Day Twenty-Two: Happy Birthday, Robert!

I am writing this many days after the fact, so the details are a little fuzzy.

On this day, Robert's day of birth, we went in to Telluride for Internet and Thai food. Telluride is a little ski town about eight miles from Alta Lakes, where we were happily camping for free because it is on national forest land. Before going to town, Robert wanted to shower. I was not keen on the idea, but Robert gathered water from the lake and boiled some of it for warmth. We set off down a little hill and I took the fastest, coldest shower ever. The wind made it brutal and of course the sun remained behind a few clouds for the duration of our shower just to spite us.

Regardless of our momentary discomfort, we went to town clean. Telluride is difficult to describe, but I will try. We drove to a place called Mountain Village, which is not quite Telluride, although Telluride's official name is the Mountain Village of Telluride. There we parked the car and got on a free public transport gondola. The gondola first took us to the other end of Mountain Village, thick with ski resort lodging. Then we got on another gondola that took us to the top of the mountain, where you get off to go skiing or mountain biking, but we stayed on and travelled down the back side of the mountain into Telluride proper. We brought our bikes, which proved a little interesting since the gondolas don't stop. There are frequently bikes on the gondola though so there were bike racks for us to use. I, however, proved to be fairly inept at getting my bike onto the moving rack. Ungracefully, I boarded the gondola just before it left the platform. I was a little timid on the gondolas at first, but quickly realized that I most likely wasn't going to plunge to my death and enjoyed the views.

We were fairly lost as we disembarked because we had no idea what we wanted to do in Telluride. Robert talked to the conveniently located information booth man while I used the conveniently located public restrooms; the city planners must have been smart people! We decided to tool around town for a bit to get oriented and then found the Steaming Bean Coffee Emporium, with free wi-fi. We read and played online for a bit, got dampish in an afternoon sun shower, then went to the Last Dollar Saloon to drink damn near free PBRs (pabst blue ribbon, for the uninitiated).

After getting a little smiley off cheap beer, we headed out to look for the free concert in Mountain Village that the nice man in the gondola told us about. Amusingly, he was openly discussing purchasing and transporting large quantities of drugs over the phone, but the concert sounded nice. We rode the gondolas back to Mountain Village and stopped in at the Poachers Pub to inquire. Three days early, we were. The concert series kicked off on Saturday, July 3rd. We opted for another round and some spinach artichoke dip, served with terrible red white and blue colored chips.

Now we stashed our less than helpful bikes (everything is within walking distance), got back on the gondola and went back to Telluride for dinner. Robert was hankering for green curry and we knew of one Thai place in Telluride called Siam, Sami to Robert. We got a small table in the corner, next to a window, but still blisteringly hot. The menu was huge so it took us a while, the man tried to be helpful by reading all the words to us, but the reading wasn't the problem, it was just a huge menu. Eventually we ran him off and decided on: psycho rolls (spring rolls with a spicy dipping sauce), green curry with vegetables, drunken noodles with tofu and the house unfiltered sake. The psycho rolls were good, but less than psycho in their spiciness. We enjoyed the curry and noodles, but we can make curry just as good as theirs and they didn't put the correct vegetables in it. They used baby corn and no eggplant nor potatoes. Oh well. I really liked the drunken noodles though, sort of pad Thai like, but with large flat noodles. The sake was tasty, but I was so full it was difficult to finish. Before we left, we made friends with our table neighbors, who thought we were looking through our southeast Asia guidebook for menu suggestions. They raved about the Tom kha soup as being the best they had ever had, even in Thailand, which segued into talk about our upcoming trip. They suggested we bring very few shirts and just buy more when they fall apart since they are so cheap in Thailand. The woman amusingly asked Robert, "how big are you?" I would have been offended, but quickly her husband helped her explain that in Thailand he always sent the shop keepers scurrying for the largest size they had and he wasn't even large by American standards. The woman decided Robert would find adequately sized cheap clothing too. Whew.

We made our way home slowly, enjoying the cool mountain air and the crazy expensive small, slightly run-down houses of Telluride. We had our gondola to ourselves, which is the best because it cuts off all outside noise and you feel like you are in this little private world high above the treetops and ant people. It was especially nice in the dark, slipping through the blackness like pirates.

A very low key birthday, but very enjoyable, I was told.