Sunday, August 15, 2010

Last Day of Summer Vacation

We did something today we have never in the seven years we've lived here done before. We rode the gondola at Telluride. It's a free ride from Telluride over the ski mountain to Telluride Mountain Village.

Note: I did not put petroleum jelly on my lens - lol - most of the pictures were taken through the plexiglass windows of the gondola.

Here are the kids waiting at the bottom. Rhetta being her cute self and Willon being his bouncy self. Yes his shirt is on backwards. He likes it that way.

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Here comes our ride. The gondolas never actually stop so you can board them. They jump off the faster moving track onto a slower one as it pulls in and makes the curve around the station. Then as it comes around, the attendant opens the doors and you have to hop in while it's moving and rocking. Can you say "EEP!"?

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The doors are supposed to close by themselves when they hit a certain spot on the track. Ours didn't. I had to pull them closed myself. Those are ski slots on the outside of the doors.

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Buh-bye Telluride

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Looking up. I love the lush green of summer in the mountains.

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Willon looking down. He found the whole experience very exciting.

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Looking down. This is a neat shot because it shows where we passed under a different lift. Plus, you can see the funky apparatus on the tower that keeps the birds from landing and/or nesting there.

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Every gondola has a bike rack on the back because a popular mountain bike activity is riding the gondola up and riding the bike down. This sign at the top of leg 1 made me laugh a little nervously when I saw it.

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Here is the view coming down to the end of leg 2 in Mountain Village. It is a ritzy, non-historical branch of the Telluride resort area. We bought expensive coffee then turned around and went back to town the same way we came up, or down, whatever.

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Once back to town we hit The Sweet Life, Down to Earth, and the Imagination Station (a playground).

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All in all a most beautiful and wondrous way to spend an afternoon. Next time we'll come early and hike the three miles down.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow is a BIG DAY in the life of a little boy.

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