Day 3 in Telluride, Colorado
It is a record year for snowfall in Telluride, CO. Bob is loving the hill and I do not ski on this trip. Not once. I can’t breathe here!! I am sure my children are embarrassed by me right now. Gotta keep it under 10K feet or spend a week to acclimate.
Saturday is a sunny day - to start - so Bob hits the slopes while I do some blogging. After a few hours, he comes back and we take a leisurely walk (Ann is still stopping to catch her breath) and then get ready for a lovely wedding in town. Now it's Sunday, our final day. The plan is to ski, but it is snowing and windy with zero visibility. Not for me. We are headed to town, as we have not spent much, if any time wandering the streets of Telluride. Gotta do it. Here are some shots from Bob's ski adventure on Saturday. He calls Telluride one of the top 3 ski hills he's been on. High praise.
Photos from Bob’s ski adventure on Saturday. Telluride is deep and steep, he enjoyed every second of it!
We take the gondola up and over into Telluride. There are many shops, restaurants and galleries to look at, but our first mission is lunch: Brown Dog Pizza. By any account it is the best pizza in town and we would like to judge for ourselves. Upon entering, we notice a long bar, a few sports jerseys and what seems to be a baseball scoreboard depicting the Red Sox beating the Yankees in a playoff game that lasts 12 innings. Hmmm, I think I know what game that is! Turns out the owner played football with Tom Brady in Michigan and is a New England native. I like it here.
Brown Dog Pizza offers four styles of pizza - Detroit-style, Classic American, Chicago Deep Dish plus New York Style pizza by the slice, as well as tons of appetizers, subs, sandwiches, burgers, pasta and more. Delicious!
Now that lunch is taken care of, it is time to walk the town. The first place to catch our attention is Crossbow Leather. Two women are busy at work hand-crafting bags, jewelry and a large assortment of other items. Additionally, they sell leather coats and beaded jewelry, all locally crafted. The store is a feast for the eyes! Scroll through to enjoy.
Beautiful hand-crafted leather goods with a western flair made before your eyes at Crossbow Leather in Telluride.
Our next stop is the Gallery of Fine Navajo Weaving, where proprietor Bill Gordon has been collecting and curating handmade Navajo weavings for years, some dating back to the 1800's. They are all truly exquisite. They do not have a web site that I can find, but I'll leave you with a few photos.
An impressive collection of Navajo weavings - rugs and tapestries - plus a huge selection of sterling silver and turquoise jewelry at the Gallery of Fine Navajo Weaving. Simply beautiful and highly collectible.
These first two stops have been amazing, what's next? We spot a shop on the corner called Mixx, and it looks inviting. Time to stop in. Mixx has an eclectic assortment of housewares, furniture, lighting fixtures, artwork and jewelry, all very compelling. I see a few paintings that interest me, so we chat with the proprietor a bit and decide to keep in touch. This compilation of photos will be a slideshow, too, so much to look at here!
The product mix at Mixx Projects is varied. Western contemporary and unique.
So far we have seen some fantastic stuff! Next is the Turquiose Door Gallery, where Sami, the gallery dog, greets us with a boatload of cuteness! The art here, too, is sublime. I'll let the pictures do the talking.
The Turquoise Door Gallery has an amazing collection of artwork and one of the cutest gallery dogs in recent memory.
We hit a lot more places, but two stand out. The first one is Elinoff Gallery on Colorado Street. Almost all of these locations, by the way, are on Colorado Street or thereabouts. Telluride is compact and user-friendly this way. The gallery's web site is awful but the gallery itself is pretty amazing.
Beautiful paintings, sculpture and jewelry at Elinoff Gallery on West Colorado Street.
The last gallery we visit before headed back to the hotel and then out for dinner is Lustre Gallery. I can't say the chandelirs or the artwork are up my alley, but if you like color, this is the place for you.
An overview of the colorful lighting fixtures, glassware, jewelry and paintings at Lustre Gallery.
Enough shopping, time to head back to the hotel and prepare for a final dinner with members of the wedding party. There will be 14 of us in all, and I volunteer to make reservations. I've chosen La Marmotte, a quaint French bistro near the gondola into town. Their web site is under construction, but I've provided a link anyway.
La Marmotte offers delicious French country-style food in cozy surroundings. The wine list is to die for.
We arrive in time for our 7:00pm reservation and are promptly seated. The waitress takes a cocktail order which is significant and varied. The drinks take some time to arrive, but Bob does what he does best - order wine - so by the time the cocktails arrive, some wine is starting to open and the rest of the meal moves at the perfect pace! I am not even going to try to bother 14 people to take pictures of their dinner, I will just share pictures of mine. After a lovely salad of bibb lettuce, burratta cheese, blood orange and pomegranite seeds, I enjoy rack of Colorado Lamb with oyster mushroom risotto, sauteed squash, arugula pesto and a rosemary jus. It is divine.
My salad and entree, plus a view of the kitchen and bar at La Marmotte, which after using a French to English translator, turns out to be “The Marmot”. Yes, I feel dumb.
Dinner is widely enjoyed by all and we turn our attention to dessert. Several are ordered for the table, and I have a picture of two.
A light and custardy creme brûlée, plus cheesecake with caramel sauce and fresh berries round out an extraordinary dinner at La Marmotte, Telluride, CO.
It is time to say goodbye to the wedding folk as we leave town tomorrow morning at 9am. Telluride has been fanstastic despite the lack of oxygen. Our hotel the Lumiere, is a member of Inspirato, a consortium of luxury properties around the world where one can accrue points, etc. We have not joined but we probably should. The hotel was comfortable without being stuffy, and well located in the Mountain village. We would come here again, especially since they sell oxygen canisters. I will leave you with a slideshow of photos taken Monday morning as we head to the airport and our next destination: Laguna Niguel, California. Sea level! I can't wait to breathe freely, hope you check in to read about it.
We leave Telluride surrounded by the 14K footers, but the landscape calms as we descend some 3,000 feet as we head to Montrose Regional Airport. Next stop is California. Headed to sea level and normal breathing!!