We are so excited to feature Simon as our first guest! Simon is John’s oldest grandson and Dina’s nephew. At the young age of 21, he is an inspiration to us all!
Transcript
John Simon Sr. 00:06
Simon, welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. Today we have Simon donaway, who's my grandson and Dina's nephew. So welcome to the podcast, Simon. Thank you,
Dina Simon 00:20
yay, Simon. We're super excited to have you. You're our official first guest as our inspirational family member that we wanted to have on our podcast. So we're super excited to have you.
John Simon Sr. 00:31
So to begin, Simon, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live, and what you've been doing a little bit of lately? Well,
Simon Donnaway 00:41
I just recently turned 21 I live in Durango, Colorado, and recently I've been going to school to become a helicopter
John Simon Sr. 00:49
pilot. Wow, that's now. That's inspiring.
Dina Simon 00:52
It is inspiring.
John Simon Sr. 00:53
And what made you decide to want to be a helicopter pilot?
Unknown Speaker 00:57
Well, there have been a couple different moments that have brought me to that. For one, I work as a wildland firefighter right now, and when I'm on the ground and I'm covered in soot and I'm sitting there on the back of my truck eating an MRE, and I see some dude could just fly in with their helicopter, and they're all clean and they look fresh, and the crack opens and beers on the back of the helicopter, I'm like, All right, I want to switch spots with you, you seem like you got the better job.
Dina Simon 01:24
I love that. And tell us more. So the firefighting so tell us about that.
Unknown Speaker 01:29
It's a job I started doing when I was 18 years old. I was lucky enough to know somebody who owns a wildland contracting company and doing that ever since. It's great summer job. Love it and love getting work outdoors, work with cool, interesting people,
John Simon Sr. 01:44
and when you started, what was the job that you had?
Unknown Speaker 01:47
I was firefighter type two. While I'm still a firefighter type two, but I was pretty much the ground to the truck. I was the guy that was waking up at 530 in the morning, cleaning the hole inside, getting everybody breakfast, doing all the like, all the maintenance chores. Well, my captain would go and get our daily briefing, and my other firefighter would make sure we had preparations for the day. So I was bottom of the barrel.
John Simon Sr. 02:13
Okay? And since then, you've been at what? Twice Have you moved up the ladder a little bit, little bit. I
Unknown Speaker 02:21
mean, I'm still a firefighter type too, but usually we got a rookie on our truck now, so he gets to do, I just go make sure we got water and lunches for the day. I
Dina Simon 02:31
love the term grunt on the truck. That's what you are. What's the craziest fires that you've been involved in?
Unknown Speaker 02:38
I think the most, the most recent one I was on was pretty cool. It was the mosquito fire in California. And I had, I just really liked job I had there. I was basically watching over this, this grove sequoia trees, and they're supposed, they're supposedly the northern most sequoias in the world. And so for two weeks, me and my team just worked. We prepped the area, we plumbed it with some hose line, and then we did a controlled burn in there to make sure that when the fire passed through that area, it didn't impact any of those trees.
John Simon Sr. 03:12
Wow. And and you saved every tree,
Unknown Speaker 03:15
didn't lose one. Sal,
John Simon Sr. 03:18
so do you do you believe you'll get back again this summer? I'm assuming there won't be any shortage of forest fires. Hopefully,
Unknown Speaker 03:27
I don't know, we've gotten a lot of rain out here in the West this summer, so or this winter, we got a lot of snow, and now we're getting a lot of rain. So there's a couple, there's some, there's some fires popping up. I was looking this morning, there's some that have popped up in New Mexico. Hopefully there are fires, but fingers crossed, if there are, I get called out on
John Simon Sr. 03:43
it. Now, last year, last year, you did one in Arizona, I think right, my
Unknown Speaker 03:48
first fire was in Arizona. That was the Bighorn fire that was up on Mount Lemmon. So I was right near, right next to Tucson.
John Simon Sr. 03:56
Dain is very familiar with that area. Yeah, we
Dina Simon 03:59
used to live there, so we used to, we used to go up to Mount Lemmon a lot. Yeah, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 04:03
beautiful place. It's really cool to be up there when there's a fire on top of it. I got some really cool pictures from it. I'll have to send you guys
John Simon Sr. 04:10
and Simon, when you completed that, then you took on another challenge, and that would be up in Alaska. You want to tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, the
Unknown Speaker 04:21
last, last season, I started as a greenhorn on a fishing boat out in Alaska. I do gill netting for salmon in Bristol Bay. In
John Simon Sr. 04:29
fishing terms, is that something like the grunt? Oh, big time, yeah,
Dina Simon 04:36
the grunt of the boat,
Unknown Speaker 04:37
Yep, yeah. And that was, I mean, that was a definitely a new experience, really kind of intimidating to go out there for the first time. Because we were, we were based out of King Salmon Alaska, which is a place you can't drive to, so the only way in is by boat or by plane. And like, once you're there, you're like, Okay, I'm stuck here. I'm here for six weeks. Six
John Simon Sr. 04:56
weeks, okay? And I'm assuming. The salmon. They measure it by pound Did you catch? Yep. And how many pounds of salmon Did you catch last year?
Unknown Speaker 05:07
We had our we had a record high year on our boat. We caught roughly 300,000 pounds.
Dina Simon 05:13
Wow, wow. That's crazy.
John Simon Sr. 05:17
How many other boats do you see out there doing the same thing you're doing. Oh, it's
Unknown Speaker 05:21
crazy. It's like, it's like, you know, when you're on you're in bumper to bumper traffic, like on the interstate, it's like that, but you got a bunch of fishing boats with 100 foot nets off the back and angry captains zooming around.
John Simon Sr. 05:33
So, so really, once you're out on the boat, do you ever have an opportunity to get off the boat?
Unknown Speaker 05:39
Not if things are going well. Usually if we're getting off the boat, I mean, something on the boat has broken or something, or the weather's really bad, or something is not going well for us.
John Simon Sr. 05:49
Now, do you plan on doing that again this season? Yep,
Unknown Speaker 05:53
I head out June 15 for the boat cool and how long? Another six weeks. So that's how long our salmon season is so I'll be out there till roughly August,
Dina Simon 06:02
1 nice. And are you looking forward to it? Since you did it last year was your first big experience,
Unknown Speaker 06:07
I'm definitely looking forward to it. It's like, it's type two fun. You get out there and you have miserable time. It's but, but then you like, you look back on it and you're like, Okay, I'm happy I did that. It was a good time, nice.
John Simon Sr. 06:20
And how many days, or how many hours a day are you working when you're out there,
Unknown Speaker 06:25
as many as fishing game will let us they they basically open they open it up for fishing for a certain amount of time throughout the day, and that depends on how many fish have run up the river. So start of the season, sometimes we'll only get to fish like two, three day, two, three hours a day. And by the end of the season, once they've got, like, they've got the run up river that they want, they'll open it, and then you're fishing 1820 hours a day. Wow. Okay, wow,
Dina Simon 06:52
awesome. Well, Simon, obviously your name is Simon, and you probably get this question a few times with your mother being her last name, Simon, because I know when we introduce you, when I say, my nephew, Simon, they look at me like, why is your nephew named Simon? Simon? It's like, no Simon donaway, but we love, we love that you have that name as well. Simon and I was sharing with, will you call him Pappa, but I was sharing with pappap When we did the launch of our podcast, like how cool it is that we have this name because of the Simon Says. And we get to, we get to use that from a branding perspective. But I decided want to call that out that Simon donaway on our Simon Says inspire podcast. So will you share with us a little bit so you talked about most recent kind of what you're up to? Will you share with us a little bit about, you know, where you live, a little bit about your family and growing
Unknown Speaker 07:45
up? Yeah, so I live in Durango, Colorado. Absolutely love it here. Checked out a bunch of other places all over the world, and decided this is the place I want to be. Love that I've got one younger sister, and I've got my mom and dad. We've got two dogs, two cats. There's a lot of us in the small little house, but it works pretty well. And yeah, I'm living at home till I finish my flight school growing up. I mean, I technically, I was born in Texas as somebody who lives in Colorado. I choose not to say that very much.
