Carbondale Colorado

Earlier in the year, I was notified that my sculpture had been selected to be part of a public sculpture program, Art aRound Town, in Carbondale Colorado. So we planned a vacation around delivering the sculpture.

On Tuesday, we drove from Fort Collins to Carbondale, with the sculpture in the back of the truck. We checked into our very cute Red Door Hideout, an 1888 cabin that had been relocated from a ranch to the back yard of a house in downtown Carbondale. We met our hosts, Brittany and Michael, and their two young sons. We had dinner at the nearby Japanese restaurant, Izakaya.

On Wednesday we drove to the corner where the sculpture was to be installed. We met Laurie and two other town employees who would install the sculpture. The sculpture install was uneventful; they welded it to a metal plate on a large piece of marble. The workers kept trying to find the seam in the Mobius Strip, but were unsuccessful, so I guess I did a good job.

After the sculpture install, we met our friends Charlie and Gail. Richard has known Charlie for more than 50 years, when they went to high school together. We had a very enjoyable and long lunch at the Village Smithy, where we caught up after a year or more of not seeing one another. Sandi and I went for a walk, and had dinner at Fatbelly Burgers, about as informal as it sounds.

On Thursday we took the bus to Aspen, which was very convenient, especially since we did not have to try to find a parking place for a large truck. We went to the Aspen Art Museum; their exhibits were mostly avant-garde video. We both liked the building. We had a good lunch at the informal Silverpeak Grill. We walked down to the river and saw the John Denver Sanctuary, very pleasant and quiet, with rocks with the words to John Denver Songs. We then took the express bus back to Carbondale.

The big deal was the Art Walk, to see this year's sculptures, including mine. People seemed enthused about my sculpture. The reception afterwards was at Marble Distillery. We had a nice chat with Bret and Caroline from Salt Lake City, who were interested in buying my Mobius sculpture for their front yard. We also chatted with Chet, one of the other sculptors, who was impressed that I was also an artist paddler. He works in marble; his piece was a replica of a bone that he found.

Friday we also took the bus to Aspen, where we switched to a local bus to Aspen Highlands, and then the reservations only bus to Maroon Bells. We took the scenic loop hike, and then retraced our steps, for a total of six bus rides in one day. We drove into downtown Glenwood Springs, walked around, and visited the Doc Holiday museum in the Bullocks store. In the evening were two town parties. One was a public Art Walk on Main street; Main Street was closed. Sandi bought some ceramic mugs as gifts, at the Carbondale Clay Center. The other was a community celebration in a park, with some events for kids, some booths for environmental groups, and a Mariachi band. Both events were well attended

On Saturday we decided to go up the Crystal River to Redstone and Marble. The Crystal River Valley is quite beautiful, and not overdeveloped. Redstone is a historic coal mining town, with some of the old coke ovens restored. The Redstone Castle, built by the mine owner, was closed. We visited the art gallery, which had nice work. Then we headed for the town of Marble, where the marble for the tomb of the unknown soldier was quarried. The Yule quarry had been closed for many years, but was recently bought by the same company that runs the Carrara marble in Italy. We had lunch at the highly recommended Slow Moovin BBQ restaurant. We visited the site of the old marble processing plant, and drove up the road to the quarry. It is kind of wild to see huge blocks of marble used for retaining walls at the mine. In fact, there are large pieces of marble in all kinds of places around Marble, used for all kinds of purposes.

 Saturday night we attended a long but well done mass in Spanish for the feast of Pentecost, and chatted with the choir and priest afterwards. Most restaurants were closed that late, but we got a bite to eat at the Brass Anvil.

On Sunday we drove home, uneventfully.

We very much enjoyed our visit to Carbondale. The town just has a nice feel to it, and people were friendly.