Where they walked before us...

First I must comment on the drive thru and up to these mountains and along the San Miguel River.  The views from this highway were unbelievable, breathtakingly beautiful, awe inspiring, and again just absolutely too much for words.  I felt on “top of the world” on half the drive and the hummed John Denver tunes the second half.  This is one you”ll have to see to believe folks! 
(These are in no particular order)

Telluride was not chosen as a stop on this trip because of its modern day significance as a hot spot for the Hollywood types or a grand ski vacation spot. Telluride holds family ties.  My mother was born here and my grandparents raised their young family here in the 1940’s and 50’s.  My Grandpa Ray was a Barber in this small western town (for the mining community I suspect) and is currently buried in the Lone Tree Cemetery at the end of Main Street.

We got into town before dark so we had time to drive around the quite streets of town a bit, visit the cemetery and find the most perfect campsite that ever existed.  Telluride is a mix of old and new made to look old but we drove the “historic district” streets and saw some gems from the time my mom and uncles called this home. 

The town of telluride has a sweet little campground at the back of the town park. As we drove through to pick our site we  just couldn’t stop looking up at the mountains above- luck on our side the best site in the whole world was open an waiting for us! We set up camp, called the girls to let them know we had arrived (a little emotionally) and just relished in all the beauty before us. Just then, as if on cue, it started to snow. Lightly and keep going just long enough to be a perfect moment for us to enjoy. 

It was supposed to get down in the 20’s but we were plenty warm and snuggly with our down quilts. We slept well listening to the babble of the river beside us. The one morning Todd would have slept in- I awoke at 6am. I typed out a blog and with the generosity of the campground host was able to upload on WiFi. Shops didn’t open on a Sunday until about 10am so we had a leisurely coffee and oatmeal (hot for the first time on this trip!) and then headed into to town to walk around. 

We saw all sort of historic spots, including the town museum (unfortunately not open until June) which used to be the hospital and most likely the one my mother was born in. Stopped in the library to look up some genealogical records. Found out that my grandparents must have moved to Telluride from Durango just the year or so before mom arrived. 

Checked the weather report while we had lunch and realized the 3-5 inches predicted was now 5-10 and coming overnight. We decided to leave before the pass toward Durango became impassable. On into New Mexico we went- toward the very area that Grandpa was born.