John Simon Sr. 08:17
And I said to Granny, whenever we were attacking, I said, I'm not gonna put Simon out there by saying, Where were you born? He admitted it himself.
Dina Simon 08:26
He did. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 08:28
I've lived in Colorado pretty much as long as I can remember, in Durango. Yeah, I
John Simon Sr. 08:32
think you're about six months old whenever
Unknown Speaker 08:34
you move there, yeah, something like I, I can tell you, you have a better idea than I, yeah, I'm grew up riding racing mountain bikes around here, lots of outdoors activities, camping. Pretty much love being outside whenever I can, and it's been great. Well,
John Simon Sr. 08:51
you definitely are an outdoorsman with not only, uh, mountain biking, but you used to be a pretty good skier at one time also. But
Unknown Speaker 08:58
yeah, actually skied yesterday. Oh, you skied yesterday, Yeah, yesterday as a closing day of the season. Wow, yeah, rain got enough on that.
John Simon Sr. 09:06
Where did you go up to? Up to purgatory? Oh, wow. It's really unusual to have skiing in around the 14th of May. Yep, it's
Unknown Speaker 09:17
been a weird year, but
Unknown Speaker 09:19
take advantage of it.
Dina Simon 09:20
Yeah. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your mountain biking?
Unknown Speaker 09:24
So for a while there, that's what I wanted to do for try to make it as a professional mountain biker. I'd say I got, I got relatively close. I was racing on pretty much a semi pro level. I was racing professionally, but I didn't quite have the support to help back me up, like the financial support for companies. I was starting to get there. Starting to get there. Then I was doing a race in Kentucky, and I don't really remember what happened. I remember the gate dropping and the race starting, and next thing I know, I was in a flight for life helicopter.
John Simon Sr. 09:54
So why don't you tell tell everyone a little bit about how you ended up in Kentucky? When you went to Brevard College?
Unknown Speaker 10:02
Oh, yeah. So I, first off, I started attending Brevard College, uh, right out of high school. And I chose that school because they gave me a pretty decent scholarship for racing bikes and and they're located in North Brevard, North Carolina, which has some of the best riding in the country, and other than Durango, that is. But I was like, Okay, I gotta leave home for a little while. I can't just stay here. So I so I picked to go to Brevard college. And we were traveling for a collegiate mountain bike race. We were headed to, I can't remember the exact university it was, but there's, there's a school we race in Kentucky, and it was like they were hosting the event that weekend. So I got out there and was doing slalom racing when it happened, and made it through the first couple rounds. And I was actually, it's pretty funny, I was racing my best friend, and that's the round that I somehow crashed and broke two vertebrae, broke my skull and my collarbone.
Dina Simon 10:56
And how old were you then?
Unknown Speaker 10:58
I was 19. Wow, crazy.
Dina Simon 11:02
And as you said, you remember the gate and then all sudden, you're in the hospital. What do you remember between?
Unknown Speaker 11:09
So I remember the gate dropping. I remember was racing my buddy gunner, and I remember she dropped his chain out of the gate. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna get this like, I'm gonna win this round. That's cool. But I was like, Okay, I'm carrying some decent speed, so, like, I don't know, I'm gonna hit these couple corners fast, because it'll be fun, and then I'll, like, mellow it out and finish my race. Apparently, I didn't make it through those corners. And then next thing I know, I was getting care flighted.
John Simon Sr. 11:37
Thank God for a great medical team at Vanderbilt University in Vanderbilt, Tennessee, in Nashville. Yeah, you were in the hospital for what, four or five days only after the surgery, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 11:51
I think I was walking day after, which was pretty cool, considering that there was a while where they were like, We don't know if you're
Dina Simon 11:57
ever gonna walk. Isn't that crazy? Wow. After surgery,
Unknown Speaker 12:01
I was like, they were like, if you want to try, you can give it a shot. I
John Simon Sr. 12:05
can remember coming over there and meeting your mom, and then four or five days later, hopping in our car and driving you back to Brevard, North Carolina for so that you could continue your education. Oh yeah, I wanted to
Dina Simon 12:22
finish up that semester. Yeah, and that was your freshman year, Simon, no, this is my sophomore Okay, what's your sophomore year? Okay, couldn't remember, yeah, yeah. So crazy, terrible accident. You had a great medical team, and it sounds like you actually had a pretty decent speedy recovery, right? Like so, as you said, you were up walking, but you certainly had months of, I'm sure, physical therapy, all that kind of stuff, to get to back to somewhat of a normal life.
Unknown Speaker 12:50
Yeah. So after, after my accident, it took me about nine months to recover, I would say about so for about three months of that, I was in a neck brace and pretty much stuck in bed, and then I was able to start doing physical therapy. Physical
John Simon Sr. 13:02
therapy. And then you had to have an you had to have another surgery when you came home, though, yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 13:07
always forget about that one. Yeah. So when I was actually, when I was at Vanderbilt, they didn't. They only fixed my spine, and they gave me a neck brace for my
John Simon Sr. 13:15
only,
Unknown Speaker 13:19
yeah, for my for my skull. And then I went to back to Brevard, finished up the semester, and I was like, man. I knew I had a broken collarbone at that point, but I didn't know how bad I was. Like, man, my collarbone, like, you can kind of push in it and, like, feel it, listen, right? It was just not the way it should be. And it didn't feel like it was healing at all. I still had no use in my left arm. Back into town, and luckily, we're good friends with an orthopedic surgeon in town, Kane Anderson. He was, he's a great guy, and he, like, took one look at it. He's like, Dude, you need surgery. We got to get that thing plated. So the next week, I was able to get it plated, and then two days later I fully used to
Dina Simon 13:57
that arm. Oh, isn't that crazy? Wow. So just how lucky
John Simon Sr. 14:01
you were to have great doctors in Durango and in Tennessee.
Dina Simon 14:07
Yeah, absolutely. And so Simon, you probably have some metal in you. Oh, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 14:13
yeah, I got a titanium on my back.
Dina Simon 14:19
And do you go off when you go through metal detectors at the airport. So
Unknown Speaker 14:22
shockingly, not the airport ones, okay, the the handheld ones, like the ones you comb the beach with those. Yeah, on that out. Because after I got off the fishing boat in Alaska, my captain actually has a gold mine up there, and we just went to go mess around one day. He's like, you can keep half of whatever you find. So me and my buddy were going around with metal detector, and we kept getting really excited, like digging, like, I'd start digging a hole. We'd be like, we're finding something good. We're finding something good. And then I'd step away and it would stop beeping. Oh, we didn't find anything. It's just me. Oh, my gosh,
Dina Simon 14:55
I love it. So
John Simon Sr. 14:57
tell us a little bit about ask. After you completed your rehab and everything, and you decided to take a little time off of college and take a trip. Do you want to tell us a little about the trip that you, that you experienced? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 15:14
well, I can't take all the credit for that. I got to give my dad a lot of it, because he he's a smart guy. He realized that we were going into mountain bike race season, and, man, if I had stayed home and couldn't race, and, I mean, at that point, I was still, like, walking was about the most I could do, and that, like, if I had stayed home, I would have been I would have been no fun. I would have been really sad, not very happy.
