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...
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.
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.
[click "Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Elisabeth Gick]
![Fear-emai[1]](https://www.tellurideinside.com///images/old/6a00e553ed7fe18833011168cf511c970c-800wi.jpg)
As part of Telluride's week-long "Phenomenal Woman" Celebrations" Telluride Inside...and Out honors longtime local Elisabeth Gick and her crusade for Tibet.
Elisabeth is bit like Alice of Wonderland fame: her native curiosity always gets the better of her. She falls down holes and meets amazing people in exotic places. She also tries to make a difference.
For several years now, Elisabeth has been traveling in Asia, particularly in Tibet, where she has made friends and made a difference. For example, she is doing what she can for 82 young girls, all orphans, whom she met with daughter Lesley in October 2008, while visiting the town of Ganzi in upper Kham. Thanks to her efforts and the generosity of family and friends such as the Lifton-Zolines, the girls now have two solar hot water showers and will soon have a library. A third initiative involves raising funds for traditional outfits. Elisabeth is $800 short of that goal.
Part two of Elisabeth Gick's three-part series on Tibet at Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library is a pause to refresh from the country's challenges: a screening of the award-winning documentary, "The Saltmen of Tibet."
According to Eilsabeth, the film offers a loving look at an ancient way of
life in one of the harshest, yet gorgeous regions of the world, the
Tibetan plateau. The story follows the daily rituals of a Tibetan nomadic community,
transporting us into a realm untainted by the tides of foreign invasion or
encroaching modernity. Step by step we experience the unforgettable, annual
three-month pilgrimage to the holy salt lakes of northern Tibet.
"Tibet is the roof of the world, a place where we feel we are in the
sky just as much as you are on the earth. The intense blueness of space
contrasts sharply with the deep green of Eastern Tibet's rolling grasslands
and the mineral colors of the west with its expanse of barren rock. For over
a thousand years Buddhist culture has been at the heart of Tibetan society,
and anyone who has travelled across these high plateaux will understand how
this contemplative civilization flourished in a landscape of such vastness," explained physical scientist/Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard.
[click to hear Elisabeth Gick on Tibet]
Elisabeth Gick first came to Telluride in September of 1979, like so many of us, an "accidental tourist.”
“The beauty of the valley sucked me right in and has not let go yet.”
Gick’s children, now adults, went through school here, and she started a very satisfying landscaping business, Outer Spaces, while also becoming deeply involved in a number of non-profits, including Mountainfilm and the Out Loud lecture series.
“I consider myself incredibly lucky to be living here.”
A few years ago, Elisabeth caught the travel bug, visiting interested Nepal in 1999, Vietnam and Cambodia in 2002, India for three months in 2005, India again for three months in 2006-2007.
In October 2008, Telluride local Elisabeth Gick and daughter Leslie were spending one last afternoon in the town of Ganzi in upper Kham, eastern Tibet, enjoying the sunshine after many snowy, cold days, when they spotted a sign over a door that read “Tibetan Hospital.” A young man spotted the two women and asked in fluent English if he could help.
Then magic unfolded.
The young man, whose name is Lobsang, explained that the abbot of Ganzi nunnery was in charge of the hospital as well as an orphanage for girls. He took Elisabeth and Lesley to meet the man, who was 75 and dressed from head to toe in leather, not red robes.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
