All I heard about on this trip so far is Palisades has peaches! Well peaches are delicious and my first peach in Palisades lived up to my expectation; juicy, sweet, and no gross soft spots, but my five biking comrades neglected to tell me that Palisades also has vineyards. And vineyards have wineries- girls day wine tour on bikes!
I learned the best way to fully enjoy a girls day wine tour is to first start out by waking up before the sunrise, talking yourself up in the bathroom mirror at the campground, and jumping onto I70 for a short, yet forever lasting five miles of biking. Now I, as an Oregonian, think that is crazy. One cannot simply bike on one of the busiest highways in Colorado. Alas my Coloradan biking partners educated me that if there is no alternative route you can bike on the highway in Colorado. So we did! It was loud, terrifying, exhilarating: I had moments of panic thinking of what my mom would say for putting myself at such risk, and moments of pure adrenaline as semis passed me mere feet away. I’m happy to report we only had one SMALL accident in which a biker hit a bush growing onto the side of the road, which resulted in a chain reaction, and poor Kate bounced off the guard rail. Thankfully she was fine! However, her bike took a little jolting and we all predict she will come to know the full extent of the bike damage when we are the furthest from society in a cell phone dead zone. As we have learned, that's how those things usually play out.
After highway biking we merged onto a lovely country road with rolling hills and vineyards and fruit trees for miles. Leah became our designated wine tour guide as she read the official wine tour map in downtown Palisades.
Our first stop was a peach stand! We boosted our vitamin E levels while enjoying a local peach, snickered at the peach/rear end picture on the store sign, and proceeded to our first winery.
There were wines from three local vineyards: a traditional winery, a fruit winery, and a mead place (is that also a winery? Unsure). As we are six white girls we resisted our natural urges to just order rose, and we all sniffed and tasted four different fruit wines (no mead drinkers in this group). Ann was our delightful wine server and though she seemed timid at first, we quickly won her over with our charms and smiles. And of course, an official Water Cycle sticker. While sipping our wines we saw a wine tour horse and buggy go by, which is almost better than bikes. We purchased a lavender wine and bid Ann farewell and biked on. Unfortunately we quickly came to a large steep hill and while everyone powered their way up, I walked my bike up and contemplated throwing it off the hill the whole time. Biking is a wonderful, calming experience for me, until I have to bike uphill. Then it’s a pure mental battle. But my bike lucked out today and I pushed it safely to the top. Thankfully as soon as I made it to the top of the hill the next winery was nearby. We rolled into a very polished winery that had old cars sprinkled around the property. Kate had the genius idea for everyone to put on their Hawaiian shirts for this stop. So as we are obviously classy gals, we promptly yanked off our smelly biking shirts and put on our fresh Hawaiian shirts in the parking lot, to the delight (or horror) of the other wine patrons sitting outside. We strode into the winery looking like the multicolored bad ass broads we are, and met the delightful Neal,an obvious wine connoisseur. Neal may have been a little hungover, but he was a wine professional and had a frog tattoo so we instantly adored him. We opted for the white wine and rose samples and found a nice big table outside to accommodate our wine tasting and impromptu camping food lunch. If you have ever wondered if white wine pairs with tuna, Cheez-its, and tortillas, the answer is yes. And it was great to get the fellow wine patrons to stare at us some more. We like to be memorable. After our wine and tuna, we waved goodbye to Neal, and headed to our new home in Grand Junction. Or rather that was the intention till we passed a brewery and decided, you know what’s better than wine? Beer. So we stopped at a lovely brewery for beer, nachos, appetizer sampler, and a game of snakes. If you haven’t ever played snakes, let me break it down for you. You turn your body into a snake and make hissing sounds. Jenny is the supreme ruler of the game but we have months to practice and catch up to her snake level. After snakes and beer we finally made it to our home for the evening and promptly fell asleep after our exhilarating girl’s wine day bike tour.
Rebecca