John Simon Sr. 15:37
Now you can still bike ride now, just not competitively.
Unknown Speaker 15:41
Oh, I'm pretty much at this point in my life, I'm pretty much 100% I just can't crash like I did that day. So basically I just have to tone it down a little bit. Doctors told me I can't race anymore.
John Simon Sr. 15:51
Okay, so your dad had an idea for you, and why don't you share that with the rest of the people listening, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 16:03
And for Christmas, what I got was basically a plane ticket from Durango to London Heathrow, and then couple months later, I had a plane ticket back out of Paris, and I pretty much got that, and then I got told to figure it out. So I kind of made my own plan. Is a little bit more extreme than it should be, because I didn't plan much. I planned on my first couple days I got to London, I had a year rail pass so I could take the trains, like, had a hostel booked for like, two or three days, like, get myself sort of accustomed, and then I just started jumping into it and coming up with an itinerary on the fly as I traveled around
John Simon Sr. 16:41
and in the process of all this here, how, how did you figure out how, what you wanted to do, where you wanted to go? Well, a
Unknown Speaker 16:50
lot of it was people I met along the way. I decided to do like a solo backpacking trip, and I wanted to keep my plans pretty open in case I found a cool person to hang out with in a certain spot or and then I don't know they're going somewhere cool, hop on their travel plans for a little bit, and then find somebody else. And I like to keep it kind of loose, depending on who I met.
John Simon Sr. 17:09
So in in that two week or two month period, how many different countries did you visit? Oh,
Unknown Speaker 17:18
I don't even remember. Off the top of my head, I can look really quick.
Dina Simon 17:21
And Simon, while you're looking, um, with that like your loose plans to just kind of, you know, go and see who you meet and maybe tag along. Is that out? Is that like out of your comfort zone normally? Or is that kind of how you operate normally?
Unknown Speaker 17:36
Oh, it's definitely kind of how I how I operate. So I tour. I went through eight countries.
Dina Simon 17:43
Wow, wow. And you had a visitor at some point I did
Unknown Speaker 17:49
that was a ton of fun. I met up with app, app in Germany,
John Simon Sr. 17:53
yep. We met in we met in Munich, and we went to Switzerland and Austria, and then back to Berlin. So I was there for two weeks with them, and we did have a great time in those two weeks. I know that prior to meeting you, you, you ran into a lot of young people that you spend time with in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and I think it'd be really interesting for people to hear the story about the gentleman you ran into in in the in Prague, at the what was it like a farmer's market or a
Unknown Speaker 18:31
town? I just met him at a random Park, and he was, he was carving these little wooden statues. And I went up and asked him, about him, because I was like, Oh, those look pretty cool. And he gave me, he he gave me this little one he made of Charlie Chaplin, wow. And he was just like, so what are your What are your plans for the day? And I was like, Well, I was gonna wander around. I don't really know where I am, so I was gonna check out some of the big landmarks, go to some of the cool bars. Like, kind of feel my way around, because I had a couple days there, so I was just trying to get a lay of the land. And he was like, well, you want a tour guide? Sure? I'm like, You got nothing better to do today? And no no. So he just gets up and he had lived there for 50 years. Wow. He showed me all around the city, took me to all his favorite spots, bought me a lot of beer, a lot of food, and then we parted ways, and I asked I was I asked him. I was like, Hey, can I get your phone number or anything like, in case I ever come back, I like to hang out again, catch up, that sort of thing. And he was like, I don't have a phone. No, you can. He's like, every I can't remember. I think it was, he was like, every Sunday, I'm on this I'm on the bench. You found me at whittling sculptures. So just come there.
Dina Simon 19:46
Oh my god, I love it.
Unknown Speaker 19:49
I've got a pin where that park is if I ever go back.
Dina Simon 19:52
Oh my god, I love it. That's awesome. And how cool. How old was he?
Unknown Speaker 19:58
Oh. He was never asked, but I would say he was in his 60s,
Dina Simon 20:05
nice. And so I What a gift you probably gave to him, because he got to show you like you said to all his favorite places, and spend time you to be in that tour guide. And so as as it was amazing for you, is probably such a gift for him, too, to spend that time with you.
John Simon Sr. 20:22
Yeah, Simon, in your two months over there, can you pick one place that was your favorite and one that you would like to return to?
Unknown Speaker 20:31
Definitely, that's an easy one. Cinque Terre in Italy. I didn't even I didn't make any friends there. I didn't meet anybody. I was completely alone for my whole like, I think I spent three, four days there.
John Simon Sr. 20:46
And is that where you took the boat and you went out and went from island to island?
Unknown Speaker 20:54
Yeah, it's this little it's this Italian National Park, and it's a string of five fishing villages that are all kind of difficult to access. You can get to them pretty easily by train or boat, but you can't really get there by car along these amazing cliffsides. And there's a trail that you can walk between all of them. And there are people vending fresh wine along the way, lemon cello, like you're walking through the orchards. It's only calling for lemons.
Dina Simon 21:22
Sure, yeah, grow. I think they're grow. Maybe grow
Unknown Speaker 21:26
the Lemon Grove.
Unknown Speaker 21:29
Nice fruits being grown. And yes, you got those on one side of the cliff, and then you've got the ocean on the other side. Is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Do
John Simon Sr. 21:38
you keep in touch with any of the people that you met while you were over there? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 21:43
I actually do. I mean, when I went to Ireland, I then I made a quick detour to visit one of my friends from the UK.
John Simon Sr. 21:50
Okay, so, so you made friends that you'll have for a lifetime during your trip. Oh, definitely.
Unknown Speaker 21:57
I'm trying to get them all to come here for a little walks. I'm like, You guys love Durango, yeah. And hopefully one day we can make it happen.
Dina Simon 22:06
Nice, nice. What was the town again, in Italy?
Unknown Speaker 22:09
It's a national park. It's called the Cinque Terre,
Dina Simon 22:12
okay, and would you go back there? Is that where your favorite and you'd go back to,
Unknown Speaker 22:16
yes, I would love to go back there. It's very near. It's near, it's near PISA too, and I never got to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Sounds
Dina Simon 22:26
like we need to go back as a family. Oh, definitely,
Unknown Speaker 22:29
yeah.
John Simon Sr. 22:30
How did you like Rome? So
Unknown Speaker 22:34
I chose Rome. And a very interesting I was, I was in, I did Rome in Venice, right around Easter. Oh, wow. That was, was a mistake on my part. How crowd, how proud were they? They were so busy. I mean, I really enjoyed just wandering around Rome, but it was pretty hard for me to get reservations and everything to go into the Coliseum and go into the Vatican City and all that while I was there, just because people had been planning their trips there for months, and I was just like, Yeah, I'll go to Rome right now. I didn't even know it was Easter time, but I guess it was
John Simon Sr. 23:12
so now that all of that is behind you and you have your pilot's license for, I guess, personal use, not for commercial or anything. How much longer does it take for you to get your commercial pilot's license?
Unknown Speaker 23:31
I'm gonna, I'm gonna guess about another year. It's, it's kind of finance dependent, kind of depending on how much time I can put in. And I mean, that depends on how much money I make fishing and firefighting, yep. So if I got a good season, I'd say, or if we get a good season this summer, I'd be pretty confident in saying, I'll be done. I'll have my commercial pilot's license by this time next year. Nice. Okay.
John Simon Sr. 23:55
And then, once you have that, what are your plans?
