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IMG_0346 After a brief stop at home in Telluride after our visits to West Coast family, Sus and I left on the next phase of our Spring travels on Friday, 17 April. For those of you who were watching Colorado weather during that time, you know it probably wasn't the most auspicious departure date. But, ever optimistic, we left anyway.

The webcams on Monarch Pass looked nasty, so we chose to go on I-70. That looked like a good decision until just short of Vail. With an electronic sign showing that Vail Pass was closed, we turned off at Minturn, drove in rain/snow mix for a few miles, then in heavy snow. At Leadville, we found that Fremont Pass was closed, and learned that Denver was getting hammered. We had planned to spend the night with friends in Denver- oops!, change in plan. A welcome beer (or two) and a burger at Rosie's in Leadville, then a little time to make a new plan, and time for bed.

27 April, 2009 /

(editor's note: Quiet offseason in Telluride? Let's shake things a bit with Dr. Susannah Smith's next installment of Shrink Rap: Sex and Marriage.)

by Dr. Susannah Smith

Most comedy routines eventually target marriage and sex.  The joke usually goes like this: if you want a good sexual relationship, don’t get married. The bare naked truth is we all know married couples who complain  they never have sex, and one partner who wants more sex than the other. So, what’s going on?
The human sexual response is a complex one, especially when love and intimacy enters the equation. Erica Jong wrote that, for many, including the heroine of Fear of Flying, it is easier to have sex with someone we barely know than with our own mate.  The sexual response requires a degree of abandon and emotional freedom that familiarity often belies: with our mates, unresolved emotional issues build walls.

Women in particular have been raised to believe having sex when feeling distant from their spouses puts them in the position of being untrue to themselves, compromised, or forced.  Women (not always – sometimes it is the male in a relationship) believe that they must be communicating and emotionally close for sexual intimacy to feel appropriate and good.

26 April, 2009 /

Sus and I returned to Telluride for a few days. We're between visits to family and friends on the West Coast and more of the same in the East. It's great to be home, even for a short time, even if the main activity is...

14 April, 2009 /

That April, 22 years ago, I hadn't yet moved away from Seattle. In fact, having taken a year between transitioning from flight school to University of Washington to work as a flight instructor, I wasn't quite finished with my degree in Atmospheric Sciences and...

06 April, 2009 /

Sicily5 by Dr. Susanna Hoffman

SPRING LAMB STEW WITH ARTICHOKES, DILL, AND A MYSTERY INGREDIENT

The arrival of spring is signaled by the corresponding arrival of a divine culinary treasure, lamb.  The meadows in which the lambs graze also offer up the first herb of the year, delicate, feathery dill as gardens nearby produce their first baby artichoke globes on bladed plants. Combined together the three make an exhilarating stew, in which tender bites of young lamb seem to frolic in the broth made impudent with the artichokes and dill. Such young ingredients can sometimes result in a thinish stew, but a fourth mystery ingredient solves the problem by adding a robust, but hidden richness: anchovies. The anchovies completely dissolve in the cooking, no sign of them appears to put off any anchovy naysayer, yet their hidden presence deepens the stew until guests will ask how you came up with such a sumptuous concoction. It’s up to you whether you reveal the secret or not. The same idea works for a poultry stew as well.  A toss of olives in the mix provides an extra salty sparkle. 

05 April, 2009 /

As promised a photo of Ralph Dinosaur performing at Telluride end of ski season festivities from 22 years ago. It's just a teaser - the daffodils are calling for a bicycle tour around the Skagit Valley. Incriminating photos to follow. In the meantime, can...

04 April, 2009 /

James Colt had two goals this season skiing in Telluride: He wanted to ski at the top of the mountain and he wanted to ski 50 days.I had the pleasure of starting James on the Magic Carpet, spent a number of days skiing on...

04 April, 2009 /

Just as everyone has a "coming to Telluride" story, a lot of people have "end of ski season" stories in Telluride too.  Ralph Dinosaur and his crew performing at Gorrono Lodge were a prominent feature of "Kimm's 'coming to Telluride' story", introducing me to the...

03 April, 2009 /

Let me go on the record here: I don't like leaving Telluride, even in the off seasons. But if one is to travel, and there are good reasons (new places, family, friends, etc.) to do so, late March and early April seems as good a time as ever to make a move. Susan's parents, Bob and Bernice Levitt, for many years have spent a few months in Palm Springs, to escape the misery of the New Jersey winter. It has become a habit for Sus and me to go to California at the end of her parents' sojourn to spend a few days with them in the desert, then to take them to L.A. to stay with Sus's sister Debby for a few days before they return to Hackensack.

As one listens to the traffic on Highway 111, the asphalt artery linking Palm Springs with the valley communities all the way out to Indio, it's a little difficult to believe that quiet and peace reside a few hundred feet higher in the hills that border the highway to the South.

IMGP0249 Afew days ago, Sus and I were hiking up a popular trail that leads from 111, up past the elegant homes that cap the ridge leading up to the wild high ground above, up past the large modern house that was Bob Hope's home in Palm Springs, and on up to a promontory which overlooks the valley, the manicured lawns of the condo developments, the well-tended greens of the golf courses, watered by the "inexhaustable" resources of the Palm Springs aquifer, up to the beautiful desert landscape of the mountain.

31 March, 2009 /