Our freezer full of Yum-O elk, on December 8 we started our road trip back home to West Virginia, seeing a lot of Very beautiful Colorado countryside:
We stopped first at Palisade (remember- I made Dan promise…), so we could get to at least a few of this town’s many wineries! We enjoyed a delicious charcuterie platter lunch of meats, cheeses, dips, and breads, with flights of wines, and real French, house-made Macarons, at a delightful French winery, Maison La Belle Vie: https://maisonlabellevie.com/ We fell in love with their Vin de Peche, a wine made from Muscat grapes and the famous local peaches, a delightful recipe from Mr. Barbier’s Loire Valley family that has been handed down through the generations since the late 1800s, and we bought two bottles!
We decided to spend the night in Palisade, and had a whiskey tasting at the Peach Street Distillers: https://www.peachstreetdistillers.com/, including that excellent whiskey we’d tasted at the wonderful bin 707 foodbar in Grand Junction- I only wished that their whiskies weren’t $70 a bottle…
We followed that up with a wonderful dinner at Peche: https://pecherestaurantcolorado.com/, another truly fine, farm-to-table restaurant, that is serving now by reservation only. We had a rich, creamy Foie Gras Pate, served with Brioche, and a Palisade Peach Puree, followed by a Charred Prime Rib Eye Steak (Dan) and Lamb (me), a glass of wine for Dan, and their tasty, inventive Pear Smash cocktail, made with gin, rosemary, and black pepper, for me! The portions were generous, and I actually took some of that fabulous foie gras back to the hotel with me, and had myself a great gourmet breakfast on the road the next morning! HIGHLY RECOMENDED if you get to Glenwood Springs!
We spent the night at the adorable Spoke & Vine Motel, https://spokeandvinemotel.com/ a cute, “hip”, and newly revamped 1955 motel that only takes bookings online, provides keyless guest room entry by text(!), delivered a carafe of hot coffee to our room in the morning, and where we were able to plug in our freezer- in our guest room, using our extension cord! 🙂
The next morning, 12/9, we visited one more winery before leaving Palisade: St. Kathryn Cellars: https://www.talonwinebrands.com/ where Dan was treated to an Egg Nog, and we did an extensive tasting of wines from their two wineries, and meads (honey wines) from Meaderie of the Rockies, whose tasting room was closed due to Covid. We bought bottles of two meads, and a wonderful and unique lavender-infused white wine that is like a summer herb garden in a bottle!
Driving Highway 133, we discovered the Extremely Cool Redstone Coke Oven Historic District, and being from West Virginia, land of Coke & Coal, we had to stop to check it out! The coke ovens were built in 1899 by Colorado Fuel and Iron to burn impurities out of coal from Colorado’s Coal Basin, and Redstone itself, a turn-of-the-century coal & coke town, has a very interesting history- you can read about it here: https://history.redstonecolorado.org/redstone-history/
We then drove to the historic, 130 year old, Glenwood Hot Springs Resort in Glenwood Springs, Colorado: https://www.hotspringspool.com/, home to the world’s largest hot springs pool, and spent the night there, so we could enjoy soaking in the hot springs both at night, and in the morning! The staff was Very helpful, locating an outlet for our freezer in their garage, and giving us their military discount for Dan’s 20 years of Army service. Then the desk clerk told me he’d give us a top-shelf upgrade, too, if I told him how we happened to have an elk in our freezer, which made me laugh! I did, and he upgraded us to a lovely King Guest Room with a balcony overlooking the Hot Spring Pools and illuminated Christmas Trees!
The desk clerk suggested a great local restaurant, the Riviera Supper Club: https://www.rivieraglenwood.com/, which we could walk to (although it was quite a hike in the bitter cold…), and after our soak in the hot spring pool we had a fine and fun dinner there: Dan had a great steak and a flight of white wines, and I had a spicy, inventive Ancho Chile Margarita with their delicious Colorado Rabbit & Rattlesnake Bratwurst!
