Traveling Cargopants

I started my trip by heading from New Mexico to Durango, expecting to spend a single night as I passed through to Mesa Verde, but I fell in love with the town and spent almost a week there. Then the guy who I was couch-surfing with told me that him and a few friends were going to the Telluride Blues & Brews festival. Why the heck not? Telluride is a nice little town full of rich people, beautiful Victorian style homes, and a happening downtown area with plenty of restaurants and bars set in modernized old brick buildings. Surrounding the town on three sides is a big range of mountains, well known for beautiful hiking and mountain biking in the summer, and great skiing and other winter sports in the long 6-month winter. From the town you can clearly see a Bridal Falls, a spring-fed waterfall high in the mountains. Luckily I got there just as Autumn was setting in, so I got the pleasure of seeing entire swaths of mountain-side Aspen trees changing into a magnificant yellow.

I arrived in Telluride late on Saturday night and camped for a couple nights. My couch-surfing buddy, Dave, had a bunch of friends there and we all camped in a big circle around the “community tent”, a smattering of tarps tied to nearby trees, were they had set up a couple of cooking stoves, lots of chairs, and plenty of coolers full of cold brew. There were a ton of other friendly people camping nearby with the same setup, and it was fun to wander into new groups and make new friends. There was a sweet couple camping next to us from Edmonton, Manitoba (Canada) who offered me a room in their house if I ever came up that way. I only got to see the last day of the festival, but the highlights were Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal — each went on stage with their bands and sang their heart out, and then both of them and their bands all came on stage and rocked the house (field)! I’m not much of a blues fan, but live music is always great! Telluride is a cool town with plenty of entertainment all year round. Just expect that you’ll spend a pretty penny to enjoy it.

After packing up camp on Monday morning, I stopped in town for some brunch and a few hours of work at La Cocina de Luz Mexican restaurant. Then I headed back south through some beautiful mountains and arrived late in the evening in the town of Cortez. I had a great night’s sleep at the White Eagle Inn — cozy, inexpensive, super clean, and owned by some very friendly people (and they have a free 18-hole mini golf course!). The next morning I got up, ate a breakfast of cold Chinese food left-overs from the night before, and drove the short distance to learn about the ancient Native American ruins at Mesa Verde National Park…

Tags: Couch Surfing, festival, Telluride

This entry was posted by Hargobind on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Journey. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.