Since we have moved to Arizona, we have made it a point to travel more, especially since COVID and living in a small town in Missouri, we have been hitting it hard with the travels and making the most out of every weekend adventure.
So, Telluride was not the only destination we had for the trip we took one weekend in August. Our first stop was the Petrified Forest National Park, and we went on to Telluride after that.
The drive there was easy, we had some rain, but it didn’t slow us down. The views on the way into town are amazing, the roads twist and turn through the mountains and big, beautiful houses start to come into view right as you enter town, truly amazing. And, of course, we had to play Blake Shelton’s song “Happy Anywhere” (and then continue to play it 20 more times while we were there).
We arrived to our (super cute and adorable loft) AirBnB around 5, dropped off our luggage, and immediately headed to Telluride Brewing Co to sip on a few beers before dinner. We probably stayed about 2 hours there before heading to downtown for dinner. It was starting to get a bit cold as we walked to dinner, so I was happy to sit down in a warm building, but of course we were seated on the porch of our restaurant of choice, Smuggler Union Restaurant and Brewery. I shivered occasionally through dinner, but the food was amazing. We had a typical bruschetta appetizer, followed by our main courses of elk rigatoni bolognese and a pork chop with mashed potatoes and broccolini. Both meals were AMAZING. Ben and I think of the elk rigatoni bolognese often. After, we just had a simple mousse that was the perfect light dessert. We did have some drinks, but they aren’t worth going into detail about.
We climbed into bed around 11 and had plans to get up for our hike at 5:30 am. That didn’t happen. We snoozed until 6 and made it to the trail head by 6:30, but we forgot our boots, so we didn’t start hiking until 7.
The hike was beautiful. It is called Bear Creek Trail; it is a 5-mile hike (took us about 4 hours because of all the pictures we took) up to a waterfall and back. The elevation climb of 1,000 feet was a bit rough at times, but we could use our short breaks to take beautiful pictures of the woody scenery. Unfortunately, on the way down I twisted my ankle but there was less than a half mile left of the hike.
Luckily, our plans were to head out from Telluride after the hike. I just had to make it through packing up before we were on the road again. It was do able, but I did repeatedly ask Ben if he thought it was broken.
Sadly, we drove out of Telluride with my foot elevated on the dashboard and we decided we would be back, because one night is simply not long enough.