puppet launching what would become a collection of travel mascots.
“Liddo lamb” joined the gang symbolizing the near-miss sacrificial lamb we worried about all night on New Years’ Eve. We could hear him baaa-aaaing all night too close to a bonfire across the street from our lodge not far from Paparoa National Park. The lamb had been vandalized by what looked to be tourists with Swiss army knives hatching square patches of wool from his coat. Fearing we’d awake to the lamb on his side keeled over from smoke inhalation the next morning, I kept begging Vic to go free him during the night. He survived and while I wanted to bring him back with me to Los Angeles, it seemed more practical to carry a three-inch lamb with a hand-sewn smile instead. We went thru the entire basket looking for a perfectly symmetrical smile before arriving at “Liddo.”
