Telluride

 Just before you enter into town there is meadow where elk have taken up residence. There were dozens of them grazing in the field. It's a pretty cool welcome to a pretty cool town.
Telluride is definitely a posh town. It's a tiny ski town with pricey shops and fine dining. We took the cheap route by stopping into the thrift shop (surprisingly not much good stuff), window shopping, taking the free gondola ride and grabbing a small pizza.

Downtown Telluride

Riding up the mountain

 Bear with me...the pictures won't be in order, but it's not too hard to follow along.
So we pull into town and it's really chilly. Alex was wearing shorts and Lilia was cold so we stopped into the thrift shop and snagged some ski socks. Perfect chill-weather accessory. We really didn't have a plan for the afternoon in Telluride. We love just spontaneously exploring places, seeing what we can find.
Well we saw a sign for a free gondola ride. We made our way over to the solar-powered ride and headed to the top. We got off at the first stop (you can keep going, but we didn't).
At this first stop are gorgeous views of Telluride and other mountain peaks, and a nature center.

Views of mountain peaks

The town of Telluride

 So if you drive to the end of town it takes you towards these two waterfalls. The waterfall pictured in the photo with the caption "The town if Telluride" is a different waterfall all together. So pictured to the right is a famous waterfall, Bridal Veil Falls. At the top of the falls is a privately owned power plant. You can hike to the top of the falls; it is 4.2 miles one way. We weren't up for hiking that day, but definitely next time. In fact Telluride boasts that they have almost 40 hikes. It is another valley town with stunning scenery. Anywhere you point your camera is a good photo op.

Here we are at the top of the gondola ride again. This is me and the kids in the nature center. It was done really well. I highly recommend it. There were furs displayed and you had to guess which animal they were. There were skulls and skat (poop). Any nature/animal lovers dream.

Overlooking Telluride