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Boomers might remember “Leave It to Beaver,” the 1950s sitcom about the perfect all-American family of the Eisenhower years. The program was sweet enough to give a person a toothache, but one thing for sure, the tight little unit worked: lots of white teeth, love, and just enough mischief to spice up the action. The word “dysfunctional” had not been invented yet.

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Santiago Correa

The Correa clan is Chile’s response to the Cleavers – only more so. There are eight of them: the irrepressible Santiago, Sr, hyperkinetic, wacky, and wise; and his wife, the warm, lovely Ana Maria, the glue of the operation. The happy couple produced six firebrand offspring: Santiago, Jr., Francisco, Tomas, Anita, Andres, and Catarina, each one bright, beautiful, funny, fun-loving, and accomplished. It would be easy to go green-eyed over their disproportionate share of the pie, but when you are welcomed into their home, wined, dined, teased, and hugged, a person would have to be made out of stone not to melt.

We met the Correas three years ago, when Vivien Jones brought us to a dinner at their hacienda in San Vicente, one of five properties where they have vineyards and grow olives and table fruit. At the end of the wine-soaked evening, Clint and I extended an invitation to Telluride. It seemed only right. Tomas jumped at the opportunity to polish his English. Once dates were nailed down, we tackled the logistics of finding him a host family and work.

02 December, 2008 /

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Birthday Cakes for Vivien and Clint

The Residencia Historica is located just a few kilometers from the toy town of Marchihue and 40 minutes from the much larger Santa Cruz in Chile’s Colchagua Valley. Colchagua is one of the centers of the country’s rapidly growing wine industry and the Chilean outpost of blue chip labels such as Domaines Barons de Rothschild-Lafite. We first visited the place in 2005, when it was still a work- in- progress.

When Vivien Jones and her partner Silvio Castelli discovered what has become the hotel six years ago, the sprawling 18th-century home had seen better days. The bones remained, but they were buried in a tangle of old eucalyptus trees. Dead fruit trees and the thorns of roses tortured the grounds like a hair suit. Undaunted, the couple pursued a vision that can only be described as a labor of love: the promising wreck received the makeover it deserved. The result is a fabulous boutique hotel, where old and new artfully co-exist. To celebrate, on November 8 Vivien threw a joint birthday bash, a traditional Chilean BBQ or asada, for herself and Clint.

01 December, 2008 /

Take a left turn out of Telluride and people wind up some place wonderful in the great wide world, where they do wonderful things in a state of wonderment. That’s part of what we mean by the “Out” in the name of our blog: we will be documenting Telluriders when they are out and about having fun, making a difference.  

Local landscape designer Elisabeth Gick and Judge Sharon Shuteran both recently traveled to the Far East, as tourists and ambassadors of goodwill.

30 November, 2008 /

Thanksgiving has come and gone, we're still eating the leftover turkey and stuffing, and that means TASP is open for business. We'd love to have more snow, but the weather looks hopeful, and we remember last year, when a slow start resulted in a banner snow year in Telluride.

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We do have a few runs open, and I have just spent two days skiing with James Colt, who has been ready for the opening since probably August.

James had a bad rockfall accident two years ago while climbing on the Ophir Wall, not far from Telluride. This resulted in a traumatic brain injury. It has been a rough go for him in the meantime, but he is a fighter. Last year James and I had an encouraging start to the ski season, but our hard work aggravated some old injuries, and we had to call it quits - but just for that season.

James spent the Summer in Telluride walking untold miles, and even more miles on his recumbent bicycle, culminating in a 75 mile ride across the west end of San Miguel County. In addition, James drove himself to Seattle this Fall.

29 November, 2008 /

You're going to have to take my word on this one, at least for now: there is a Telluride connection. It goes through Rick Silverman and Telluride Mountainfilm. Sus can tell that story later. We've been off the radar for a while now, partly because we've been moving fast, partly because internet connections have not often been dependable.

We may have been off the radar, but that doesn't mean we have not been having a good time. We left Telluride on 3 November, watched the election returns on 4 November with a number of sympathetic people with Telluride local Jo Schernoff at her Denver condo. The next day we left for Santiago, Chile, where we were met by our young friend, Tomas Correa. Tomas came to Telluride in the Northern Summer, 2006, and stayed with Damon and Elaine Demas for nearly two months.

IMGP2130 The ostensible reason for our trip was to celebrate the 60th birthday of our hostess, Vivien Jones, combined with an early birthday for me, at Residencia Historica de Marchigue, a new resort in the Colchagua Valley wine growing region of Chile that Vivien and her partner, Silvio Castelli have created from the ruins of an old monastery.

24 November, 2008 /

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Tim McGough took some time out of a crowded schedule to talk to me last week. Tim is the new program director at Telluride Adaptive Sports Program, and is very busy getting up to speed in this new position. There is training to schedule for the instructors and volunteers, returning and new, for the upcoming season. In addition, school groups, who represent a large part of TASP's client base have to have their time blocked out, and requests for lessons are beginning to come in from our out-of-town guests.

So I was glad that Tim was able to spend some time with me. In the interest of full disclosure, this will be my 10th season as an instructor for TASP. So the conversation was much more about how to make the most out our mutual relationship than an interview. I'll do that later in the season, but I did want to introduce Tim to our readers. Following is the bio I received from TASP.

30 October, 2008 /

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Autumn, Rudy's Trail

“Where will you spend the night?” Rico was concerned because I was getting a late start. It had snowed the night before in Aspen, and because I was traveling on a motorcycle I had delayed my departure for the Canyonlands until the roads cleared a little. “Oh, I guess I’ll stop in Telluride.” Someone had talked about the Telluride Bluegrass Festival at a musical get-together in the garden of Le Select in St. Barths the previous winter, and I had read an article about the skiing in Telluride some time before in Outside Magazine. Now it was after noon on a late October day, and I was on my way to camp outside Moab, Utah. Rico said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Then, a meaningful pause, followed by, “You’ll never leave.”

29 October, 2008 /

To Fall Deeper in Love with the World     Sit with lichen longer than comfort allows.   The urge to move must rise and pass, rise and pass,...

29 October, 2008 /

Ok, maybe not Seattle exactly, but across the lake in Bellevue, last night Clint and I hooked up with part-time Telluride local and former Mountainfilm director Arlene Chester Burns at the Bellevue Art Museum. The get-together was to celebrate the opening of an exhibition of...

17 October, 2008 /

  Telluride in Autumn Susan and I do a fair amount of travel out of Telluride, both for family visits (as in this case) and for the opportunity to see some different country or another culture. On our way to see daughter Kimm and...

10 October, 2008 /