~o:> Day Trippin’: pt.2

The city, as it marches into the hills. Note the two completely different greens up there on the mountain: you can really see where the aspens end and the pine forest begins.

Here we are in the city. We really dug the benches. Poor Ms. K. We are always making her snuggle up to statuary. (Side note: it is 3:44 in the afternoon, and the room is so dark around me, I can hardly see the furniture. The weather is beginning to scare me a little.)

Yes, Rachel

What I loved about this bench was the side. Do you see the duck and snail? I love things that have surprises on them, under them, through them.

And here is my favorite bench of all. K wasn’t sure she was allowed to sit on it.

But she figured it out.

And here hangs a tale: this was the first shop we went through. I found a very nice beaded vest there for only $535. And Rachel found this dress, hanging on a display. She was studying the lines when I walked by. “It’s too much,” I said. “And too revealing (only because the fabric was so thin). YOu can’t have it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rachel said, and with cocked eyebrow gave it an even more serious look. The gray-haired, well dressed woman clerk who had been quietly circling settled on a branch very close by, bright, beady eyes fixed on our Rachel. Maybe it was the necklace Rachel was wearing – the one Chaz made for her. But something about her must have smelled of money, because the woman went from worm-considering bird to Uriah Heep in one simple leap.

“Isn’t that dress simply beautiful?” she simpered. “It would look just marvelous on you – “

I only caught part of this performance because Chaz had rung me up with a problem, and I was keeping track of Ms. K while I talked my baby down from the roof. When I came in on it, Rachel was slightly deer-in-the-headlights as the woman held the skirt out enticingly. “Oh, try it on. You’ll love it.” So I said (context: holiday mood), “Oh, what the heck. It’s too much money (we didn’t know how much, yet) – but you might as well try it on and see how it looks.”

So she did. And when she came out, the woman nearly fell on Rachel’s neck. “Oh,” she gasped. “This dress is just YOU. It has your name all over it.”

“I’d need a slip,” Rachel said, scowling down at the side slit, which was showing way too much leg.

“No you don’t,” the woman said, ignoring the obvious. But then went on to point out that this dress (reference the shot above) was actually two separate parts that each had a price tag. So we looked at the price. One of the pieces was nearly two hundred dollars. “Outside my budget,” Rachel (who is fairly unflappable, and who didn’t really like the dress at all).

“Oh, it’s a little expensive,” the woman fluttered, “but so affordable don’t you think? Let’s go on over to the cash register and see how much it is with the sales tax.” So over to the cash register they went. And the dress turned out to be only $437. A steal.

“You see?” the woman said. “So afforable.”

And the man behind the cash register (the man who owns the shop? The husband of Uriah Bird?) said, “This is the last one we have, you know. They were a limited edition. They only made a few – one of a kind. When they’re gone. They’re gone. And Melanie Griffith bought this dress to wear when she married (who? I can’t remember. But somebody Rachel later remarked was now on his second wife) – .”

“Ah,” said Rachel. “It’s still outside my budget.”

“Well, why don’t you think about it?” the woman said as we started for the door. “Just take your time and think about it. The dress is just calling for you. We’ll hold it as long as we need to – “

Could it be that the recession has hit even the boutiques in Film Festival towns???

Then we went on to funner pastures. Stores with cool artists’ things in them. Still way beyond the budget, but miles more interesing. This was a Crosby store (there are two of them within 300 feet of each other) and I loved the little horses.

But my question is this: we have no silverworking Native American tribes in this state. Maybe a few artists way, way down south in the deep desert. So why is it that the preponderance of shops in this resort town are selling Native American jewelry? As if silver and tourquoise are some kind of souvenir of our culture? Rachel and I were thinking – maybe they could sell shovels and mining hats with those little lights on them. Or handmade quilts. Or jello salads. Or ice cream—we’re very big on ice cream around here. Or statues of seagulls.  I’ll be looking for silver work in New Mexico, thank you very much. And most of the artists in the Coda Gallery weren’t native, either. The best stuff in there came out of Ohio.

And then we ate.

And that was our trip. Except for the parts we didn’t take pictures of. Like the knitting, and the game playing and the girls in pajamas talking, cross-legged on the beds. Oh, and the lightening and thunder and the freezing in the breeze. And the laughing and the reading in bed. And the fireplace that put out heat like crazy, but that you could turn off with a wall switch. We didn’t shoot any of that.