Crested Butte For the Win

On Saturday afternoon, we left Nashville in 98 degree heat and 400% humidity to head to Crested Butte, Colorado for the rest of the summer. We left a few days later than planned in order to attend a family friend’s funeral. It was a beautiful celebration of a well-lived life and a reminder why we live in Nashville most of the year. But starting yesterday we are Coloradans and will be until late September when (hopefully) Nashville is not as hot as the surface of the sun.

We drive out here in the summer. (Blog post about road–trip to come.) Evans wants to have his truck and we bring our dog. We have gone from three dogs to one in less than a year. We lost our beautiful Golden right before we came out last summer. Our sweet half-Great Pyrenees half something-Spanielish mix lived her best life last summer romping in the wildflowers and ice-cold rivers. This year it is just our elderly, deaf Boston Terrier. He is the last man standing and he is missing his friends. We are too. Something about being here makes me miss them even more.

Evans grew up in the mountains of Colorado, so this is coming home for him. I am an Appalachian Mountain girl, but I have learned to love the Rockies too. Crested Butte and Mount Crested Butte are warm and welcoming and wonderfully laid back. If anyone had suggested I would own and wear fishing pants with zip-off legs I would have laughed at them, and yet here I am.

It was forty-nine degrees when we got up this morning and the high today will be in the mid-seventies. Last year we had no houseguests. Most of our friends had never heard of Crested Butte. It was a small mining town in a dead-end valley that is now a small ski town in a dead-end valley. I learned last February that Mount Crested Butte is famous for extreme skiing for a reason. That mountain is steep. Our townhouse faces the slopes and we can walk to the base of the mountain in about fifteen minutes. The wildflowers are spectacular. After blowing up my Instagram and Facebook feeds with photos of our exploits and (mis)adventures, we actually have a few Nashville friends coming to visit this year.

My sister-in-law and her friend arrived today and two more friends are joining them later this week. The only thing better than exploring this area is sharing it with people who are seeing it for the first time.

I learned on our first trip a few years ago, that I am terrified of hurtling to my death off of a narrow mountain road with no guardrail. I have just described almost every road in a fifty-mile radius of our house. So, I have learned to close my eyes and pray. That works better when I am not the one driving. Both our cars are four-wheel drive and Evans literally learned to drive on these roads, not that any of that matters when you are passing another car between a rock cliff and a thousand-foot ravine.

I have never been the least bit athletic or outdoorsy other than fishing for bass and since that is basically choosing the right lure and sitting in a boat with friends, I don’t think it counts. Now I am learning to fly fish. It is every bit as hard as it looks. I have a friend here who plays tennis every morning and then hikes five to ten miles every day. Yeah, nope. My goal is to work up to tagging along on one of her easy hike days. She is on her own with the tennis. I plan to try to find a pilates class, but we will see how that pans out. Frankly, I am extremely entertained sitting on my deck and watching the mountain bikers careen down the trails on the ski slopes.

My decision to become and stay an unemployed empty-nester was strongly influenced by this place. There were not enough vacation days available and working remotely was not an option. The call of freedom and the cool mountain air were strong motivations and I have not regretted it once. I will keep you posted on how this summer develops, but as long as the humidity is not 400%, it is already a win.