Unknown Speaker 24:00
Well, first I'll end up working kind of a low like a bottom tier job flying tours or instructing. So I can build up sort of an hour base, and then once I develop that, that those hours, and especially turbine hours and high altitude hours, then I can move into a role doing firefighting, which is the that's like, my dream job, firefighting, or EMS or something like that. Okay, nice, some,
John Simon Sr. 24:28
something that you've already had a ride on. Yep, yeah,
Dina Simon 24:32
well, and you aren't afraid to start at the bottom and work your way up. I mean, that's the story you talked about from fighting fires and also on the boat, and so you've had that, you know, you you're willing to put the work in and grow from there. So that's awesome. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 24:48
got to get there somehow. Yeah.
John Simon Sr. 24:50
Well, the good news is, you're 21 years old. You have a lot of, a lot of time to get this going, and that's the. That's positive,
Dina Simon 25:00
yeah, yeah. And what a gift so that your dad, I'm glad he came up with the idea, Simon, because as your family, you know we all worried about you too, right? So we love you, and you went through something crazy that would would rock anybody's world, because you were so engaged in the mountain biking and to go through such a tragic accident, and all the surgeries, and just everything that you went through, and you handled it so beautifully, but I love that they sent you off during mountain biking season, because, yes, that would have been hard for you just to be home and and
Unknown Speaker 25:34
a lot of credit for that.
John Simon Sr. 25:36
Yeah, well, and yeah. The other part about it is it was not only of that, but it was covid Also, whatever you were on, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 25:44
it was covid time.
Dina Simon 25:46
Yeah, true. I didn't even think about that. So, yeah, it was during covid
John Simon Sr. 25:50
That puts a whole lot more difficult travel in it, because now you're going on trains and making sure that you have all the proper masks that you have needed. And, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 26:04
I mean, and I definitely didn't for a lot of my drag, I got yelled at a couple times for having the on grade mask. Or there were some times, especially on Italian trains, where I almost got kicked off because I couldn't find the right mask. And then some nice person next to me would just happen to have an extra or something like that when she's that, which
John Simon Sr. 26:23
is great. And I had the same thing happen to me whenever I got into Germany. I didn't have an n 95 mask. And a couple that were on the train next to me, they gave me one and I offered to pay for it, and they said, No, that's okay. We'd like you to do if you have one American dollar, we'd like to show our friends that we ran into an American today. Love
Dina Simon 26:44
it, love it, and they're in that great too. There's, there are nice people out there. I love that. Love that.
John Simon Sr. 26:50
It's amazing how many of them you ran into whenever you're traveling. And I'm sure you ran into quite a few. Simon, I know I did prior to meeting up with you.
Unknown Speaker 26:59
Oh yeah, if I didn't meet up with a lot of people I met up with, like, especially with how kind and nice and helpful they were, I might not have made it through that trip. There were some times where I was very, very lost.
John Simon Sr. 27:13
Well, I tell you what, when we were together, I was amazed at how well you handled directions. We would start walking in a town, whether it was Berlin or over in Buick or something, Simon always knew right where we were. Every minute we had a few drinks, and we would start walking back, and I would want to make a left hand turn. And he said, No, Pap, Pap, you gotta make a right hand turn here. And he has a very good sense of direction.
Dina Simon 27:38
I love that love that Simon, our podcast is about life and leadership and building legacies. And so you've given us a little bit about your life, and you have a whole lot of leadership already. I mean, you've been, you know, with with what you've done in mountain biking and your team and all of that, and then working as a firefighter. Certainly on the boat, there's a lot of teamwork, and I'm sure you've stepped up to continue to step up. From a leadership perspective, share with us what inspires you. So if you can think of what inspires you, or what you'd want, like our podcast listeners to know about you, what inspires you.
Unknown Speaker 28:16
I mean, I'm inspired, I mean mostly by people I meet, like especially through work, I'm inspired by a lot of strong leaders, my engine bosses when I'm doing firefighting, or my captain when I'm out on the fishing boat, like the way that they handle situations. And I definitely learn a lot from and then, in general, life, I mean, I've got a couple local role models that have inspired me, and one, one in particular, one of my
Unknown Speaker 28:45
Lucy's coming in now.
Dina Simon 28:48
Hi, Lucy. What's up?
John Simon Sr. 28:51
Hi, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. We have an unexpected guest on the podcast today. We have Lucy Donna way, yeah.
Dina Simon 29:00
So Lucy will be interviewing you once you get through graduation.
John Simon Sr. 29:05
So Lucy graduates this coming Friday, yeah, and then on Saturday she will be 18 years old. So she graduates at 17,
Dina Simon 29:15
yep, and turns 18, yeah. Love it. Okay. So back to Simon. So Simon, so you were talking about what is, Who inspires you, and you said you have some local leaders and stuff too.
Unknown Speaker 29:27
Yeah, there. I mean, Durango is full of awesome individuals, especially ones that I met throughout through cycling too. I can think about my other Rob, Rob Nichols and Chad Cheney. They're two guys I grew up riding my bike with, and they're kind of people who've helped me develop the mindset I have today. I think
Dina Simon 29:46
Nice, nice. And if you were to give a piece of advice to somebody young that goes through, you know, you went through a major life event with your accident and trying to pivot and figure out. What you wanted to do with life, as far as you know, your next your next hurrah, and what you were going to focus on from a work perspective. Do you have any advice that you would give to somebody that was faced with kind of that, you know, road, road, the fork in the road and having to make decisions?
Unknown Speaker 30:17
I think, yeah, yeah. I think the most important thing you can do is sort of roll with it. And instead of seeing it as sort of like something like disheartening, like I initially did with Mike, since I'm never gonna get to race a mountain bike again, that's what I've been training for years to blah blah blah, like seeing it as an opportunity that opens up other possibilities, like from for me, I've never had a summer free where I can go do a Europe trip, because I've always had a super strict training and racing schedule. And it's like, oh, well, now I can go and do this, and it's not all that bad. I'm sitting on a beach in Italy drinking wine like,
John Simon Sr. 30:57
so when life give when life gives you lemons, you make lemon cello,
Unknown Speaker 31:01
yeah? I like, Yeah, perfect. I love it.
Unknown Speaker 31:05
But yeah, I just think rolling with the punches you're giving and kind of looking to see the bright side of
John Simon Sr. 31:11
them well, and so much of it is so much of what you've done is because the support of your mom and dad. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 31:16
that's what I was about to say. I'm fortunate enough to have people around me that they give you the freedom. They give me freedom, and they also give me resources to do really cool things,
John Simon Sr. 31:26
and they expect you to make good decisions along the way
Unknown Speaker 31:30
most of the
Dina Simon 31:34
time. Yeah, but you've made most we've made mostly just all good decisions, because you've thought through things, and we're super proud of you, and you are an inspiration with everything that you've been through and the maturity that you handled it in as well. So just Congratulations on all your cool achievements and the journeys and the adventures that you've had, and you just just turned 21
John Simon Sr. 31:57
he's packed a lot into 21 years. Yeah, you
Dina Simon 32:01
have. And so it's going to be so fun just for us to continue to watch the ride, and really, kind of every, you know, three to four years, to see what you're up to and what you're doing, because you have packed a lot in in your first 21 years. And so it'll be fun to watch what you do. Hopefully
Unknown Speaker 32:16
it'll keep being interesting, hopefully not quite as interesting as the last two
Dina Simon 32:21
years exactly? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 32:24
I hope it stays interesting.
John Simon Sr. 32:25
Now, I just looking forward to seeing you in Durango this coming Thursday, Granny and I will be there. Yeah.
Dina Simon 32:33
Well, Simon, we love you. We're so inspired by you. We're so proud of you, and we thank you for being our official first guest on our podcast. That was really an honor for us to have you today. Yeah, thank
Unknown Speaker 32:47
you guys. I enjoyed it. Okay. Thank
John Simon Sr. 32:49
you, Simon. All right. You.
