Telluride Inside… and Out: Our off-season

09 Oct Telluride Inside… and Out: Our off-season

I believe I have mentioned before: for me there is no good time to leave Telluride. But things are so busy in Telluride during the Winter and Summer, that if one is to get out of town to visit family, the shoulder season is when it's going to happen.

We were in Telluride long enough to be aware of this even-more-beautiful Autumn, but mostly we have been on the road. We were in Pittsburgh in early September with daughter #2, Kjertsin Klein and husband Greg and grandkids Dylan and Anna. That was a great time. We hadn't been together for a year, so there was a lot of catching up to do, and lots of noticing that the kids had shot up in the meantime.

After Pittsburgh Susan and I traveled to Bellevue, Washington to visit Kimm Viebrock, her husband Michael Nesteroff, 14 year-old Matthew and even a now-infrequent chat with grandson Mark. Susan stayed with the family there while I went to a retired Northwest Airlines pilots' get-together in Rapid City, SD. I had a great time catching up with the old gang (emphasis on old)- lots of laughs, lots of memories, some sadness as we thought about how many of us are no longer with us.

At the end of that weekend, I drove across Montana and Washington, once very familiar country. I overnighted in Spokane, got an early start the next morning to see my old home country in the early light of the day. I grew up in the wheat country of Douglas County, Washington, and in spite of all my traveling, in spite of living in Telluride, my heart still soars to be part of an Eatern Washington Fall morning.

Because of a rainy harvest season, many farmers were still cutting wheat. My brother Sid had his wheat in, and the new crop of winter wheat planted and green. I stopped at the end of one of his fields to take in the gold of the lately harvested crop contrasting with the green of the new wheat. Even made a brief stop at my Dad's old house, before stopping to visit with my Aunt Irene, 87, and still living in the little house she had shared with my Uncle Ray, right next to the one room country school house where my Dad and all of his siblings got their education.

Lunch was in Waterville with my next brother Denny, his wife Camille and Sid's wife Margaret. Then I talked to my Aunt Doris for a while before driving over Badger Mountain to Wenatchee, where I got to see my good friend, Dr. Ed Farrar, father of Garmin team bike rider, Tyler Farrar.

Then it was across the Cascades to Bellevue, spend the night, then drive with Susan back to Telluride. It was still beautiful, warm Autumn weather when we got home, but after a few short days, it was time to get back on the road. I'm writing this from Susan's parents' home in Hackensack, NJ. In a few days we will be off to Greece for about three weeks. We will post from there as well. We'll get back in time to really start thinking about snow, winter, skiing. I hope your Fall has been a good one. Watch Telluride Inside… and Out for what is happening in Telluride, and what the Viebrocks are up to on the road.