Visiting my parents - in Tahoe

Tom and I are doing separate family trips this month. I'm visiting my parents in CA for a few days, and when I get home -- Tom leaves for WV to accompany his mother to her 60th high school reunion. 

Yesterday my parents took me up to Donner Pass, to an area that has nice hiking trails for the summer, and great x-country skiing in the winter.  As you can see, the landscape is nothing but DRY. 

Today we did a short segment of the Pacific Crest Trail. After that we went to hang out at the lake (Donner, not Tahoe) for the late afternoon.  Beautiful: I rented a kayak for an hour, and thoroughly exhausted my arms. 

Can you see me out there???  I'm that little speck!

day #2: The Colorado National Monument

Although the day was lovely, one day of tasting Colorado wines was enough.  As it turns out, the Western Slope has more to offer than wine, peaches and hops -- there is the Colorado National Monument.

 I had somehow thought that the Monument was a specific place -- maybe a statue or something.  A point of interest… but not a whole park with hiking trails and gorgeous, spectacular scenery.

 It reminded me of Zion and Canyonlands -- as, indeed -- we were very close to southern Utah.

 Sure, it was a bit warm -- but we had a great hike.  We got to see awesome red rocks, beautiful sandstone (I think)….

 and very cool lizards.

All in all, a pretty perfect day.  We stopped back in Palisade on the way home at the Palisade Brewing Company.  Tom liked nearly all of their beers (he got a sampler) which is unusual -- it must have been good beer.  Thankfully, Rasesh drove home…. 

Our first trip to Palisade

We have been (theoretically) planning a trip to the Western Slope of Colorado with our friends Wendi & Rasesh for years.  Well, we finally went!

 The western slope is known for two things: peaches, and wine.  The peaches are certainly something to be proud of… the wine, well -- is not quite yet ready for prime time (for the most part).
We rented a little 2BR VRBO house that was great: right in the heart of town, 500 feet from a little restaurant, the Sunday farmer's market, and the bicycle rental place.  We rented bikes and set out to see the sites.
One thing that was really interesting is that they are also growing a BOATLOAD of hops in the area -- which was news to us.  But fun to see.

 As we expected, most of the wine was not great.  In fact, some of it was down right awful.  One winery tried to claim that they had won a French blind taste test (a modern Judgement of Paris?) -- when all of their wines (both red and white) simply tasted fortified.
But it was still a really fun day -- among other things, the scenery was gorgeous.  And when tasting wine, it is totally acceptable to spit out the wine, whether you like it or not….

 Our last stop for the day was Colterris -- which was the one wine we expected to like.  We were not disappointed: we tried something quite unique -- a white cabernet.  It both looked and tasted like a rose, but not quite as sweet.  We bought 2 bottles (our only purchases for the day).  The grape photo from above is from Colterris; those are Petit Verdot grapes.

best wildlife day EVER!

Tom and I went to RMNP yesterday for a relatively long hike.  (Which is to say that it was 9 miles, which is pretty long, but there was more downhill than uphill -- because we used the bus system to start and stop at different locations).

It was a spectacular day for wildlife viewing.  No, I didn't get photos of the various wildlife (either too far away, which was fine by us, or I wasn't quick enough).  But all in one day, we saw a marmot, a moose, lots and lots of fish, a bear, and a snake.

 After our ascent from Bear Lake to Lake Helene, it was all downhill from there.  Literally.  :-)
This is Tom (above) contemplating Lake Odessa off in the distance: confident that there would be fish to be had.

Here is a photo that I took showing the trail that we had just come down.  It was a really great day: we had cloud cover/cool temperatures during our first 3 miles of uphill, and then the sun came out for our descent.  And there were a LOT of wildflowers -- especially mountain daisies.

 By the way: Tom was right about the fish.  I like this photo because you can see the brilliant red color around the fish gills.  Tom managed to catch 4 fish despite not having all of the equipment he should have had: he forgot his tippet at home, which is basically the fine fishing line that you attach to the end of the leader.  No worries: he attached a large fly to the end of his leader, and WHAM!  He was in business.