Simon, welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. Today we have Simon donaway, who's my grandson and Dina's nephew. So welcome to the podcast, Simon. Thank you,
Dina Simon 00:20
yay, Simon. We're super excited to have you. You're our official first guest as our inspirational family member that we wanted to have on our podcast. So we're super excited to have you.
John Simon Sr. 00:31
So to begin, Simon, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live, and what you've been doing a little bit of lately? Well,
Simon Donnaway 00:41
I just recently turned 21 I live in Durango, Colorado, and recently I've been going to school to become a helicopter
John Simon Sr. 00:49
pilot. Wow, that's now. That's inspiring.
Dina Simon 00:52
It is inspiring.
John Simon Sr. 00:53
And what made you decide to want to be a helicopter pilot?
Unknown Speaker 00:57
Well, there have been a couple different moments that have brought me to that. For one, I work as a wildland firefighter right now, and when I'm on the ground and I'm covered in soot and I'm sitting there on the back of my truck eating an MRE, and I see some dude could just fly in with their helicopter, and they're all clean and they look fresh, and the crack opens and beers on the back of the helicopter, I'm like, All right, I want to switch spots with you, you seem like you got the better job.
Dina Simon 01:24
I love that. And tell us more. So the firefighting so tell us about that.
Unknown Speaker 01:29
It's a job I started doing when I was 18 years old. I was lucky enough to know somebody who owns a wildland contracting company and doing that ever since. It's great summer job. Love it and love getting work outdoors, work with cool, interesting people,
John Simon Sr. 01:44
and when you started, what was the job that you had?
Unknown Speaker 01:47
I was firefighter type two. While I'm still a firefighter type two, but I was pretty much the ground to the truck. I was the guy that was waking up at 530 in the morning, cleaning the hole inside, getting everybody breakfast, doing all the like, all the maintenance chores. Well, my captain would go and get our daily briefing, and my other firefighter would make sure we had preparations for the day. So I was bottom of the barrel.
John Simon Sr. 02:13
Okay? And since then, you've been at what? Twice Have you moved up the ladder a little bit, little bit. I
Unknown Speaker 02:21
mean, I'm still a firefighter type too, but usually we got a rookie on our truck now, so he gets to do, I just go make sure we got water and lunches for the day. I
Dina Simon 02:31
love the term grunt on the truck. That's what you are. What's the craziest fires that you've been involved in?
Unknown Speaker 02:38
I think the most, the most recent one I was on was pretty cool. It was the mosquito fire in California. And I had, I just really liked job I had there. I was basically watching over this, this grove sequoia trees, and they're supposed, they're supposedly the northern most sequoias in the world. And so for two weeks, me and my team just worked. We prepped the area, we plumbed it with some hose line, and then we did a controlled burn in there to make sure that when the fire passed through that area, it didn't impact any of those trees.
John Simon Sr. 03:12
Wow. And and you saved every tree,
Unknown Speaker 03:15
didn't lose one. Sal,
John Simon Sr. 03:18
so do you do you believe you'll get back again this summer? I'm assuming there won't be any shortage of forest fires. Hopefully,
Unknown Speaker 03:27
I don't know, we've gotten a lot of rain out here in the West this summer, so or this winter, we got a lot of snow, and now we're getting a lot of rain. So there's a couple, there's some, there's some fires popping up. I was looking this morning, there's some that have popped up in New Mexico. Hopefully there are fires, but fingers crossed, if there are, I get called out on
John Simon Sr. 03:43
it. Now, last year, last year, you did one in Arizona, I think right, my
Unknown Speaker 03:48
first fire was in Arizona. That was the Bighorn fire that was up on Mount Lemmon. So I was right near, right next to Tucson.
John Simon Sr. 03:56
Dain is very familiar with that area. Yeah, we
Dina Simon 03:59
used to live there, so we used to, we used to go up to Mount Lemmon a lot. Yeah, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 04:03
beautiful place. It's really cool to be up there when there's a fire on top of it. I got some really cool pictures from it. I'll have to send you guys
John Simon Sr. 04:10
and Simon, when you completed that, then you took on another challenge, and that would be up in Alaska. You want to tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, the
Unknown Speaker 04:21
last, last season, I started as a greenhorn on a fishing boat out in Alaska. I do gill netting for salmon in Bristol Bay. In
John Simon Sr. 04:29
fishing terms, is that something like the grunt? Oh, big time, yeah,
Dina Simon 04:36
the grunt of the boat,
Unknown Speaker 04:37
Yep, yeah. And that was, I mean, that was a definitely a new experience, really kind of intimidating to go out there for the first time. Because we were, we were based out of King Salmon Alaska, which is a place you can't drive to, so the only way in is by boat or by plane. And like, once you're there, you're like, Okay, I'm stuck here. I'm here for six weeks. Six
John Simon Sr. 04:56
weeks, okay? And I'm assuming. The salmon. They measure it by pound Did you catch? Yep. And how many pounds of salmon Did you catch last year?
Unknown Speaker 05:07
We had our we had a record high year on our boat. We caught roughly 300,000 pounds.
Dina Simon 05:13
Wow, wow. That's crazy.
John Simon Sr. 05:17
How many other boats do you see out there doing the same thing you're doing. Oh, it's
Unknown Speaker 05:21
crazy. It's like, it's like, you know, when you're on you're in bumper to bumper traffic, like on the interstate, it's like that, but you got a bunch of fishing boats with 100 foot nets off the back and angry captains zooming around.
John Simon Sr. 05:33
So, so really, once you're out on the boat, do you ever have an opportunity to get off the boat?
Unknown Speaker 05:39
Not if things are going well. Usually if we're getting off the boat, I mean, something on the boat has broken or something, or the weather's really bad, or something is not going well for us.
John Simon Sr. 05:49
Now, do you plan on doing that again this season? Yep,
Unknown Speaker 05:53
I head out June 15 for the boat cool and how long? Another six weeks. So that's how long our salmon season is so I'll be out there till roughly August,
Dina Simon 06:02
1 nice. And are you looking forward to it? Since you did it last year was your first big experience,
Unknown Speaker 06:07
I'm definitely looking forward to it. It's like, it's type two fun. You get out there and you have miserable time. It's but, but then you like, you look back on it and you're like, Okay, I'm happy I did that. It was a good time, nice.
John Simon Sr. 06:20
And how many days, or how many hours a day are you working when you're out there,
Unknown Speaker 06:25
as many as fishing game will let us they they basically open they open it up for fishing for a certain amount of time throughout the day, and that depends on how many fish have run up the river. So start of the season, sometimes we'll only get to fish like two, three day, two, three hours a day. And by the end of the season, once they've got, like, they've got the run up river that they want, they'll open it, and then you're fishing 1820 hours a day. Wow. Okay, wow,
Dina Simon 06:52
awesome. Well, Simon, obviously your name is Simon, and you probably get this question a few times with your mother being her last name, Simon, because I know when we introduce you, when I say, my nephew, Simon, they look at me like, why is your nephew named Simon? Simon? It's like, no Simon donaway, but we love, we love that you have that name as well. Simon and I was sharing with, will you call him Pappa, but I was sharing with pappap When we did the launch of our podcast, like how cool it is that we have this name because of the Simon Says. And we get to, we get to use that from a branding perspective. But I decided want to call that out that Simon donaway on our Simon Says inspire podcast. So will you share with us a little bit so you talked about most recent kind of what you're up to? Will you share with us a little bit about, you know, where you live, a little bit about your family and growing
Unknown Speaker 07:45
up? Yeah, so I live in Durango, Colorado. Absolutely love it here. Checked out a bunch of other places all over the world, and decided this is the place I want to be. Love that I've got one younger sister, and I've got my mom and dad. We've got two dogs, two cats. There's a lot of us in the small little house, but it works pretty well. And yeah, I'm living at home till I finish my flight school growing up. I mean, I technically, I was born in Texas as somebody who lives in Colorado. I choose not to say that very much.
