Around Telluride

[click "Play" to hear Dr. Deborah Gangloff speaking with Susan]



Dm_2009_PLC_tower_view Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is located in southwestern Colorado, a rewarding day trip from Telluride of a little over two hours each way. Telluride Inside...  and Out visited for a day, doing video interviews and podcasting key players on site. This post is the first in a series you won't want to miss: Crow Canyon is another instance of priceless nuggets under foot and in our own backyard.

 For over 25 years, the on-campus staff has made it its business to study and teach human history, particularly the rich history of the ancestral Pueblo Indians (aka, the Anasazi), who inhabited the canyons and mesas of the Mesa Verde region over 700 years ago.

The afternoon breezes that threatened to stop the Telluride Balloon Festival's Saturday evening "Glow" on Colorado Avenue abated by sundown Saturday evening. Main Street in Telluride was full of balloons, crews and watchers. And everyone got his money's worth: Colorado Avenue was ablaze...

by Art Goodtimes

Worshiping bouncelight in our alpine cathedral of peaks & clouds

IMG_5178 MOUNTAIN CULTURE … It does seem that high mountain cultures are more about freedoms and ecological sanity than American culture at large, at least if we are to believe TV. Fox News. NBC. CNN.

Luckily, I don’t own one – but only because I’m addicted. At hotels I can’t control myself. Stay up into the wee hours channelling pop culture.

Mountainfilm 32, this year’s spring festival kickoff to Telluride’s summer season, proved far more diverse than its niche origin in climbing and extreme sports. It offered a four-day international immersion in mountain culture.

IMG_2332 IMG_2312 The Telluride weather forecast looked good when I went to bed Friday night, so I woke at 0530. The clear, windless sky was all the encouragement I needed to leave my comfortable bed, get dressed and ride my bike to town to watch the Telluride Balloon Festival launch. By the time I got to the Telluride Town Park, most of the hot-air balloons were filling with warm air from their gas burners.

[click "Play", Susie Billings speaks to Susan from Baja]

E1274393861 Susie X. Billings is a well established mixed media artist, who shows her work locally at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art. A protean talent (has to do with change, not meat), Susie is intent on proving all life is art, daily to herself, and on magical occasions, to her students.

Susie runs international workshops, but she returns to town this month to her regular stomping grounds, Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts, to teach a three-day intensive, Friday – Sunday, June 11 – June 13, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The subject is Mixed Media Collage & Watercolor. The starting point for the workshop is a love of summer alpine landscapes. Duh. All levels of student are welcome, from never-evers to accomplished professionals.
[To hear Joanna Kanow speaking with Susan, click "Play"]

CIMG3690 In the Program Room of Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library, The New Community Coalition continues it's popular ( and FREE) Green Business Roundtables series this Friday, June 4, 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. The speakers are Joanna and Daniel Kanow of EcoSpaces on the subject of "Green Building Solutions."


The Kanows' talk should amount to a primer on the hows and whys of greening up your home and/or office, including strategies for new construction and remodels, readily available products, and the dollars and sense of it all. The morning closes with a discussion of a proposed Joint Purchasing Program for the region.

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Scott Doser, makin' smoke

We did not make up the lyric. It's Rodgers and Hammerstein from "Carousel." But it is no less for Telluride's 5-star Wilkinson Public Library. The action heats up on the grill, Tuesday, June 1, @ noon, when Books & Cooks host Chef Bud reveals the secrets of grilling.

On Friday, June 4, starting at 8:30 a.m., Telluride-based The New Community Coalition is back with Green Business Roundtable #5: “What Even You Can Do to Green Your Space.” 

When we head down from Telluride to take Gina the Dog to stay with Ted Hoff at Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel, somewhere between Delta and Hotchkiss she will start getting excited, and by the time we turn into the ranch entrance, Gina can...

[click "Play" to hear director Louie Psyihoyos speaking with Susan]

Psihoyos Louie 0007 Mountainfilm in Telluride, May 28 – May 31, features about 75 extraordinary films about extraordinary people, places and things, among them, the 2009 Oscar winner for Best Feature Documentary, director Louie Psyihoyos' "The Cove."


We are on a first-name basis with these iconic creatures: Lassie, Bambi, Babe, and Flipper. We project all that is good and right with the world onto our animal friends – but are we doing them any favors.? Certainly not in the case of Flipper and his relatives. "Flipper" is the genesis of "The Cove," its raison d'etre.