Telluride, Colorado

I managed to get an early start for this 5th driving day in a row because of the night I spent in the car. This was the last day of the longest single driving stretch without a day for resting since I left Chicago. I must say I started feeling it a bit, a break from the driving would do good at this point. 

At first the scenery didn't change that much. I drove the last part of the desert view. But soon enough the majestic views of the Rocky Mountains started emerging. It's been a while since I've seen proper mountains so when the first snow tops started showing in the horizon i started to get exited!

While getting higher and higher to the mountains I run into a wildlife roadside zoo. And since I didn't have any specific hurry I decided to take a break and go see what they had to show. Normally I'm not big in the whole Zoo/Aquarium/imprisoned animals thing, but I thought I'd give this privately owned one a change. I was able to catch few animals I hadn't seen before. First I was greeted by a "flock" of turkeys and few cats. I purchased the ticket to go and see the trail and the first one that caught my eye was this big bird right by the entrance: an Emu with few sheep. The Emu had company in the nearby areas with a Mountain Lion, Donkey, porcupines, an elk, wolves and a Grizzly Bear! which at first didn't want to come out but once brought a peanut butter sandwich stumbled out of it's "cave" just enough to munch it down and then went back to sleep. I've never seen most of these animals with my own eyes, so it was a nice experience after all.

The rest of the drive up was filled with breathtaking mountain views, snow tops, lakes and the autumn colors. The autumn itself was already so far that most of the trees had already dropped their leaves. But this somehow added to the feeling of such a different landscape that I had entered.

I arrived to Telluride right before the sunset and met with Mitch. The town itself is gorgeous! It has a population of a bit over 2300 people (which is the same amount as Vision of the Seas guest capacity) So truly a small mountain town. But what a place it was. First of all the view from the main street itself is one with no comparison. The town is surrounded by mountain tops and cliffs. But the atmosphere among the people and when walking the streets was the one that left a very keen memory. The only other place where I've had a similar warm feeling and spectacular view is  Geiranger in Norway. Which is one of my all-time favorites as well! 

Pretty much right after I arrived we parked the car by Mitch's place and took a gondola ride up to the hilltop to go and see the sun setting behind the "Coors Light Mountains" (Wislon Peak) at the southern part of the Rockies.

Me & Mitch on Telluride main street

For the evening we "hit the town" starting with a Trivia Night hosted by Mitch at a local cafe/bar.  During the trivia I met plenty of people from the town and noticed that everybody seemed to have a certain kind of positive feeling coming from them. Something very "small town" like, though most people I met had found Telluride one way or another and just decided to stay or come and visit it often. Everybody seemed to be one way or another nature and adventure sports orientated. Which then again, you are living right by the mountains in a small town. It's no wonder it attracts this type of people. Well.. I suppose the point is that I felt very much home there with the view, lifestyle and mentality of the people. Wouldn't actually surprise me to find myself from there another time in the future..

During the evening I got into conversations with few of the people a bit more and learned about the surroundings and what there is to do nearby. One thing that was highly recommended to me was to do a Skydive in Moab, Utah. Which was only 3 hours drive away from Telluride. Another was to go climbing near Moab by the Indian Creek. Both offers/ideas seemed very tempting so I decided to take a look at the possibilities later on.

After the Trivia we did a little bit of a bar hop with Mitch till somewhat late hours.. and good fun we had. Still a bit "bitter" from loosing that Darts game with the very last dart.. :)

The 2nd day in Telluride we pretty much just took it easy. Slept in and updated the blog in the morning, went for a late breakfast. Mitch wanted to show me this nearby waterfall and we planned on the previous day to hike up there... so we drove. After the previous night neither of us felt like exercising too much! Was a nice little drive though. Up the mountain road. It was the most "off road" I've down with my rental car and it did well. The waterfall itself was gorgeous even though there was not much water falling.. managed to see some snow and Ice swell.. which was nice! Rest of the day we pretty much chilled. Was really nice to just do nothing, since it had been quite a strenuous drive for 5 days to get there. I did manage to get my computer to be checked as well, since it had been growing extremely slow for the past months.

The event that we were waiting for the whole day was THE karaoke night at the same cafe/bar we were the previous day having trivia. Well.. it ended up being quite interesting: First of all during the whole evening there was maybe about 15 people in and out. So pretty much what ever you wanted to sign you could. BUT! the online karaoke system ended up being down. So we had a selection of about 500 songs to sign from the library with not one song that I've used to sign! So I ended up signing the following hits among many: Tribute, Tenacious D,  Chop Suey, System of a Down, mmm mmm mmm,   crash test dummies.. and many others!

Good night - good times!