If you live in Eldora or spend time in Nederland, you’ve probably met Amélie Pontoise. She is confident, independent, and charismatic, with outlandish dreads and a beautiful French accent.

And if you visit Hessie Trail, you’ve probably seen Kiki, her Chow Chow and travel buddy. Kiki spends her days at the side of Eldorado Avenue, checking out the people who drive by.

Amélie has a passion for travel. “I think my dad gave me this fever for traveling. He had it too, he’d take us all over.” The family home was directly in front of a Paris train station, and he worked for the train company – so the whole family got free, first class Eurail Passes.

“We could hear the track announcements at our house, and if a destination enticed us, my brother Max and I would shout ‘Let’s go!’” And go they did.

Although Amélie had three siblings, she was closest to Max. He was only 11 months younger than her. When she left home in 2002, she took Max with her. She was 16 and fearless.

They moved to Saint-Nazaire in the west of France. It was the home of Lycée Autogéré, a self-discovery school. There were no teachers, and the students all took turns cooking, cleaning, and making repairs. Amélie and Max enrolled.

It was good for her. “The school was very nice. It opened my eyes to independence, to opportunities. It opened my world. I realized I could travel more, I could be who I wanted to be.”

After two years, though, it was time to move on. “I realized I don’t need this anymore, I’m ready, I can travel.” Amélie went to Brittany and Max to Paris, but they remained close. And then she got the call from Paris.

Max was dead. At 18.

The news was unexpected, devastating. “I was all over the place with grief, I couldn’t stay in France.” She bought a bus and lived in it before deciding to go to Southeast Asia. “People there taught me about dealing with grief, and how to deal with death in a different way.”

She explored Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia. When her money ran out, she returned to France, retrieved her bus, and lived as a nomad. “The only purpose of my life was to make money so I could travel more.” With Kiki, who went everywhere with her.

Amélie worked at a ski rental in the Alps, she got a job in a cafe in the south of France, and she learned to farm her favorite crop from a family in Morocco. “Travel was always a good way to meet nice people from all around the world.”

Eventually, she turned her sights to California. She found a cheap flight to Cancun, and then hitchhiked into the States. Amélie stopped in Tucson for a few days; that’s where she met a French-speaking American, who promptly did what any good American would do – he taught her how to shoot a gun.

When she heard of a place to stay in Boulder, she made her way there. Just passing through, with no intention of settling there, much less in some tiny mountain town 20 miles up – way up – the road.

On December 27, 2013, Amélie stopped at the Boulder Liquor Mart. She was on her way to a Christmas party; longtime Ned resident Jae Gormley was on his way to the same party. They met, for the first time, in the parking lot. “He had a little bottle of booze in his boots and he spoke French. I thought ‘this is cool,’ I followed him all night, we got engaged an hour after we met. I knew that he was the one.”

She still made it to California, with Jae, where they were married on a black sand beach. Amélie made a quick trip back to France, “to tell my parents that I met a man, married him, was pregnant, and I’m moving to US to be with him,” while Jae set up a home for his new family, in Eldora.

The family has grown to include son Max, 8, named to honor Amélie’s brother, daughter Zalie, 7, Huskies Kelly and Haku, cat Mitcho, and Xtina Egguilera, the dove. Kiki keeps everyone in line.

Amélie freelances, doing digital work and graphic design, but those are not her only talents. Besides French, she speaks English, Spanish, and Russian. She plays drums, piano, and clarinet. She draws murals and dry erase drawings, some of which you can find inside local businesses.

When she offered to show me pictures from her travels, I expected a photo album. Instead, she handed me a bound collection of watercolor drawings she made along her travels. There were vistas she had seen, people she had met, even the gun she shot in Tucson. She calls it her Travel Book.

The last drawing, on the very last page of the Travel Book, looked like a small bean. I didn’t know what it was, until Amélie explained. It was baby Max, she said, in her womb.

The end of the old book, the beginning of something new.