Telluride Mountain Lodging

... zilla all weekend. And she was. But it was all in good fun! The hike up to the lake was STEEP and strenuous, and there wasn't a lot of oxygen at 12,000 feet, but it was worth the pain. The upper and lower Ice Lake basins were incredible! There were so many vivid colors... rolling hills carpeted in green, red, and yellow... lichen covered boulders... silver creeks... jagged gray peaks... and the bluest lake I have ever seen ...

... of hiking and sight seeing throughout the town, and ate and drank the way a group our size and age would be expected to.<br><br>Sorry I don't have more pics of the group, I was mesmerized by the scenery!<br><br>Maybe when I get together with them next I'll have some to add.<br><br>Hope all are well!

... was both very<br>interesting and sad. I loved seeing the Indian head dresses made of<br>feathers and playing in a Tipi (teepee). I also loved the cradle<br>boards that the babies were strapped to for travel on their mothers<br>back. They had beautiful bead work to determine if the baby was a boy<br>or girl. The boys had geometric shapes and the girls flowers and<br>such. I was sad to see how the early US government broke their<br>promise to the Indians 4 times in various ...

... goes into a pot and the person who bet on the car that wins gets half the pot. A couple of differences we noticed from other demolition derbies we've been to are that, 1. There was no beer garden!! A demo derby with no beer?! And 2. The crowds in Montana are ROWDY! (Of course the presence/absence of beer probably plays a role in the rowdiness of the crowd) <br> One last thing that happened at the demo derby that I thought was hysterical was ...

... view of mountains in 3 directions. Ethan, Connie and Wade drove up to Yankee Boy Basin (4 wheel drive mountain pass) while Antoinette and Amanda relaxed at the hotel. Nice side trip. Would love to go back and check out some of the other mine sites and tunnels. More pics to come later.

... with a cat draped around his neck!  I thought it was really funny, but then we passed him again on the way down and the cat was now walking along with him on a leash!  So funny!<br>  After our hike we wanted to try to get our camping situation taken care of so that we'd be back in town with time to ride the gondola and get dinner before the fireworks.  When we went through Telluride at the beginning of our road trip in 2007 Getting Lost in the American West in a '78 Volkswagen ...

... showed us the tools they used to mine and basically the workday of a miner. The mine had been mined for silver, gold, copper, among other metals. The guide told us that it never really was a good mine as it didn&#8217;t have enough of the minerals to make money. Our guide had been a contractor and had worked in the mine briefly. <br><br>Silverton was a cute little mining town and we ...

... there were some very steep drops on that route! However, he turned out to be as capable as he was frendly, so we all arrived back in Durango safe and sound. We reclaimed our SUVs in the hotel parking lot in Durango, and drove west to Cortez, where we'll be staying at the Days Inn for the next four nights. It was truly a relief to be able to unpack and settle in for a few days!

An overnight stop in Durango (a very cool town, which we would have liked to explore more of) and on to Silverton and Ouray (Victorian, mining towns), gave us a chance to slow down and adjust to the higher altitude of Colorado's San Juan Mountains. The winding mountain roads exposed alpine valleys, snow melt pour-offs, and the ...

... out. So we headed south to that sleepy little town. Luckily the weather cleared up for a little bit as we made it into Telluride. Once we left though it started to act up again. I do have to say though the Highlander makes it much easier to get around in the snow. Then we were off to Mesa Verde. We were ...