Telluride for the 4th of July

We arrived in Telluride, Colorado early evening on Sunday the 3rd of July. We were there for two weeks while Will participated in a Neuromorphic Computing workshop. This was a truly international event with professors, doctorate and post-doc students, as well as the major players from industry coming from all over the world. As far as I understand, neuromorphic chips are designed to work in a similar way to the human brain and may (or may not!) be the 'next big thing' in computing. During his two weeks Will was working on a project applying the technology to search and rescue robots. 

Telluride is a small town up in the Rocky Mountains with a population of less than 3000. It is situated in a box canyon and is actually two towns in one. There is Telluride itself, situated on the valley floor but still at 8750 feet above sea level (over 2600 metres), and then there is the Mountain Village at 9540 feet on the other side of the ski hill. The towns are connected by a free gondola which runs from 7am to midnight every day. Telluride is one of North America's premier ski destinations, so Will was a bit gutted to be there in the middle of summer! I didn't mind though, I had two weeks of hiking to look forward to...

Even after two weeks, the novelty of travelling by gondola never wore off. We would use it several times each day. It is definitely one of Will's more unusual commutes to work!

We had brilliant accommodation up in the Mountain Village. The whole two weeks were paid for by the workshop, which was a good thing as it would have absolutely destroyed our budget otherwise! We had a huge 3-bed 3-bath condo and Will and I commandeered the master bedroom which had an amazing double jacuzzi spa-bath in its en suite bathroom. We had an Israeli professor share our accommodation for one week while we were there. Telluride is crazy expensive, it was fascinating checking out some of the real estate windows in town. A prime example is Tom Cruise's $59 million dollar house! The link has some lovely photos of Telluride. Below are a couple of views looking towards our comparatively modest dwelling. I can only imagine how gorgeous it is in winter, covered in snow. 

And a couple of pics inside...

In fact, the only negative of our condo was an overactive ice-maker! The sensor was broken so it just kept churning out ice as if possessed. Every couple of days we would have to empty a whole lot down the sink.

Monday was a public holiday for the 4th of July Independence Day celebrations. This is a huge deal over here. The queue for the gondola to get down to Telluride Monday morning was pretty crazy. Luckily there is a 'singles' line which is much quicker. The gondolas each take 8 people and once they have one or two groups in, they fill it up with people from the singles line. Even when Will and I were travelling together we would use the singles line as we didn't care if we got split up, although we never actually did.

Telluride's Independence Day celebrations included a street parade which half the town seemed to participate in. Will even got to walk in it as his workshop put in an entry. 

See if you can spot Will below. In case you are wondering (I know most of the locals were!) the tinfoil hat creations represent neurons... 

The parade lasted for more than an hour. Here is a selection of pics.

After the parade it seemed like the whole town made their way down to the Town Park where festivities continued with a mass BBQ put on by the local Fire Service as a fundraiser. Excellent food and $2 beers made for a very relaxed afternoon.

Will and I returned to the Mountain Village late afternoon. There was a free concert in the park at 7pm, followed by fireworks at 9pm, but we didn't bother heading back into town. We were both pretty knackered after all our travels from the previous week, so chose to have a nice relaxing evening in instead.