Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging New Mexico Restaurants Shopping The Southwest Travel: Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging New Mexico Restaurants Shopping The Southwest Travel
by maribeth
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For Off-Season and Year-Round Enchantment: Taos, New Mexico
Contemplating Nature’s Beauty at Hacienda del Sol in Taos, New Mexico
Ahhh-hhh, off-season. Anyone that has lived in a resort town knows the true meaning of off-season. Whether it occurs in the winter or summer, spring or fall, this lull in peak travel times provides a much-needed respite from the busy-ness of high season. In Telluride, Colorado it means tons of available parking spaces, no lines at the Post Office or grocery store and a certain quietude akin to a ghost town, something that delights some and bores the heck out of others.
Most don’t mind this downturn of activity, since many take advantage of our seasonal slowdown (during the spring and fall) to go off and seek fun for themselves elsewhere. Since the mountain closed two weeks ago, we’re in the throws of off-season now, also referred to as shoulder season and in the case of the spring off-season, mud season.
Many people take off for exotic locales for as many as six weeks travel; others find their bliss within a two- to six-hour drive from our southwestern Colorado mountain town. Indeed, we’re located just a few hours away from some of the best recreation around in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, all sunny and warm destinations this time of year where spring arrives with the intensity of the desert sun.
Colorado Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Restaurants Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride Trip Planning Writing & Books: Colorado Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Restaurants Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride Trip Planning Writing & Books
by maribeth
Comments Off on KOTO Fundraising: Fun and Great Giveaways
KOTO Fundraising: Fun and Great Giveaways
KOTO Radio: The Soul of Telluride, Colorado
Join me today, Thursday, March 20, A LITTLE EARLIER at about 6:20 pm (through 7pm) in Telluride, Colorado and within the outlying area and on the internet for my Travel Fun talk radio show. This will be a special live show for KOTO fundraising featuring a variety of movers and shakers from Telluride’s hospitality/tourism world. I will be giving away lots of great premiums including lodging stays, restaurant and retail gift certificates, books and even ski lift tickets in exchange for a donation to KOTO.
KOTO is a local NPR station and one of the few entirely community supported radio stations in the country. Please consider making a contribution to KOTO, so that we can keep community radio alive and well in America. That’s also a way of showing your support for Travel Fun! Please email me from my Contacts Page with your pledge or donation. Many of my Travel Fun interviews are posted on this blog as podcasts here.
Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding The Rockies: Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding The Rockies
by maribeth
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Powderhorn: For Family Fun and Great Skiing at Half the Price
Major Pow Wow in Powderhorn
We’re in the throes of spring break madness here at most Colorado ski resorts and frankly I’m left wondering how a family of four does it these days. Between the price of lift tickets, lunches, instruction and overall travel expenses, a family ski vacation in Colorado can represent as much as a down payment on a house. I’m fully appreciative of the ski getaways I did with my family when I was a kid but still we went mostly to down-home ski areas in western Massachusetts and upstate New York, all a far cry from the destination resorts of the West. Mom and Dad would pack my bunch of brothers and me into the station wagon along with a picnic basket loaded with Mom’s homemade submarine sandwiches and peanut butter cookies and off we’d go for a fun day on the slopes.
Not a ski day goes by that I don’t feel a pinch of nostalgia for those simpler times, so I was especially thrilled to discover Powderhorn Mountain Resort, a terrific little ski area on the western slope of Colorado just a short drive from Grand Junction. I skied there recently with my dear friend Paula, another northeastern gal who shares the same fond memories as I about family ski trips of a more modest scale, and was delighted to discover the many charms of this little-known resort. From the parkas and pants for rent at the ski shop, to the cubbies and lockers for boots and other belongings to the sack lunch room to the enormous deck at the Sunset Grille to the lift tickets at half the price of major resorts, I loved the vibe of this place from the get-go.
Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging Telluride Festivals The Southwest Utah: Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging Telluride Festivals The Southwest Utah
by maribeth
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Telluride, Monument Valley and the Oscars
In Living Color: Monument Valley
How about those Oscars? Wasn’t it a great show? I was thrilled that I had seen most of the films nominated for an award here in our little mountain town of Telluride, Colorado way back in September. Yes, just as in recent years, many of the movies that gained high acclaim from the Academy of Motion Pictures were shown here in T-ride—either as premiers or sneak peeks—during the Telluride Film Festival (TFF) long before they were officially released. Telluride’s selection of films seems to be filled with Oscar contenders more so than the lineups presented at other renowned film festivals in New York, Venice and Toronto.
Much of the Oscar buzz takes place before and after this annual awards show. I was thrilled to tune into CBS Sunday Morning, one of my all-time favorite TV shows, to see Monument Valley: Mother Nature’s scene stealing movie star, last Sunday. It was a wonderful segment that featured the extraordinary sense of place of this iconic site and the many Oscar-worthy movies filmed there including “The Searchers,” “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” “Back to the Future,” “Forrest Gump” and many more. This majestic landscape has appeared in dozens of films as well as countless commercials. Almost a half a million visitors go to Monument Valley every year, largely because of the prominence it has enjoyed in the movies. Thanks to Harry Gouding and his wife, Leone (known as Mike), film director John Ford discovered Monument Valley and its perfect setting for great western movies and feature films. This was highlighted in the CBS piece although Goulding’s Lodge and its terrific Trading Post Museum, which also showcases the history of movie-making in the area, were scarcely mentioned.
Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding Steamboat Springs Telluride The Rockies: Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding Steamboat Springs Telluride The Rockies
by maribeth
Comments Off on Skiing Steamboat Powder
Skiing Steamboat Powder
Skiing Fresh Pow in Steamboat
My Powder Hound
Woo-hoo! There’s nothing like skiing fresh powder, especially when it’s the nice champagne powder we have here in Colorado, the dry, glittering fluff you float through like a glider rollicking on air drafts above a mountain peak. We’ve been having wonderful winter snowstorms here in our Rocky Mountain state with snow totals reaching over two feet at most resorts within a twenty-four hour period at the end of last week and then another biggie that hit just yesterday. I was teaching skiing here in Telluride throughout the biggest pow period and although I wasn’t able to have the fun I’d have on my own, I did enjoy introducing some intermediate skiers to their first powder day—a whole different experience from skiing groomers.
I had the biggest powder day of my life almost a month ago in Steamboat Springs, a resort that’s been particularly well served in the fluffy white stuff this year. My boyfriend, Steve, and I hit it right and managed to arrive just ahead of road closures and other inconveniences caused by a very big dump. They had such a snow event in the area that people had a hard time finding their way to the slopes (especially if they had to cross Rabbit Ears Pass). Fortunately we were staying slopeside in the newly renovated Sheraton Steamboat Resort, the best property of its kind at this popular mountain destination both due to its superb location and the quality of the establishment and services provided. We were thrilled to find ourselves in a contemporary-styled, one-bedroom condo hotel unit where we were able to sprawl out for three days. (A ski trip always involves a lot of clothing and gear even if you’re a seasoned traveler staying for a short while.)
Hotels & Lodging New England Restaurants Travel: Hotels & Lodging New England Restaurants Travel
by maribeth
3 comments
Thanksgiving Reflections on a Connecticut Coastal Town Vacation
Mom and I at One of the Favorite Culinary Discoveries of Our Trip
Mom Enjoying Chowder in Mystic, Connecticut
Thanksgiving. A time to be grateful. I practice gratitude all year long—it’s what gets me through some of the toughest times. But around Thanksgiving, it’s nice to serve up a few extra helpings.
I’m grateful for my parents still being a part of my life right now. And I’m particularly thinking about my mother who just two days ago underwent a double knee replacement at the age of eighty. The pain must have been really bad for her to have opted for such surgery. I pray that she heals well and that her two brand new knees make a difference in her life.
I’m thinking back to a trip we took together last June, the first travels we’d done together—just the two of us—in a few years. We were like two girls on the run—Thelma and Louise wannabes looking to cut loose. Mom, as my Dad’s constant companion, hadn’t been out on a fun getaway with me, her “best-est” travel buddy in years. (Plus, most of her friends have passed away, so her vacationing days are few and far between.) We’ve always traveled tons together and getting back on track to long car rides filled with constant chatter, leisurely meals showcasing regional specialities, hotel stays where we’d talk into the wee hours of the morning and shopping forays where we’d experience the best of female bonding was all long overdue. Mom and I have always shared similar tastes: I am my mother’s daughter par excellence. So there’s little dissension about what to do and where to go; we view the world and its surroundings through a similar lens, especially when it comes to travel.
Colorado Food & Wine Hotels & Lodging Shopping The Rockies: Colorado Food & Wine Hotels & Lodging Palisade Shopping The Rockies
by maribeth
Comments Off on Perfectly Palisade: Colorado’s Wine Country
Perfectly Palisade: Colorado’s Wine Country
The View from Canyon Wind Cellars
What a wintery time it has been here in Colorado! It even snowed on the western slope in Palisade/Grand Junction, an area known as the bread basket/banana belt of the state where it’s typically twenty degrees warmer than in the mountains. I did a getaway there with a friend over the weekend and reveled in exploring Colorado’s wine country; I loved seeing the vines beneath a frosty blanket of white. Vineyards the world over are picturesque, however, I find the contrast of the rows and rows of vines backdropped by the dramatic, buff-colored rock towers and cliffs here—known as the Book Cliffs—especially striking.
Beauty Colorado Colorado Springs Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Travel: Beauty Colorado Colorado Springs Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Travel
by maribeth
6 comments
A Happy Ending to My Own Horror Story
A Small Section of My Face: A Gruesome Reality
Happy Halloween everyone! I hope it’s a fun one for you and your loved ones.
I’ve been out of touch the past couple of weeks, since I’ve been dealing with my own ghoulish happenings. Truly ghastly and yes, I felt like I was wearing a mask of sorts for a whole week. I looked like a monster and it seemed like I was living a nightmare.
Unlike most Halloween doings, this wasn’t fun at all. The whole dreadful experience did, however, force me to step back and be even more thankful for what I have in my life—my own good health and the people that love and support me every day. It also reinforced my feelings of compassion. I’ve always considered myself a caring and compassionate person yet now I’m even more so because I had a good taste of what it’s like to look like a freak.
By now you might be wondering what happened to me. Well, I had a terrible reaction to some medication that literally fried my face off from the inside out. My whole visage burned and swelled and itched and cracked and peeled like a moist riverbed dried up beneath the mid-day Mojave Desert sun. It hurt like hell; only large and regular doses of self medicating could make me somewhat comfortable. It was so unsightly that it made a child gape at me wide-eyed at the Medical Center and my dermatologist exclaim, “Wow, I’ve never seen such a reaction.” I did, however, feel an overflowing of compassion from folks at the pharmacy and other doctors’ offices which I frequented a lot that week because there was no easy fix. I truly sensed that people poured there heart out to me whether they said anything or not. My attempts at hiding behind the disguise of a pink fleece hoodie proved futile and after my third visit to the pharmacy, I just let it all hang out like a terribly over ripe peach dangling from the limb of a tree. At one point, I had to pop into a market for cat food and perhaps in an effort to reach out to me, the cashier kindly complimented me on my scarf.
I just wanted to lie on my couch and retreat into my own world, generously applying cold compresses and oil to my face every half hour while listening to Mozart and sipping wine.