John Simon Sr. 08:17
And I said to Granny, whenever we were attacking, I said, I'm not gonna put Simon out there by saying, Where were you born? He admitted it himself.
Dina Simon 08:26
He did. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 08:28
I've lived in Colorado pretty much as long as I can remember, in Durango. Yeah, I
John Simon Sr. 08:32
think you're about six months old whenever
Unknown Speaker 08:34
you move there, yeah, something like I, I can tell you, you have a better idea than I, yeah, I'm grew up riding racing mountain bikes around here, lots of outdoors activities, camping. Pretty much love being outside whenever I can, and it's been great. Well,
John Simon Sr. 08:51
you definitely are an outdoorsman with not only, uh, mountain biking, but you used to be a pretty good skier at one time also. But
Unknown Speaker 08:58
yeah, actually skied yesterday. Oh, you skied yesterday, Yeah, yesterday as a closing day of the season. Wow, yeah, rain got enough on that.
John Simon Sr. 09:06
Where did you go up to? Up to purgatory? Oh, wow. It's really unusual to have skiing in around the 14th of May. Yep, it's
Unknown Speaker 09:17
been a weird year, but
Unknown Speaker 09:19
take advantage of it.
Dina Simon 09:20
Yeah. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your mountain biking?
Unknown Speaker 09:24
So for a while there, that's what I wanted to do for try to make it as a professional mountain biker. I'd say I got, I got relatively close. I was racing on pretty much a semi pro level. I was racing professionally, but I didn't quite have the support to help back me up, like the financial support for companies. I was starting to get there. Starting to get there. Then I was doing a race in Kentucky, and I don't really remember what happened. I remember the gate dropping and the race starting, and next thing I know, I was in a flight for life helicopter.
John Simon Sr. 09:54
So why don't you tell tell everyone a little bit about how you ended up in Kentucky? When you went to Brevard College?
Unknown Speaker 10:02
Oh, yeah. So I, first off, I started attending Brevard College, uh, right out of high school. And I chose that school because they gave me a pretty decent scholarship for racing bikes and and they're located in North Brevard, North Carolina, which has some of the best riding in the country, and other than Durango, that is. But I was like, Okay, I gotta leave home for a little while. I can't just stay here. So I so I picked to go to Brevard college. And we were traveling for a collegiate mountain bike race. We were headed to, I can't remember the exact university it was, but there's, there's a school we race in Kentucky, and it was like they were hosting the event that weekend. So I got out there and was doing slalom racing when it happened, and made it through the first couple rounds. And I was actually, it's pretty funny, I was racing my best friend, and that's the round that I somehow crashed and broke two vertebrae, broke my skull and my collarbone.
Dina Simon 10:56
And how old were you then?
Unknown Speaker 10:58
I was 19. Wow, crazy.
Dina Simon 11:02
And as you said, you remember the gate and then all sudden, you're in the hospital. What do you remember between?
Unknown Speaker 11:09
So I remember the gate dropping. I remember was racing my buddy gunner, and I remember she dropped his chain out of the gate. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna get this like, I'm gonna win this round. That's cool. But I was like, Okay, I'm carrying some decent speed, so, like, I don't know, I'm gonna hit these couple corners fast, because it'll be fun, and then I'll, like, mellow it out and finish my race. Apparently, I didn't make it through those corners. And then next thing I know, I was getting care flighted.
John Simon Sr. 11:37
Thank God for a great medical team at Vanderbilt University in Vanderbilt, Tennessee, in Nashville. Yeah, you were in the hospital for what, four or five days only after the surgery, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 11:51
I think I was walking day after, which was pretty cool, considering that there was a while where they were like, We don't know if you're
Dina Simon 11:57
ever gonna walk. Isn't that crazy? Wow. After surgery,
Unknown Speaker 12:01
I was like, they were like, if you want to try, you can give it a shot. I
John Simon Sr. 12:05
can remember coming over there and meeting your mom, and then four or five days later, hopping in our car and driving you back to Brevard, North Carolina for so that you could continue your education. Oh yeah, I wanted to
Dina Simon 12:22
finish up that semester. Yeah, and that was your freshman year, Simon, no, this is my sophomore Okay, what's your sophomore year? Okay, couldn't remember, yeah, yeah. So crazy, terrible accident. You had a great medical team, and it sounds like you actually had a pretty decent speedy recovery, right? Like so, as you said, you were up walking, but you certainly had months of, I'm sure, physical therapy, all that kind of stuff, to get to back to somewhat of a normal life.
Unknown Speaker 12:50
Yeah. So after, after my accident, it took me about nine months to recover, I would say about so for about three months of that, I was in a neck brace and pretty much stuck in bed, and then I was able to start doing physical therapy. Physical
John Simon Sr. 13:02
therapy. And then you had to have an you had to have another surgery when you came home, though, yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 13:07
always forget about that one. Yeah. So when I was actually, when I was at Vanderbilt, they didn't. They only fixed my spine, and they gave me a neck brace for my
John Simon Sr. 13:15
only,
Unknown Speaker 13:19
yeah, for my for my skull. And then I went to back to Brevard, finished up the semester, and I was like, man. I knew I had a broken collarbone at that point, but I didn't know how bad I was. Like, man, my collarbone, like, you can kind of push in it and, like, feel it, listen, right? It was just not the way it should be. And it didn't feel like it was healing at all. I still had no use in my left arm. Back into town, and luckily, we're good friends with an orthopedic surgeon in town, Kane Anderson. He was, he's a great guy, and he, like, took one look at it. He's like, Dude, you need surgery. We got to get that thing plated. So the next week, I was able to get it plated, and then two days later I fully used to
Dina Simon 13:57
that arm. Oh, isn't that crazy? Wow. So just how lucky
John Simon Sr. 14:01
you were to have great doctors in Durango and in Tennessee.
Dina Simon 14:07
Yeah, absolutely. And so Simon, you probably have some metal in you. Oh, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 14:13
yeah, I got a titanium on my back.
Dina Simon 14:19
And do you go off when you go through metal detectors at the airport. So
Unknown Speaker 14:22
shockingly, not the airport ones, okay, the the handheld ones, like the ones you comb the beach with those. Yeah, on that out. Because after I got off the fishing boat in Alaska, my captain actually has a gold mine up there, and we just went to go mess around one day. He's like, you can keep half of whatever you find. So me and my buddy were going around with metal detector, and we kept getting really excited, like digging, like, I'd start digging a hole. We'd be like, we're finding something good. We're finding something good. And then I'd step away and it would stop beeping. Oh, we didn't find anything. It's just me. Oh, my gosh,
Dina Simon 14:55
I love it. So
John Simon Sr. 14:57
tell us a little bit about ask. After you completed your rehab and everything, and you decided to take a little time off of college and take a trip. Do you want to tell us a little about the trip that you, that you experienced? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 15:14
well, I can't take all the credit for that. I got to give my dad a lot of it, because he he's a smart guy. He realized that we were going into mountain bike race season, and, man, if I had stayed home and couldn't race, and, I mean, at that point, I was still, like, walking was about the most I could do, and that, like, if I had stayed home, I would have been I would have been no fun. I would have been really sad, not very happy.
John Simon Sr. 15:37
Now you can still bike ride now, just not competitively.
