Art & Culture Being Green Colorado Springs Four Corners Hotels & Lodging Telluride: Art & Culture Being Green Colorado Four Corners Hotels & Lodging Photography Telluride Telluride Festivals
by maribeth
1 comment
Colorful Colorado
Telluride’s Valley Floor
Wow. Wow. Wow. What an extraordinary end of summer/fall it has been. We’ve had nearly three weeks of breathtakingly-beautiful weather here in the Rockies and the forecast promises more sun and warmth for the upcoming week. The colors have popped. It looks like the leaves in the San Juan Mountains, the range located in the southwestern corner of Colorado, will be peaking this weekend. Usually when that happens, a snowstorm blows in, but this year we’re to be blessed with more fine leaf-peeping days throughout a good part of October. Scenery like this makes me wonder why people battle the crowds and traffic jams of New England for their annual fall foliage tour. I recommend you sign up for the wide, open spaces and shimmering aspens of the Rockies next year!
Art & Culture Colorado Four Corners Hotels & Lodging Podcasts The Rockies: Art & Culture Colorado Four Corners Hotels & Lodging Podcasts The Rockies
by maribeth
Comments Off on Durango, the San Juan Skyway and the Western Movie Culture of the Four Corners Region According to Fred Wildfang
Durango, the San Juan Skyway and the Western Movie Culture of the Four Corners Region According to Fred Wildfang
The Marquee-Lined Hallway of The Rochester Hotel, the Hollywood of the Rockies
Writer and historian Frederic B. Wildfang has made Durango and the outlying area his passion for nearly two decades. Author of a handful of books about this colorful corner of southwestern Colorado, Fred clearly loves the San Juans, the most striking mountain range of the Rockies. “It’s an interesting area historically and scenically,” Fred says in a recent Travel Fun interview. And certainly its geological richness has left an indelible mark on the region from mining and ranching to tourism and western-movie making and much more.
Preserving Durango's Heritage: Fred Wildfang and Family
As for Durango, a dynamic town where Fred lives and works, Fred feels it’s a very friendly place filled with a great mix of the old and the new from weather-worn cowboys to fresh-faced outdoor enthusiasts from the nearby college. He hikes everyday in the Weminuche Wilderness, the largest road-less area in Colorado, which lies just outside his door. Fred also loves to use Durango as a base for visiting other great western destinations such as Creede, Colorado and Lake Powell, Utah. In his most recent book, “Images of America: The San Juan Skyway,” Fred features this unbelievably scenic 236-mile loop that wends through glacial valleys and over high ice-sculpted peaks, traversing the old mining towns of Silverton, Ouray, Telluride and Durango. It’s one of the most renowned drives in America and one that you’ll want to take with Fred’s book in hand.
With such spectacular scenery and a wealth of remnants from the Old West, it’s no wonder so many western movies were filmed in the Four Corners area. Fred’s wife, Diane, and her son, Kirk, took over The Rochester Hotel, an historic hotel in Durango a number of years ago and renovated it to a heartwarming place to stay, one of my favorites in this fun-loving western town. A must-see tribute to the history of western movie making in the region, the rooms and hallways of this cozy enclave showcase western movie memorabilia from Fred’s collection. Each of the rooms is named after the movies filmed in and around the San Juans, beginning with “A Ticket to Tomahawk,” a western classic made in 1949 starring Marilyn Monroe. Fred talks about this movie and others in our interview. You’ll discover that most of the westerns were filmed in the fifties and many boast a connection with the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway, a national treasure that provides reason enough to travel to Durango.
Click on the play button below to hear my interview with Frederic Wildfang.
The Rochester Hotel, 721 East Second Avenue, 970-385-1920 or 800-664-1920, RochesterHotel.com
The Rochester Courtyard with an Old Rail Car
Book Picks
In addition to “Images of America: The San Juan Skyway,” mentioned above, if you’re going to Durango, you’ll also enjoy “Images of America: Durango,” authored by Frederic B. Wildfang as well. Go to ArcadiaPublishing.com to find out about these books and more.
Art & Culture Being Green Four Corners Podcasts Telluride The Rockies Travel: Art & Culture Being Green Four Corners Podcasts Telluride The Rockies Travel
by maribeth
Comments Off on The National Trust and Us
The National Trust and Us
Richard Moe: Our Nation's Top Preservationist Enjoying the Great American West
People don’t want to go to a place that has lost its soul.
