I just got back from Astro Camp in Idyllwild, California. I went as a chaperone on a class trip with my kids.

Everything you’ve heard about the food is true. Many had warned me, so I came prepared. I won’t harp on it too much except to say that you should get to the salad bar fast. Since the main courses are essentially inedible, you need to get to the very busy salad bar before you end up with lettuce in a soup of cold water and the dregs of the vegetables. Also, at breakfast, the fruit is at the salad bar station, and being largely untouched by the ‘cooks,’ it’s very popular and goes fast.

OK, now that that’s past I’ll move on to the great features of Astro Camp, namely, the classes.

As far as I understand the process, the school selects the classes or segments that the students will participate in during their stay. So I’m really not sure what else is out there, but I’ll give a rundown of what we did. As usual, our school’s amazing teachers really picked interesting, engaging activities for the students.

Soda Bottle Rocket Launch – Using a two liter bottle as the main body, we learned how to build on a nose cone out of clay, and cardboard fins. This activity was in part just a lot of fun, but was also a lesson in several aspects of physics and motion including how heavier objects move slower with the same amount of force and gravity (with calculations to determine the height of the rockets). In addition, this activity gave the more artistic kids a chance to build based on more unique ideas.

Zip Line – Really, all fun. 700 feet of zip line here. I was expecting some physics lesson, but it was just for sheer fun. Maybe there was a little bit of overcoming acrophobia on the platform, but otherwise, it was a blast.

Catwalk – Like the zip line in that it wasn’t about a science lesson, but this one took more nerve than the zip line. It also delivered a bigger sense of accomplishment to the kids. It’s amazing how a completely safe, controlled environment like this can still frighten. I didn’t get a chance to walk it (we ran out of time) but I was definitely a bit scared just looking up there. Some kids scrambled up and practically ran across. Others needed a little convincing and some couldn’t bring themselves to do it. But for those who needed convincing, they were ecstatic and full of pride when it was over.

Gases Class – A great lesson in physics from college, with all the good experiments in one class. We ate frozen potato chips from a liquid nitrogen bath, exploded hydrogen, imploded cans, and used vacuums to do crazy things to marshmallows and shaving cream. Oh – and the frozen balloon was completely surprising. This was a quick overview of the properties of gases in a way that challenge your imagination. Most of the kids will clearly need some more explanation of these events, although our excellent teacher Dave did have a way of describing the salient points with concision.

Beyond those classes, there was an underwater class demonstrating cooperation and non-verbal communication. There was a rock wall climb that relied on trivia facts for access. And there was a night hike complete with time at telescopes trained on amazing views. I’ll never forget the way I saw Saturn that night!

I wrote first about our trip to Telluride, then about dinner in Telluride, and for my final post about the trip, here’s the skinny on lunch.

La Tapatia – The taco truck in town, about four blocks up Colorado from Oak, near the Ace Hardware. Living in LA, I get pretty good Mexican food, but this place is really, really solid. Everything I had, I’d recommend. Great for lunch if the weather is decent. We even got a whole mess of burritos for the plane ride home. The chicken is a stew, the veggies are full of real veggies, and the fish is freshly fried. Good stuff.

Fat Alley BBQ – Totally walkable from the ski runs, even in ski boots. It’s just a little up Oak Street from the bottom of the gondola and Chair 8. Great ribs and fries, but be sure to get the pulled pork sandwich. It’s huge, and it comes with cole slaw on it, plus a side (I went with the black beans and spinach, which I also enjoyed). My wife doesn’t eat meat, but even she did well there thanks to their supply of side orders.

Las Montañas – With no research at all (unlike me – I’m usually pretty good about digging around for restaurants when I travel, which, I guess, is why I write posts like this) we happened upon this place, just walking down Colorado. It was a good find. The chef here knows his stuff, and the place has a good vibe. We got an appetizer plate with queso fundido with chorizo (great), crab stuffed peppers (supposed to be spicy, and totally mild, but OK anyway) and I forget what the third item was, so it can’t have been that remarkable. The fundido was the star, along with my posole. Also, great chips and salsas. Can’t comment on the margaritas – as badly as I wanted one, I was skiing more that day and it didn’t seem prudent.

Some final restaurant notes are that if you need to eat lunch in Mountain Village, you should head to 9545 (gourmet-ish food in relatively small portions) or to Poachers (decent bar food – greasy and edible). Neither is as good as town, but they’re fine. Stay far, far away from the Crazy Elk pizza place. Tracks is OK, but just very mediocre. Coffee is pretty decent at the Telluride Coffee Company up there, and in town, the Steaming Bean makes good java, with a good attitude.

When I wrote about dinner restaurants in Telluride, I forgot one place. I shall now rectify that mistake.

La Marmotte – I’m thinking that I probably forgot about this place because the food really wasn’t too memorable. But I sure remembered it when I looked at my credit card bill – it was the most expensive restaurant we ate at in Telluride (although probably close to Allred’s). This is a French restaurant with a prix fixeé menu. I think the initial cost was $40, which seems reasonable, until you start with the supplements. All in all, the food was fine, although I really can’t recommend the fish dishes. Uniformly, at our table, the meat and foul dishes were far better than the fish, as lackluster as they actually were. I would also say that the desserts were pretty unimpressive. But they do have a good wine list, and they do have Chimay, so all was not lost.

If you read the other post, you’ll know that I spent a week in Telluride with eight members of my family. As with any trip, one of the most important aspects is the food. I’m a little amazed to say, the food in Telluride is outstanding. Like any tourist destination, there are some serious traps in there, but if you avoid the potholes, you’ll eat really well.