Unknown Speaker 15:41
Oh, I'm pretty much at this point in my life, I'm pretty much 100% I just can't crash like I did that day. So basically I just have to tone it down a little bit. Doctors told me I can't race anymore.
John Simon Sr. 15:51
Okay, so your dad had an idea for you, and why don't you share that with the rest of the people listening, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 16:03
And for Christmas, what I got was basically a plane ticket from Durango to London Heathrow, and then couple months later, I had a plane ticket back out of Paris, and I pretty much got that, and then I got told to figure it out. So I kind of made my own plan. Is a little bit more extreme than it should be, because I didn't plan much. I planned on my first couple days I got to London, I had a year rail pass so I could take the trains, like, had a hostel booked for like, two or three days, like, get myself sort of accustomed, and then I just started jumping into it and coming up with an itinerary on the fly as I traveled around
John Simon Sr. 16:41
and in the process of all this here, how, how did you figure out how, what you wanted to do, where you wanted to go? Well, a
Unknown Speaker 16:50
lot of it was people I met along the way. I decided to do like a solo backpacking trip, and I wanted to keep my plans pretty open in case I found a cool person to hang out with in a certain spot or and then I don't know they're going somewhere cool, hop on their travel plans for a little bit, and then find somebody else. And I like to keep it kind of loose, depending on who I met.
John Simon Sr. 17:09
So in in that two week or two month period, how many different countries did you visit? Oh,
Unknown Speaker 17:18
I don't even remember. Off the top of my head, I can look really quick.
Dina Simon 17:21
And Simon, while you're looking, um, with that like your loose plans to just kind of, you know, go and see who you meet and maybe tag along. Is that out? Is that like out of your comfort zone normally? Or is that kind of how you operate normally?
Unknown Speaker 17:36
Oh, it's definitely kind of how I how I operate. So I tour. I went through eight countries.
Dina Simon 17:43
Wow, wow. And you had a visitor at some point I did
Unknown Speaker 17:49
that was a ton of fun. I met up with app, app in Germany,
John Simon Sr. 17:53
yep. We met in we met in Munich, and we went to Switzerland and Austria, and then back to Berlin. So I was there for two weeks with them, and we did have a great time in those two weeks. I know that prior to meeting you, you, you ran into a lot of young people that you spend time with in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and I think it'd be really interesting for people to hear the story about the gentleman you ran into in in the in Prague, at the what was it like a farmer's market or a
Unknown Speaker 18:31
town? I just met him at a random Park, and he was, he was carving these little wooden statues. And I went up and asked him, about him, because I was like, Oh, those look pretty cool. And he gave me, he he gave me this little one he made of Charlie Chaplin, wow. And he was just like, so what are your What are your plans for the day? And I was like, Well, I was gonna wander around. I don't really know where I am, so I was gonna check out some of the big landmarks, go to some of the cool bars. Like, kind of feel my way around, because I had a couple days there, so I was just trying to get a lay of the land. And he was like, well, you want a tour guide? Sure? I'm like, You got nothing better to do today? And no no. So he just gets up and he had lived there for 50 years. Wow. He showed me all around the city, took me to all his favorite spots, bought me a lot of beer, a lot of food, and then we parted ways, and I asked I was I asked him. I was like, Hey, can I get your phone number or anything like, in case I ever come back, I like to hang out again, catch up, that sort of thing. And he was like, I don't have a phone. No, you can. He's like, every I can't remember. I think it was, he was like, every Sunday, I'm on this I'm on the bench. You found me at whittling sculptures. So just come there.
Dina Simon 19:46
Oh my god, I love it.
Unknown Speaker 19:49
I've got a pin where that park is if I ever go back.
Dina Simon 19:52
Oh my god, I love it. That's awesome. And how cool. How old was he?
Unknown Speaker 19:58
Oh. He was never asked, but I would say he was in his 60s,
Dina Simon 20:05
nice. And so I What a gift you probably gave to him, because he got to show you like you said to all his favorite places, and spend time you to be in that tour guide. And so as as it was amazing for you, is probably such a gift for him, too, to spend that time with you.
John Simon Sr. 20:22
Yeah, Simon, in your two months over there, can you pick one place that was your favorite and one that you would like to return to?
Unknown Speaker 20:31
Definitely, that's an easy one. Cinque Terre in Italy. I didn't even I didn't make any friends there. I didn't meet anybody. I was completely alone for my whole like, I think I spent three, four days there.
John Simon Sr. 20:46
And is that where you took the boat and you went out and went from island to island?
Unknown Speaker 20:54
Yeah, it's this little it's this Italian National Park, and it's a string of five fishing villages that are all kind of difficult to access. You can get to them pretty easily by train or boat, but you can't really get there by car along these amazing cliffsides. And there's a trail that you can walk between all of them. And there are people vending fresh wine along the way, lemon cello, like you're walking through the orchards. It's only calling for lemons.
Dina Simon 21:22
Sure, yeah, grow. I think they're grow. Maybe grow
Unknown Speaker 21:26
the Lemon Grove.
Unknown Speaker 21:29
Nice fruits being grown. And yes, you got those on one side of the cliff, and then you've got the ocean on the other side. Is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Do
John Simon Sr. 21:38
you keep in touch with any of the people that you met while you were over there? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 21:43
I actually do. I mean, when I went to Ireland, I then I made a quick detour to visit one of my friends from the UK.
John Simon Sr. 21:50
Okay, so, so you made friends that you'll have for a lifetime during your trip. Oh, definitely.
Unknown Speaker 21:57
I'm trying to get them all to come here for a little walks. I'm like, You guys love Durango, yeah. And hopefully one day we can make it happen.
Dina Simon 22:06
Nice, nice. What was the town again, in Italy?
Unknown Speaker 22:09
It's a national park. It's called the Cinque Terre,
Dina Simon 22:12
okay, and would you go back there? Is that where your favorite and you'd go back to,
Unknown Speaker 22:16
yes, I would love to go back there. It's very near. It's near, it's near PISA too, and I never got to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Sounds
Dina Simon 22:26
like we need to go back as a family. Oh, definitely,
Unknown Speaker 22:29
yeah.
John Simon Sr. 22:30
How did you like Rome? So
Unknown Speaker 22:34
I chose Rome. And a very interesting I was, I was in, I did Rome in Venice, right around Easter. Oh, wow. That was, was a mistake on my part. How crowd, how proud were they? They were so busy. I mean, I really enjoyed just wandering around Rome, but it was pretty hard for me to get reservations and everything to go into the Coliseum and go into the Vatican City and all that while I was there, just because people had been planning their trips there for months, and I was just like, Yeah, I'll go to Rome right now. I didn't even know it was Easter time, but I guess it was
John Simon Sr. 23:12
so now that all of that is behind you and you have your pilot's license for, I guess, personal use, not for commercial or anything. How much longer does it take for you to get your commercial pilot's license?
Unknown Speaker 23:31
I'm gonna, I'm gonna guess about another year. It's, it's kind of finance dependent, kind of depending on how much time I can put in. And I mean, that depends on how much money I make fishing and firefighting, yep. So if I got a good season, I'd say, or if we get a good season this summer, I'd be pretty confident in saying, I'll be done. I'll have my commercial pilot's license by this time next year. Nice. Okay.
John Simon Sr. 23:55
And then, once you have that, what are your plans?
