Telluride Adventure

by Katharine Niles

Blog Last Updated; 3/5/2009

We splurged because we had way cheap lift tickets. My son, being in fifth grade, had a free passport courtesy of SkiColoradoUSA. We had a half price board rental coupon. Finding a hotel room in T-Ride for under 250.00, however, was impossible. So we splurged.
Hotel room was at the New Sheridan, whose owners have remodeled extensively and expensively.
Way cool place. Room was tiny, Victorian sized. Barely room for Chris' rollaway bed. It felt very European, though, and we liked that. I also liked the historic photos hanging in the hall.
But MAN. Saturday night in T-Ride is a party scene. There was a bar downstairs and our room faced the street. We had a window, but we also had noise.
Still, this didn't bug us too much. We skied all afternoon with requisite child grumpiness (see "Skiing with Youngster" blog for a taste) and were asleep at a ridiculously early hour.
In the morning, Jonathan (Loyal Spouse) said the whole thing reminded him of Europe. How you hear the street noise till all hours. How your room is small and the presence of other people, of the long nose of history, is always upon you. This led to:
Telling Chris about our hotel room in Florence, Italy. One mosquito would pester your ear all night long, and every time you used the plumbing the air reeked of raw garlic, as if the pipes went right through some kitchen prep area you didn't want to know too much about.
I love telling my son stories like this. We went to Italy two months before we conceived him. He remembers these stories, and compares them to his own. He has been to Spain, Belize, Cape Cod, NYC. I vowed to make him a good traveler, and he is.
We had a tremendous breakfast at the restaurant at the Hotel. Went home feeling, oddly, that in a remote mountain town of small size with nothing much but a mining past to it, we'd had a very cosmopolitan, global experience. It was cool.

Monday, March 30, 2009
at 8:09:44 AM

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Gretchen says:

Kate...what a refreshing angle on the old "ski area as evil" premise. Thanks for showing us a different light.