867. Telluride, San Miguel County (CO53)

The drive to Telluride was not as bad as I had feared.  While the road was winding, it was not the twisty, annoying, high mountain road crap I had come to loathe around Creede and Lake City.  However, I was slowed down on the way into town for the most unexpected reason.  The Fourth of July, for anyone who hasn’t ever heard a single thing about the United States, is a time of festivity to celebrate our independence from the British Empire.  It is usually commemorated with firework displays and cookouts (or, in my case, road trips).  In the case of Telluride, it was celebrated with a Fourth of July parade.  Therefore, I was stuck in a traffic jam trying to get into town and had to wait through it.  It was all fun and games until I had to go to the bathroom, but luckily, I was able to pull into a convenience store along the route.  This in and of itself would not have been of note except that while I was waiting for the facilities, I was surrounded by a family speaking Russian (some of which I understood) and a friend group speaking Portuguese (little of which I understood). 

And then, of course, there was the splendor of the mountains in the parking lot.  It was a heck of a view, but it also made me think that I could probably never live there, either.  That was alright.  While I would not have called any of this auspicious, I was fine thinks to all the time I saved in Montrose and Delta.  Besides, if this was the worst setback I had that day, I would call it a good day.

I had always thought of Telluride as one of those playgrounds of the skiing rich, the kind of place where money and access created the most insufferable attitudes.

I may have been wrong about that.  With the crowds and frivolity, it was hard to get a good shot of the courthouse.  In fact, it may have been the weirdest circumstance in which I had to get one, but I’d have to go back through the archives to be sure.  The courthouse was decent enough, but I was distracted from forming opinions at that moment for obvious reasons.  Down the street was a partially covered building that I thought might have been an old courthouse from the design.  That said, it was sporting a golden decorative post that I kind of associate with Mormon buildings.  Subsequent research has yielded no fruit, so I’ll just call it a cool old building that could obviously use some tender, loving care.  I started thinking about a cache.  There was a Virtual at a railroad museum nearby but, well, that was going to be difficult.  I instead opted for a Traditional on a side street away from the throngs.  I pulled away from the crowd and headed to GZ.  When I got there, I was overcome with the most unnatural feeling…

Where the heck are you taking me, cache?  I do not consider myself as someone who does well with cops (some evidence to the contrary).  In fact, I do my darndest to avoid law enforcement of any kind under most circumstances.  Consequently, the very idea of getting a cache at the local cop shop was (and is) fairly anathema to me.  Under normal circumstances, this is the last cache I would go for.  However, I thought back to heist movies: with all the activity going on, it was probably the best time to go for it.  With the parade, they had far more important things to do than scrutinize me, even if I’m at their door.  So I stepped into their courtyard and began gently looking around.  I walked the insides of the walls and then poked around in their landscaping, careful not to crush any plants lest I be jailed for trespassing.  As I went a little farther, I found some old outdoor jail cells and beneath one of the iron bunks…

…sat an ammo can waiting to be opened!  With nary a peep from the law, inveni, inscripsi, reposui.  And with that, I beat a quick retreat back to the car.  I made my way across the parade route again back to my mildly illegal parking job (to be fair, the entire town was illegally parked at that point), and made my way around the throngs to the road out of town.  I looked up at the turnoff toward the Imogene Pass with a very rare longing not normally exhibited for mountain passes, but continued out of town.  I would rather have gone up that way, but I certainly didn’t have the vehicle for it.  That meant that meant that nine miles and a fifty mile drive away lay my next destination…