Telluride

Many, many years ago Chad, Matt and I visited Telluride and Mountain Village.  

Telluride is a small town tucked into the corner of a beautiful valley rich in mining history.  It is very much off the beaten path.  The name "Telluride" is believed to have come from the saying "To Hell you ride".  The town is full of beautifully restored buildings and homes from the 1800's.  It is also a hot spot for the rich and famous making the place a bit uppity, much like Aspen.  Telluride has a ski resort and to accommodate the skiers it built Mountain Village, a separate but attached town full of ski condos and homes.  Because Mountain Village is up higher on the mountain and it take about 20 minutes of drive time to get there from Telluride they built a gondola between the two.  It's an ingenious business strategy.  The town proper keeps it's quaint appeal and yet is allowed to expand with multi million dollar condos and ski chalets.  We met up with Sandy, Shaunda and the girls to ride the gondola. 

Leaving Mountain Village.

Descending into Telluride.

Joey, Tim, Shaunda and Nora.

Once it was discovered that we had too many people in each car we were divided up, each family to a car.

Here we are taking off.

In case you didn't see it, take a closer look.

After leaving Telluride we stopped to air up our tires and we discovered a leak in the engine.  Chad and Vern are taking a look.  It turned out to be water condensation, much to everyone's relief.  

On the road back to Ouray, the Sipps had a flat.  The guys pitched in to change it.

Meanwhile we corralled the kids and gave them snacks to pass the time.  

Headed back to Ouray.