Sunday, February 12, 2012

Tom Kha Telluride

  Early Sunday, January 29th, Nick and I began our adventure to Telluride.  The six hour drive flew by with breathtaking scenery.  We drove through canyons and up summits on our way to the secluded town.  
We drove through Monarch Pass, about 11,300 feet, which provided beautifully terrifying views.  The shoulder is the edge of the cliff the roads winds up and down.  
While we were passing a river, we noticed people out on the ice.  As we neared, we realized they were ice fishing! Very cool, neither one of us had ever seen that in person before!




At about 5pm we pulled into the tiny town of Telluride.  El met us on her way back from work and showed us to her adorably perfect apartment.  I was so excited to see my dear friend, I insisted Nick take a picture of us in the beautiful surroundings immediately! Have to say he's a pretty good photographer :)
El had to work the next day, so Nick and I spent the morning walking around downtown sipping our coffee and window shopping.  It truly is a picturesque mountain town.  Literally stuck in a valley surrounded by towering snow capped peaks!
After a delicious lunch with El, we decided to take a trail that followed a creek down to the end of town.  We passed an ice skating pond and neared the frozen waterfall that is perfectly placed.  



 


Wednesday we got ourselves up early and headed to a cafe downtown.  After enjoying our delicious breakfast sandwiches and mugs of coffee, we hit the slopes! We got our feet wet on a few green slopes, but felt the urge to get up a lil higher and try our luck on some blues.  The conditions were amazing and Nick was really shredding it on his skies! Before the sun started to go down El insisted that we head all the way up.  So glad she did, because the views were unreal!
We got in a few more runs and headed home as the slopes closed. Soaked our sore ski bodies in the hot tub and then readied ourselves for a delicious dinner at Siam, local Thai hot spot.  I had no idea why El was making such a big deal about this place, she had been raving about it all day on the slopes! As soon as the pot of Tom Kha landed on the table, I quickly understood her obsession! I had no idea that I could fall in love with SOUP! Who loves soup? I do, Siam's Tom Kha soup that is! Could not have asked for a better way to end our amazing visit to El's temp home town of Telluride.

The next morning I had to say goodbye to my dearest friend! I hated it! Miss her already! Thanks El for being such a great host to Nick and I! We had an amazing time with you and love your tiny town! We can't wait to come back for some more Telluride good times!  

2 comments:

  1. It's funny to me how you guys can afford to drive out to Telluride, to eat out at the town's fine dining establishments, but you are only comfortable riding down green runs. You describe whatever Nick was doing on a blue as "really shredding it," which shows that your snowsports high achievement bar is set pretty low.

    It's funny because my friends and I have dedicated years of our lives to learning how to ride at an expert level, well above merely "advanced." Perhaps you were spending that same time learning how to make and save money. We learned how to athletically commune with the snowy mountains, you learned how to buy new stuff we're lucky to find secondhand.

    We can't afford fancy restaurants in ski towns, we can't even afford third rate restaurants on the front range! Every trip to the mountains for us is an adventure, because we're never quite sure what each day will bring. Planning for a hotel is right out, we're lucky to find a fellow couchsurfer reliable enough to give us whatever couch and floor space we can tetris ourselves into at night.

    I don't have any regrets, not from my end. I can stumble into enough money every year to keep my season lift pass active. Going on weekly adventures and learning to put trust into my friends'? You can lie cheat and steal your way into enough money to be happy. You can't lie cheat or steal the skills necessary to ski transcendentally!

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