Telluride

You may wonder what we are doing as we seem to approach this area from our camp at Montrose.  I am inspired by the single page write up I found online.  Link  Titled “Scenic Drive in the San Juan Mountains.”  Though the author starts at Cortez and goes the opposite way, the scenery is the same in both directions. 

We drove the 65 miles to Telluride heading up hill all the way.  The road was good and did not have too bad of drop offs until we got onto the final segment into the town.  The last few miles are on the side of the mountain cliff and do have the straight down feature.

As we approached town, we were waved over into a parking area, and a gal came to the window and asked, “ Do you have Phish tickets?”  Well no I said and inquired what that was.  Seems that a rock band named Phish is having a concert tonight and no one is allowed into the town unless you are going to the Festival.  Oh Really?

I explained that we were tourists, and had driven an hour and a half to see the town of Telluride and hoped we wouldn’t be told to leave.  So, I got a three hour parking pass, but was told that I would be ticketed for being in town after 4:30.

There are 10,000 folks here in a town designed to hold about 2,500.  There were tents in the city parks, and on the school house lawn.  Cars were jammed in every conceivable nook, parking on lawns and in allies.  Reminded me of Aspen two years ago at Labor Day.

Telluride Downtown

Not everything was nice and new, but the older buildings add character.  Wait up above that old garage, there are the ski slopes.

Slopes

There is a village up on the top of the hill where folks can have lunch and stuff, but we didn’t go up there.  The lifts were running, and you can also drive up to the top from the South route out of town.

Telluride is in a box canyon, and as you head East from downtown, you go past the city park and up into the canyon.  There are two water falls that must be the start of the creek that flows thru town.

The road went around up there but Loyce nixed that almost immediately!  You had to go up past this old mine.

The last thing that put an immediate damper on our visit today, was that we parked and went into a hardware store, that still had the small town feeling.  It was in two store fronts with wooden floors that creaked.  The basement was block walls and had even more stuff.  We browsed for a while.

As I was coming out, I noticed the local Sherriff taking down my license plate!  “Did I do something wrong????”

Well it seems that my parking pass for the 3 hours, didn’t include the place where I had parked.  It was only for folks with a different permit.  And he was issuing a $60 ticket to me.  I spoke of the pass that I had been given, and he said “you really don’t know what’s going on do you?”  Well no I have only been in town for two hours, and I barely got in at all.  But I was pleasant and talked about positive stuff, and he explained that these Phish tickets were being scalped for $1000 each.  Wow!  Then he said “if you like that sort of thing!”

After explaining that I had no idea what they even were, and didn’t care too much either, he tore up the ticket and wished me a nice day.  Oh and he said if I needed to get another three hours, to go out the road and get in line for another pass and just come back in.  But please don’t park here!!  Yes Sir!!!  We left town and came back to Montrose where the Motorhome is parked.  They really don’t want us old folks in Telluride anyway!!

Jeeps

As we were buzzing around town today, I noticed even more Jeeps than in usual Colorado towns, so I started to take pictures of them.  Mostly just as proof that these things are everywhere out here.  I want the Jeep dealership in any town in this state.

 

These last two pictures are as we were following a Jeep out of town, but when they pulled over at the check point where the three hour passes were issued, there were 5 Jeeps in a row.  Do these things multiply like rabbits?  Counting the five at the final picture, there are 14 of them pictured in these photos alone!

Oh, and one Jeep wana be.  LOL

Retired Rod