Unknown Speaker 24:00
Well, first I'll end up working kind of a low like a bottom tier job flying tours or instructing. So I can build up sort of an hour base, and then once I develop that, that those hours, and especially turbine hours and high altitude hours, then I can move into a role doing firefighting, which is the that's like, my dream job, firefighting, or EMS or something like that. Okay, nice, some,
John Simon Sr. 24:28
something that you've already had a ride on. Yep, yeah,
Dina Simon 24:32
well, and you aren't afraid to start at the bottom and work your way up. I mean, that's the story you talked about from fighting fires and also on the boat, and so you've had that, you know, you you're willing to put the work in and grow from there. So that's awesome. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 24:48
got to get there somehow. Yeah.
John Simon Sr. 24:50
Well, the good news is, you're 21 years old. You have a lot of, a lot of time to get this going, and that's the. That's positive,
Dina Simon 25:00
yeah, yeah. And what a gift so that your dad, I'm glad he came up with the idea, Simon, because as your family, you know we all worried about you too, right? So we love you, and you went through something crazy that would would rock anybody's world, because you were so engaged in the mountain biking and to go through such a tragic accident, and all the surgeries, and just everything that you went through, and you handled it so beautifully, but I love that they sent you off during mountain biking season, because, yes, that would have been hard for you just to be home and and
Unknown Speaker 25:34
a lot of credit for that.
John Simon Sr. 25:36
Yeah, well, and yeah. The other part about it is it was not only of that, but it was covid Also, whatever you were on, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 25:44
it was covid time.
Dina Simon 25:46
Yeah, true. I didn't even think about that. So, yeah, it was during covid
John Simon Sr. 25:50
That puts a whole lot more difficult travel in it, because now you're going on trains and making sure that you have all the proper masks that you have needed. And, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 26:04
I mean, and I definitely didn't for a lot of my drag, I got yelled at a couple times for having the on grade mask. Or there were some times, especially on Italian trains, where I almost got kicked off because I couldn't find the right mask. And then some nice person next to me would just happen to have an extra or something like that when she's that, which
John Simon Sr. 26:23
is great. And I had the same thing happen to me whenever I got into Germany. I didn't have an n 95 mask. And a couple that were on the train next to me, they gave me one and I offered to pay for it, and they said, No, that's okay. We'd like you to do if you have one American dollar, we'd like to show our friends that we ran into an American today. Love
Dina Simon 26:44
it, love it, and they're in that great too. There's, there are nice people out there. I love that. Love that.
John Simon Sr. 26:50
It's amazing how many of them you ran into whenever you're traveling. And I'm sure you ran into quite a few. Simon, I know I did prior to meeting up with you.
Unknown Speaker 26:59
Oh yeah, if I didn't meet up with a lot of people I met up with, like, especially with how kind and nice and helpful they were, I might not have made it through that trip. There were some times where I was very, very lost.
John Simon Sr. 27:13
Well, I tell you what, when we were together, I was amazed at how well you handled directions. We would start walking in a town, whether it was Berlin or over in Buick or something, Simon always knew right where we were. Every minute we had a few drinks, and we would start walking back, and I would want to make a left hand turn. And he said, No, Pap, Pap, you gotta make a right hand turn here. And he has a very good sense of direction.
Dina Simon 27:38
I love that love that Simon, our podcast is about life and leadership and building legacies. And so you've given us a little bit about your life, and you have a whole lot of leadership already. I mean, you've been, you know, with with what you've done in mountain biking and your team and all of that, and then working as a firefighter. Certainly on the boat, there's a lot of teamwork, and I'm sure you've stepped up to continue to step up. From a leadership perspective, share with us what inspires you. So if you can think of what inspires you, or what you'd want, like our podcast listeners to know about you, what inspires you.
Unknown Speaker 28:16
I mean, I'm inspired, I mean mostly by people I meet, like especially through work, I'm inspired by a lot of strong leaders, my engine bosses when I'm doing firefighting, or my captain when I'm out on the fishing boat, like the way that they handle situations. And I definitely learn a lot from and then, in general, life, I mean, I've got a couple local role models that have inspired me, and one, one in particular, one of my
Unknown Speaker 28:45
Lucy's coming in now.
Dina Simon 28:48
Hi, Lucy. What's up?
John Simon Sr. 28:51
Hi, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. We have an unexpected guest on the podcast today. We have Lucy Donna way, yeah.
Dina Simon 29:00
So Lucy will be interviewing you once you get through graduation.
John Simon Sr. 29:05
So Lucy graduates this coming Friday, yeah, and then on Saturday she will be 18 years old. So she graduates at 17,
Dina Simon 29:15
yep, and turns 18, yeah. Love it. Okay. So back to Simon. So Simon, so you were talking about what is, Who inspires you, and you said you have some local leaders and stuff too.
Unknown Speaker 29:27
Yeah, there. I mean, Durango is full of awesome individuals, especially ones that I met throughout through cycling too. I can think about my other Rob, Rob Nichols and Chad Cheney. They're two guys I grew up riding my bike with, and they're kind of people who've helped me develop the mindset I have today. I think
Dina Simon 29:46
Nice, nice. And if you were to give a piece of advice to somebody young that goes through, you know, you went through a major life event with your accident and trying to pivot and figure out. What you wanted to do with life, as far as you know, your next your next hurrah, and what you were going to focus on from a work perspective. Do you have any advice that you would give to somebody that was faced with kind of that, you know, road, road, the fork in the road and having to make decisions?
Unknown Speaker 30:17
I think, yeah, yeah. I think the most important thing you can do is sort of roll with it. And instead of seeing it as sort of like something like disheartening, like I initially did with Mike, since I'm never gonna get to race a mountain bike again, that's what I've been training for years to blah blah blah, like seeing it as an opportunity that opens up other possibilities, like from for me, I've never had a summer free where I can go do a Europe trip, because I've always had a super strict training and racing schedule. And it's like, oh, well, now I can go and do this, and it's not all that bad. I'm sitting on a beach in Italy drinking wine like,
John Simon Sr. 30:57
so when life give when life gives you lemons, you make lemon cello,
Unknown Speaker 31:01
yeah? I like, Yeah, perfect. I love it.
Unknown Speaker 31:05
But yeah, I just think rolling with the punches you're giving and kind of looking to see the bright side of
John Simon Sr. 31:11
them well, and so much of it is so much of what you've done is because the support of your mom and dad. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 31:16
that's what I was about to say. I'm fortunate enough to have people around me that they give you the freedom. They give me freedom, and they also give me resources to do really cool things,
John Simon Sr. 31:26
and they expect you to make good decisions along the way
Unknown Speaker 31:30
most of the
Dina Simon 31:34
time. Yeah, but you've made most we've made mostly just all good decisions, because you've thought through things, and we're super proud of you, and you are an inspiration with everything that you've been through and the maturity that you handled it in as well. So just Congratulations on all your cool achievements and the journeys and the adventures that you've had, and you just just turned 21
John Simon Sr. 31:57
he's packed a lot into 21 years. Yeah, you
Dina Simon 32:01
have. And so it's going to be so fun just for us to continue to watch the ride, and really, kind of every, you know, three to four years, to see what you're up to and what you're doing, because you have packed a lot in in your first 21 years. And so it'll be fun to watch what you do. Hopefully
Unknown Speaker 32:16
it'll keep being interesting, hopefully not quite as interesting as the last two
Dina Simon 32:21
years exactly? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 32:24
I hope it stays interesting.
John Simon Sr. 32:25
Now, I just looking forward to seeing you in Durango this coming Thursday, Granny and I will be there. Yeah.
Dina Simon 32:33
Well, Simon, we love you. We're so inspired by you. We're so proud of you, and we thank you for being our official first guest on our podcast. That was really an honor for us to have you today. Yeah, thank
Unknown Speaker 32:47
you guys. I enjoyed it. Okay. Thank
John Simon Sr. 32:49
you, Simon. All right. You.