Ancho Chile Margarita at the Riviera Supper Club 
Rabbit & Rattlesnake Bratwurst!
The next day (12/10) we took a morning dip in the hot spring pool, and, as it made my skin feel SO good, I dippered out a thermos of super-hot water from the original historic hot spring pool to take home with us! The source of the Glenwood Hot Springs’ famed mineral water- which is also imbibed for health- is the Yampah Spring, which produces over 3.5 million gallons of water per day at a temperature of 122°F, although the large pools at Glenwood are cooled down to no more than 104°F, making them delightful to soak in! Members of the nomadic Ute tribe were the earliest known people to soak in these healing hot springs, which retain the original Ute language name of “Yampah,”, which translates to “Big Medicine.” I wish we’d had time to visit the nearby Yampah Spa and Vapor Caves, which is one of few places in the world where guests can experience a natural (not man-made) geothermal steam bath, but we had to be home no later than Dec. 18, so we had to keep moving!
After breakfast at the pool cafe, we then continued our drive east, stopping for a pizza lunch at the Vines at Vail Winery: https://www.vinesatvailwinery.com/ (found on my GPS en route, and which I called first), where we had one of the best winery experiences of this trip: Italy in Colorado! The vintner, Patrick Chirichillo, is Italian from NJ, from a family of winemakers, his parents hailed from Calabria and Naples (his father is 101 years old!), and he has spent the last 30 years making Italian wines from California Grapes in the middle of Colorado! We tasted a large selection of his wines, including one he opened for himself and treated us to, and he then helped us fill a bottle with the wine we liked best, right from the oak barrel, which he signed to us, and which Dan and I sealed with love notes we wrote to each other wrapped around the cork, so we’ll have a special anniversary present to open at home come January- our 16th Wedding Anniversary!
I Badly wanted to do a dog sledding excursion, as while Dan was able to do that when he was stationed in Alaska, I never have, and I knew we’d both enjoy the doggies! Colorado has many dog sledding excursion outfitters, but the one that was on our route off I-70 had canceled their excursions as there hadn’t been enough snow. 🙁 I also wanted to take a day to go skiing at one of Colorado’s famed ski resorts- and we were right near Vail- but we didn’t have time to squeeze that in! Next time, I hope! 🙂
We spent the night of 12/10 at the historic, fun, and funky Indian Hot Springs Motel, http://www.indianhotsprings.com/ in Idaho Springs, a true “blast from the past” which dates from 1905, where we got to enjoy an hour-long soak in a private hot spring bathroom! Indian Springs offers a mineral water swimming pool, private hot spring bathrooms, outdoor mineral water Jacuzzis, Club Mud, featuring a mineral rich clay (currently closed), a Spa offering massages, and hot, geo-thermal caves, which were driven into the solid rock mountain side between 1903 and 1911, specifically for the purpose of creating this unique facility! You can come just for the day and purchase a day pass, but if you stay at the motel you get to book an hour at one facility each night of your stay! Note: This is not the place to stay if you are expecting a luxurious, state-of-the-art spa like Canyon Ranch, but it IS the place to stay if you want to step back in time a bit, and experience these unique springs and facilities the way people did in the 1950s! The staff was very nice and professional, and our motel room was clean and comfortable, and we were able to plug our freezer into an outlet in our guest room using our extension cord. We only got to do the Private Mineral Bath, and I’d love to come back to experience the caves and the mud!! (This part of Colorado has lots of accommodations offering hot springs, including cabins and B&Bs, and we saw signs for a number of them that looked like fun!)
That evening, as there was no place in the area to dine in, we got a very good take-out dinner of ribs and two sauces from Idaho Springs famed Smokin’ Yards BBQ: https://www.smokinyards.com/ using the 10% discount code from Indian Hot Springs- sweet!
Next: Gold-Panning, Garden of the Gods & a Ghost Town!
