You may have experienced this – You’re driving, on your way to somewhere, maybe for the first or fourth or fiftieth time and…you don’t really see or engage with the passing scenery as your focus is more on getting to the destination that lies X miles ahead. This was definitely my experience in the few times I traveled to Grand Junction Airport in the past year to catch flights taking me elsewhere. The focus was definitely on the destination and not on the journey. But hidden gems can be found in surprising bypassed places, tucked in the in-between Point A and Point B that merit deeper discovery.
2 weeks ago, while my mom was visiting we ventured forth to the in-between and struck out for Palisades, Colorado, a place I knew little of, except for the fact that luscious peaches were apparently grown there. The ride took us about 90 minutes, first down the highway with green hills at my elevation (roughly 6700′) then the earth and rocks turn red and craggy, past the town of Glenwood Springs and then winding through the canyon alongside the Colorado River with distant plateau sculptures and a dustier brown vegetation.
Our trek had a purpose; a lovely horse-drawn carriage ride through the Palisades Wine country with JR’s Carriage Service. What’s that you say? You didn’t know wine was made in Colorado? Yeah, well, for the most part, neither did I. Of course I’d heard there were wineries in Colorado but had imagined them to be more of the hobbying variety. The meeting place was at the Colorado Wine Country Inn, which, had a bit more forethought gone into it, we definitely should have stayed as it seemed a lovely little country inn.
Several groups were gathered at the front of the inn awaiting their respective carriages; one appeared a somewhat rowdy group of women for a bridal shower, another possibly a large family get-together, and then our carriage arrived that included our group of four and then a family celebrating their daughter’s 21st birthday. We climbed aboard and set off almost immediately passing by vineyards and peach groves. The day was hot but our wonderful carriage driver/host, Ryan, had a cooler full of iced waters and amid the clop-clop of the beautiful horse team, shared information of the area.
We visited 4 wineries on our tour, through the main streets of a sweet little downtown area with several restaurants offering outside seating,and passed by Victorian and craftsman style homes, which, along with the vineyards, fruit trees and farm stands, made this area reminiscent of wine country in Napa California.
The pace, the scenery, the amiable conversations with strangers that quickly become daylong friends all made for a wonderful outing. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that at one of the wineries there was a grilled cheese food truck that was the perfect snack to go along with our wine slushies. Oh don’t be such a snob, you’d have loved them! haha! I asked our driver Ryan if they close for winter but as Palisade is at a much lower elevation, they do tours year-round to accommodate all kinds of celebrations, engagements, sunsets, weddings, etc.
My mom and I both really enjoyed taking this comfortable slow ride through this sweet small town. What a lovely way to spend a day getting familiar with an area that deserves to be a destination in itself. Thanks much JR’s Carriage!
P.S. A side note of trivia my mom realized during our excursion- On her honeymoon the flight from Boston to San Francisco was on a United airlines prop jet (a DC-9?) that had to make several fueling stops as it made its way across the country. To the best of mom’s recollections some of these fuel stops were made in Hartford, Cleveland, Chicago and Grand Junction, which will forever make these airports more sentimental stops for me on future journeys!