On the first night, we asked the concierge where to go for dinner. What’s with these guys? Do they get payoffs from the least interesting, most expensive restaurants around? Why are they never reliable? Why are the places they recommend so sterile? So the guy (who was later driving the shuttle bus) recommended La Piazza which was nothing to write home about (you get the vibe about how lame this place is from their contrived website). Just to give you a hint of the tenor of the place, I asked for a Dolcetto on the wine list. “Sorry, sir, we’re out of that one. We do have this one” with a point to a wine far, far down the list. I asked for another wine, between the two, and was answered with a grin, “Ah, no, that is out also. Again, we do have this one.” First night of the vaca, so I took it. So much for that place, and the concierge. I hope he got his cut from the wine choice. I probably should make sure they didn’t rip him off too.

OK – our fault – concierges are useless, at least anyplace where you speak the language. To prove it, the food we’ve had since then has been truly exceptional. Not just on a vacation-in-a-small-town-in-Colorado way, but in a real, world-class way. Maybe not the French Laundry, but really comfortable, delicious, innovative food served in great surroundings with easy, friendly service.

Cosmopolitan – In the Columbia hotel, in the town. Inspired American food (maybe really Californian food) with a big reliance on the meat of the West, but also with flown in seafood. I had three lobster corndogs that were great. We’re going back for seconds.

Second trip: the beignets were amazing! Lemony and light – really ideal! Funny enough, we had those at the next place too . . .

221 South Oak – Probably the best of the trip, and we consider than an honor given the other meals. In an old house in town, with a separate menu full of veggie options, there was no bad place on the table. Again, really great service (how do these places get good waiters in a seasonal vacation town?) paired with delicious food made for a memorable evening.

The Beignets at 221 South Oak

Allred’s – This place is on the mountain, at the gondola stop between town and Mountain Village. We’d heard it was good, with great views, from many people. We figured we’d get great views with overpriced food. The views were, in fact, great. You see across the valley, with the town below. It’s breathtaking. If the food were bad and overpriced, it would still be worth going, and I don’t really care about views. But the restaurant was a gorgeous building itself, and food, while maybe more towards the hotel dining room style, was really worth the expense, even without the views. It seems touristy until you go, but it’s worth it, no question.

Honga’s – Strange to eat in a Thai/Japanese/Fusion place high up in the mountains, but we got over it pretty quickly once we tried the food. The lamb, especially, was delicious – really more middle eastern than Asian, but great. The bbq pork was also a winner, as were the fish dishes. The panang tofu, which I usually really like, wasn’t so hot there. But overall, this place is fantastic, and it’s on a totally different wavelength than the other places in town.

So those are the restaurants for dinner. Lunch is coming soon.

A week’s a long time, and a lot happens. But here’s what you need to know, where you need to eat (broken off into a different post now), and what you should avoid. Most importantly, I’m giving you the lay of the land – something I really didn’t understand until I arrived, and something which would likely change the way I organize a trip here next time.

Telluride is really two distinct areas: the old city of Telluride, and the newer area up on the hill called Mountain Village. The two are linked by free gondola (amazingly well designed and run), by roads, and by ski slopes. Beyond that, they’re two different worlds.

(Skiing down Telluride trail into the town)

So we stayed in the Mountain Village. Mountain Village is really a company town, like many of the big ski resorts these days. One company seems to own or at least develop the whole thing (you’ll get to know their logo with the mining pickaxe pretty quickly), but stays pretty low-key and licenses out the concessions to multiple vendors to keep the place from feeling too homogeneous. I’m not a big fan of these planned developments.

Our place is in Mountain Lodge, which is ski-out (so we can hit the slopes a few steps from our front door, and return to the condo just as easily). They offer a van/shuttle service around the village. And they have a concierge and a pool, etc. For skiing, this is great. For everything else, we really had to spend time getting down to the town, which we did almost every night for dinner, and most days for lunch and other commerce also.

(our cabin in Mountain Village)

The skiing is really pretty excellent. The skiing that is centered on Mountain Village is the beginner and intermediate terrain. It basically feeds down into one main area (the bottom of lift 4 and the top of lift 1) that has several restaurants (pretty uniformly bad – ski food like burgers and low-end draft beer) and a few sporting goods stores. That’s also where the gondola to town ends, and the second gondola starts.

The second gondola goes to the grocery store and everything at the other end of Mountain Village. The grocery store is really the star of the area. But it’s strange: if they recognize the need for good, gourmet food up there, why is it only available in the grocery, and not for lunch or dinner? Maybe this is to keep the town in the loop? I doubt it, frankly, but the town is pretty wonderful.

The town, down at 8750 feet (Mountain Village is at about 9500 and the lifts take you up beyond 12,000 feet) is a real charm. It’s basically an old western mining town, that’s been updated maybe once in the ’60s (it feels very Berkeley there) and then again in the late ’90s (gourmet food, high end clothes boutiques, and the ubiquitous real estate storefronts).

Through all of that, the town maintains both a sense of community, and great commerce. It’s like the little town that caters to the big town person. You can stroll down Colorado (the city’s main street) and get a good latte, some baked goods, a Stetson, and a new fishing rod. And the views are fantastic – from almost everywhere in town, you just look up and see the untouched or barely-touched mountains surrounding you.

In the end, there’s no question that for the skiing aspect of the trip, Mountain Village is the more convenient place to stay. If you do, try to stay in the village itself, where you can walk to the two gondolas. But for the rest of the trip (food and lazing around a comfortable small town) the town of Telluride is where you want to be. For me, I think next time I’ll stay in town and avoid the company-town feel of the new condos up in the Mountain Village.

Be sure to read all about the food in Telluride coming soon in another blog post!

Update: Dinner Restaurants in Telluride is now up. Lunch is coming soon.