Let's get it out from the beginning: I never leave Telluride because I'VE JUST GOT TO GET OUT OF THE BOX CANYON! I leave because I haven't seen family for a while, or maybe there's someplace else calling me. I made my living traveling,...
Ski The Himalayas 2 is now available on Comcast Xfinity VOD and Dish Network Pay per View. The 80 Minute documentary chronicles a team's adventurous ascent and ski descent of a Himalayan peak in the Annapurna region of Nepal.Aspiring Himalayan skiers Ben Clark and Jon...
Describing Chicago as a second city is like describing Telluride as a second Aspen. It’s inaccurate and ruffles feathers on both sides. I love New York, and I love Chicago. But there can be no ranking. They are entirely different places just as Telluride and Aspen are entirely different places.
Telluride Inside... and Out spent last Friday and Saturday in New York City.
On Friday, we returned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see "Cezanne's Card Players," a fitting exhibit, so it would seem, for this high-stakes moment in history. Then again Cezanne's stoical models, all tradesman and employees of his family estate, appear totally content with their lot in life. Not so much like today.
We need to look further back in history to the 17th-century genre paintings of card players for our metaphor, images in which lusty, drooling drunks dominate. (The Met supplies example of his antecedents in the Cezanne show.) In his card players, Cezanne's emphasis is on rugged individualism and living in the moment, not on gambling and its attendants: greed and violence.
by J James McTigue
“Road Trip” conjures many images–-recollections of Kerouac, laissez-faire college summers, U2’s Joshua Tree album. Memories of road trips make me sigh, reliving those days when we could just hop in the car and take off, without a care in the world.
Though the circumstances of my life have changed (I’m married with two kids) I still hang on to the romantic vision of road tripping. So much so, that when the lifts closed, we packed the family, skis, road bikes, pack-n-play, and coloring books into the car and headed west. This was a far cry from the spontaneous road trips of yesteryear, in which the plan was not to have one. Every night of this road trip was accounted for, a combination of staying at friends’ houses, getting “bros. deals” at nice resorts and paying for a few crappy hotels. The trip would take us from Telluride, to Northern California down to Southern California then east to Phoenix and back to Telluride, with a lot of stops in between.
When I divulged my plans to my seemingly more practical friends, whose off-season plans included a plane ticket, a beach and a condo, they unconvincingly commented, (more accurately questioned) “That will be fun?”
kicker: Boutique hotel partnership includes Telluride locals
The May issue of Conde Nast Traveler just published its 2011 hit lit of "Hot Hotels" around the world, among them the boutique resort Imanta, Punta Mita. The news hits home because Telluride locals are among the property's proud partners.
Located on Mexico's Riviera Nayarit (the coastal area north of Puerto Vallarta) and set on 250 acres of rainforest above the ocean, the cliff-clinging resort includes seven striking villas built largely from local stone, glass and cumaru, a local hardwood, (floors and sliding doors), by the green-leaning Overland Partners.
For escapist entertainment at its finest, follow in Telluride Inside... and Out's footsteps and make a beeline for New York's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the former home of industrial magnate Andrew Carnegie. (And then later to Ma Peche. See below.)
The featured show at the Cooper-Hewitt is "Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels." The most comprehensive exhibition ever organized of the masterworks of the vaunted company, the exhibit is generating lots of buzz – and very long lines. For good reason: "Set In Style" is a magnum of Champagne. The cat's meow. Kitsch-fabulous razzle-dazzlement at its best – and brightest. (Shades recommended.)
Among the 350 pieces on display is bling worn by Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco (my fingers are genuflecting as I write out the title), Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Marlene Dietrich, Eva Peron and Greta Garbo to name a few of the high profile ladies who lunched.
by J James McTigue
If Telluride is a ski town, then San Anselmo, CA is a bike town.
San Anselmo is one of many small hamlets tucked in the rolling Marin hills. Traveling north from the Golden Gate Bridge, there is a series of towns like San Anselmo— Sausalito, Mill Valley, Larkspur, and San Rafael. Each is linked to the next by bike trails, bike lanes and winding back roads, perfect for the bike commuter, the recreational rider and the competitor.
From San Anselmo, riders can bike to Nicasio Valley and further north to Pt. Reyes, or circle back on a loop called Lucas Valley. The country is rural. Horses roam the green fields and cows graze against the rolling hills. At this time of year, pink cherry blossoms are in full bloom and their fallen petals silence the sound of your front bike wheel as it rolls over them.
By Emily Shoff
There’s a little trip Andy and I like to take with the girls when we’re on the Big Island of Hawaii. We drive over from Puako, just north of Kona on the dry side of the island, to Hilo, the wet side.
Mornings in Hawaii usually start early. The near-equatorial light and the trumpet of bird sounds call us out of bed by 6 a.m. But on our Hilo day, we leave the condo at first light. There’s a lot to see and the earlier we start, the more time we’ll have. Besides, sunrise is a great time to be out in Puako. Guava pinks and mango oranges swim across the sky, while just off the fringing reef in the water, humpback whales travel north.
By J James McTigue
The Mountain closes, we tie up loose ends, pack the bikes and flip flops, head west. That has been our family’s off-season routine the last few years. This year we got an added bonus -- that super-generous offer that never actually works logistically. The reasons are multiple: The timing is wrong, travel is too expensive, we can’t get off work. But this year, when the phone rang and friends invited us to Deer Valley for two days of skiing, we were all in.
I didn’t think to google where we were staying until we were 30 minutes from our destination, partly because I didn’t have time and partly because I didn’t care. I’ve never been a ‘hotel’ girl. Growing up, we camped on family vacations. Apparently this bothered my sister, because when she was ten she put on her list to Santa “to stay in a condominium when we go on vacation , like my friends do.”
As we approached Park City, I got out my smart phone to figure out where we were going. “What’s the name of the place?” I asked my husband, Jake.
“The Montage,” he replied.
