Last day in Telluride

On Sunday we decided to further enjoy our surroundings with a horseback ridding adventure.  About 45 minutes away from Mountain Village and a few mile markers past Rico we pulled into the Circle K Ranch.  After we parked, we both signed away our lives on some liability releases, and headed over to the corral to meet up with our horses and guides.  We would be riding with a family of three, and two guides and decided we would determine if we wanted to go for a 2 or 3 hour ride when we were out on the trail.

 

Jonathan was introduced to his horse first. His name is Jigsaw and he happened to be their largest stead.  The ranchers noted that he is a little stubborn and a bit feisty, so enjoy the ride. I was paired up with Roany, a lovely horse with a calm demeanor whose name derives from the fact that he is a Red Roan.  We were told our trail would include some inclines to which we were supposed to lean forward, and descending portions to which we were to lean back. Can you tell Jonathan was excited for our ride?! 

Acknowledging that Roany does this on a daily basis I let the reigns go slack and enjoyed the ride as we ambled along. I full faith that Roany knew far better than I did about what he was doing and where we were going, so I wasn't about to try and lead. On the other hand, concerned by Mr. Jigsaw's propensity to nudge the horse in front of him with his nose Jonathan kept having to slow his horse down with gentle reign pressure much to Jigsaw's annoyance. 

                                    
I don't think we could have chosen a better day to ride.  The bold blue sky was marbled with a pleasant mix of puffy white clouds that provided a nice reprieve from the sun's intensity. We traversed fields, hills, small creeks and paused for a little photo shoot.  We opted for the 3 hour trip and enjoyed nearly every moment, with the exception being when Jigsaw either tripped or stumbled on the path giving the appearance that he was going down. Hearing the commotion I turned around to Jigsaw with his head down, almost touching the ground, creating a near perfect diagonal line from the tip of his nose to the top of Jonathan's backwards leaning body. Impressively and most importantly Jigsaw pulled it together, managing to re-gain his balance and recover with both horse and rider safe and sound. 

I can't imagine crossing the United States in such a manner, but can certainly imagine the joy of owning land and a horse of my own to ride about.  By the end of the ride I was fairly certain some part of my pelvic bone was about to chip off in the saddle, but again, a lovey experience indeed.        

After our ride we headed back to the resort, changed, then made our way into town for lunch.  On this Gondola ride we shared our cabin with a guy who just so happened to live about 4 blocks from our house back in Phoenix.  Talk about small world! We discussed Phoenix dinning, and the festival before disembarking and heading our separate ways. Not surprisingly we avoided Floradora and instead tried the BBQ at a restaurant we'd enjoyed some tasty nachos at a few days before.  The BBQ wasn't anything special, but overall we enjoyed our food, an adult beverage, and the always appreciated friendly customer service.  Since Sunday was the last day of the festival the crowds had noticeably thinned so we were able to find a spot for our chairs without any trouble.  We sat and enjoyed the group already performing on stage before making a trek to, and along the creek to cool off. 

Back in the festival grounds, sometime early evening the daily marshmallow fight ensued.  Today, unlike the day before monster sized marshmallows were included in the mix.  They're kind of hard to capture, but in a few pictures in the slide show you can see random little white dots in mid air.  The "thwap" of a direct hit was pretty entertaining but these good hearted food fighters seemed to toss with only the fun of flying marshmallows in mind.  The final band of the festival, and likely the band Jonathan was most looking forward to consisted of several masters of their art. Bela Fleck made playing the banjo at impossible speeds look easy, while Sam Bush displayed his mastery of the mandolin, Bryan Sutton rocked the guitar and a few others played and sang the festival to a close with a perfect show.  We stayed until the official end of the show but packed up to head back to our room before the jam-fest encore could ensue.  It was a relief to finally cut off our wrist bands and sleep a night without the sketchy night hippies causing havoc below. Oh, but don't you worry, our trusty feathered friends were sure to keep on schedule at 5 the next morning. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip and our time in Telluride but on Monday had to head back to the desert to return to reality. Our tip seemed shorter and less desolate on the way home, perhaps thanks to the fanciful scheming of our Telluride business idea and eventual downtown condo purchase. Hours later we made it to Scottsdale to pick up Mr. Jackson before getting home to be greeted by two kitties very happy to see their scheduled food service back in town.  In addition to happy animals we also returned to our newly tiled bathroom floors, to be discussed at a later time. 

Will we return to the Bluegrass festival next year? Perhaps yes, perhaps no, time and other trips will tell. Will we return to Telluride to enjoy the fresh mountain air, the dog friendly atmosphere and the overall beauty of what used to be a semi-abandon mining valley town, most certainly!!