I came under the cover of night when I finally arrived at the Hotel Madeline in Mountain Village, so I wasn’t fully cognizant of my surroundings until the next morning, when I had my rental brought out and cruised down the mountain road to visit downtown Telluride.
WHOA
Telluride has sort of a dual personality, divided between the town itself and Mountain Village, which are connected to each other via a meandering road and a free gondola line. About midway down from Mountain Village there’s a place where you can park to enjoy a panoramic view of valleys, mountains and streams (shown above). I sat here and sipped my morning coffee for a good long while, understanding now why Telluride was such a popular draw for celebrities. These are million dollar views, yo.
It’s even better without snow!
I hit downtown and pranced around a bit in the morning sun, although I also had a mission to complete. Because I had arrived on a Saturday my hotel’s laundry service was closed, so I needed to find a laundromat to get my funky undies washed and blow torched.
Except that, there are no laundromats in Telluride. None. Zero. Zippy. Nadda. Rien. Niente.
At this point I was starting to get a little panicky. There had to be SOMETHING around here, so I fired up my iPhone and did a 411-like search, one which lead to a dead end, and another that led to a dry cleaner, which fortunately also offered regular laundry service too. WHEW…
I walked in with my laundry bag and handed it over to a cute brunette sporting a nose ring and bedazzled fingernails. The fact that she would be washing my Superman jammers all but assured me that I will have now seen more action in Colorado than I have in 20 years of unsuccessful dating in New York. I love this state.
After I dropped off my jammers I headed back to Telluride and had lunch at the Sheridan:
Wow, so this is what rich people food looks like!
Then took a walk around and discovered the Mahr building, the very same building that once housed a bank where Butch Cassidy pulled off his first ever robbery. Awesome.
Jesus saves, but Butch Cassidy withdraws!
Despite skiing being Telluride’s main draw (it’s also referred to as South Aspen by Colorado natives), the town does attract a lot of festivals as well, so there’s always something going on to keep people busy. When I arrived they were hosting a conference for photographers, who could be seen all over town hoisting ridiculously sized cameras over their shoulders and taking shots of the buildings and landscape.
Even then, the combination of warm weather and it being off-season was perfect for me. Stores were still open and there were hardly any annoying tourists around to bother me. Even teh doggehs were mellowing out:
Awwwwwwwwwww whooooosaaaagoodboooyy,whoooOOossaaa goooood lil’ booooooy?
Good thing too, because I needed to rest in a bad way. I had literally driven thousands of miles before finally stopping to catch my breath here, so I was more than ready to be a right lazy weenieball. And you know what that means: Free gondola rides!!!
And gondola I did. Repeatedly. All… day… long. It was free, and the views were second to none, so why not?
Telluride as seen from the gondola. Why get off?
Sometimes I rode with a few mountain bikers and tourists, striking a few friendly conversations, but I usually had the gondola all to myself, so I was spread eagle, baby. The aspen trees were nearly in peak autumn form, while recent snow blanketed the mountains here with a fresh batch of white. I really couldn’t have asked for much more.
Now THIS is a mountain. Not like them gay fruity hills I see back in upstate New York.
The next few days were pretty much a hodge podge of riding the gondola back and forth between Mountain Village and Telluride, visiting the museum, geocaching, and lots of pancake eating tossed in between. Ahhhh, I miss it already. Fortunately I wouldn’t be done with the San Juan mountains yet, as I’d spend the next three days in Ouray, with a stop at Mesa Verde and Durango along the way.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, where the dogs of society howled! You know you can’t plant me in your penthouse, so I’m going back to my plough…
I loved this comment. I always thought we (NY) had tall mountains until I started visiting others. Even now here in NC we have the tallest mountain on the east coast.
Loved your pics.
Heh, not that they still aren’t pretty to look at, I still love driving around Lake Placid and enjoying the scenery, but I hadn’t realized the show I was missing until I went from the Adirondacks to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, which have the highest mountain peaks in the Northeast. That’s when I realize that there are mountains, and then there are MOUNTAINS. Even the White Mountains couldn’t match the mind altering experience I had I landed in Denver and saw the frozen tidal wave that were the Rockies for the first time. O_O
These pics reminded me of my trips to Montana and how much I miss the country up there.
I was literally 5 minutes away from Montana when I visited the Mammoth Springs in Yellowstone, and it never occurred to me to take a quick trip over the border while I was there. Still kicking myself for that one. :-P
Oh Linc, I really miss those Colorado Rocky Mountains!!! When I would sit very quite in those montains to view the golden splendor of the aspens, I swear I could hear them whisper to me their sweet melodies!
That’s funny, for some reason I thought you were still living in Denver? O_O