—Arthur Frommer
Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, shared the above quote with me in a recent Travel Fun interview. As our nation’s leading historic preservation organization, the Trust has saved the soul and character of countless places in its sixty years of existence. From main streets to historic sites, this bipartisan organization works tirelessly toward preserving our country’s heritage.
As a part-time resident of Telluride, I’ve had the privilege of chatting with Dick Moe about historic preservation and some of his favorite destinations several times. He loves his time in the West and makes Telluride his base every summer for visiting some of the most significant cultural sites in the United States including Canyon of the Ancients in southwestern Colorado. In our interview, he also talks about other exciting locales in the region such as Durango, Silverton, Chimney Rock and the Rio Grande Gorge in Del Norte.
As for Telluride, it’s clear that it stands a cut above all other Rocky Mountain destinations. “Telluride has done a better job of preserving its historic character than any other mountain town,” says Dick. He also shares his thoughts on the Telluride Valley Floor, a 500-acre parcel of open space that he fought hard to preserve.
The Trust’s programs on sustainability and historic preservation are also discussed in our interview. Currently the organization is committed to a sustainability program that focuses on the environmental value of “recylcing” older buildings for new uses and retrofitting them for greater energy efficiency.
Heritage tourism is the fastest growing part of tourism, already a huge industry in our country. The National Trust has offered tours all over the world for quite some time but they’re expanding their reach with Gozaic, a one-stop shopping portal for heritage travel. You can hear what Dick has to say about this in our chat as well.
Listen to the entire half-hour interview I conducted with Richard Moe by clicking on the play button here:
People want to experience what’s real and genuine in communities.
—Richard Moe, President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
Note that at the same time of this story posting, Richard Moe announced his retirement from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He has been the longest serving president in the sixty-year history of the Trust. He plans to continue to hold that position until a replacement is found, likely in the spring of 2010.
National Trust for Historic Preservation, 202-588-6000 and 800-944-6847, www.preservationnation.org; you may become a member of the Trust and receive their award-winning magazine six times a year for as little as $20.
Four Corners Podcasts Telluride The Rockies Travel: Four Corners Ken Burns Podcasts Telluride Telluride Festivals The Rockies Travel
by maribeth
Comments Off on Ken Burns on America’s National Parks and Telluride
Ken Burns on America’s National Parks and Telluride
Ken Burns and “National Parks” Producer Dayton Duncan
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been moved to tears every night this week watching Ken Burns’s six-part series, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” on PBS. This work was a labor of love for this master documentarian for some ten years and I think most of America is grateful for it finally being available for all to see. “It is the history of the ideas and the individuals that made this uniquely American thing happen,” Ken told me in a Travel Fun interview I conducted with him early September. “For the first time in history, land was set aside for the people,” he continued.
You may listen to the entire forty-minute interview I conducted with Ken by clicking on the play button here:
Ken also chats about his twenty-year relationship with Telluride. “It’s my lover,” he says. Listen to the podcast to find out why. You’ll also learn more about Ken’s two-decade long relationship with the Telluride Film Festival and why he calls it “the best festival on the planet.”
I was lucky enough to see one of Ken’s films on our National Parks on the big screen at Telluride’s Mountain Film Festival last May. Read about that experience here.
Book Picks
“Ken Burns: The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” at www.shoppbs.org/home. You can buy this must-have tome and the DVD and receive the CD soundtrack for free.
Podcast (bonjour): Play in new window | Download
Art & Culture Four Corners Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Spas The Rockies Travel: Art & Culture Four Corners Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Spas The Rockies Travel
by maribeth
5 comments
Going to Gateway
Red Rock Grandeur
“Now why did you say you wanted to come here again?” I asked my friend, Paula, as we stopped in this middle-of-nowhere place called Paradox, squinting beneath the beating sun in search of a gas station, a store or some other significant sign of life. My head pounded fiercely by now and both our car and I were positively parched.
“I wanted to take some pictures of Paradox Valley, you know for that contest I told you about, the one to raise awareness about possible uranium mining in the area,” Paula replied as she drove across verdant plains framed by cliffs the color of buff, sandstone and ochre. This contrasting display of nature must be the paradox, I blithely thought to myself as my head throbbed and we rolled through this shadow of a town, Paula clicking her camera like a sniper in a passing S.U.V.
We realized by now that there was no easy way to cleave our way through these rocky walls to Gateway, our ultimate destination, normally just a two-hour plus drive northwest of Telluride. Our detour to Paradox had proved scenic enough, but now we needed to speed up our travels. We had no choice than to turn around and drive back to Bedrock, the little speck we passed through on our way to Paradox Valley.
