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Telluride, a largely resort town of population 1200, is located in a tiny valley high in the mountains of Colorado. |
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I hate to use the word "nestled", but I think it was invented for exactly this situation. I'm not sure it's legal for any place to be so beautiful. |
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The town has one main street and no traffic lights. |
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I want to live here. |
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One of the single biggest events in Telluride is the Fourth of July parade. Everyone in town is either a participant or spectator. The parade judges include local resident General Norman Schwartzkopf, and many of the entries are awfully impressive. |
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Civic-minded citizens that we were, we of the workshop created our own entry: we collectively went as the sensory homunculus. |
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The homunculus in action. (Not shown: Nose Sneezing Action.) |
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Led by Christof Koch (background), we chanted the following marching song:
Is a Neural Engineer. We work on brains with love and care; Tell us if you've got a spare. Two! Four! Six! Eight! Our neurons integrate! Hodgkin! Huxley! Goldman! Katz! We build brains for robot rats! |
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We wondered what the locals must think of us. Then we found out. |
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Shihab Shamma's son, the single cutest human being ever to walk the earth, was labeled "Stem Cell". He was more popular than the rest of us put together. |
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We had two days free during the three-week workshop. On the first of these, a group of us went on the second most beautiful hike ever. Unfortunately, I didn't have a digital camera at the time, so you don't get to see a lot of pictures. |
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At one point we came to what I think was about a 55-degree, slabbery incline. "We'll take the switchbacks over there," said Shihab. "Don't even think about trying to go straight up the hill." All very well and good, until he added, "I did it the other day, and it was really hard." A large part of the group broke off at that ... and we did beat the people who took the switchbacks, barely. |
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Telluride may be tiny, but it had a circus. A tiny circus, of course, as you can guess from the hand-painted sign. But a circus nonetheless. And I got to perform in it. And I got to wear what are indisputably the coolest pants ever. |
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This was also where I discovered, during the first performance, that black-bodied clubs, backlit by a spotlight, become perfectly invisible to the performer as soon as they're thrown. That's why I look less relaxed in this picture than in the last. |
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The second of our two free days, it poured in Telluride. A number of us preemptively went to Mesa Verde. |
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That stone village built into the hollow of the cliff, now called the Cliff Palace, was built about a thousand years ago by the Ancestral Pueblo people. |
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On our way up from Balcony House, another major cliff dwelling. |
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More ruins. |
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Mountain unicycling is crazy fun. You can leave the last word off the previous sentence if you're so inclined. |
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There's this indescribable feeling of "This action I'm performing is clearly impossible. And I'm doing it." |
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Telluride must have the largest number of unicycles per capita in the world. And that's largely due to the influence of Dave Chenevert, ski instructor, former National Drag Racing Champion, and all-around amazing cool guy. It was thanks to him that I got to ride frequently during my visit, and made more progress in those three weeks than I had in the course of years. He makes a mean etoufee, too. |