A Summer Road Trip Through Southwest Colorado

by Jessica Festa on

While usually thought of as a winter destination, Colorado has a lot to offer the summer traveler. For the itinerary below, I’d suggest touring the U.S. state via car, allotting at least two weeks, although three or four would be better.

Denver

Although this is technically central Colorado, it’s an excellent starting point for your road trip, especially since you’ll most likely be flying into there. The city is full of great activities that can be enjoyed during the summer, like exploring the numerous museums, taking in a comedy show at Comedy Works, strolling down 16th Street Mall or around the trendy Larimer Square. My top suggestion for a great summer experience in Denver, is sampling some of the artisanal flavors of the city. Visit D’Vine Wine, a boutique winery offering inexpensive vino tastings of unusual blends, and The Truffle Cheese Shop, where you’ll be able to try free samples of rare cheeses and cured meats. For those interested in uniquely flavored olive oils and balsamic vinegars, Marketplace EVOO features a giant tasting room, where the owner will help you put together and try the perfect blends. If you’re hungry, Biker Jim’s serves up exotic meat hot dogs, like elk, rattlesnake and pheasant, while the numerous local breweries can give you a taste of Denver’s famous beer scene.Golden

Located 30 minutes west of Denver, this tiny town may look unassuming, but there are actually a lot of worthwhile activities in the area. For some adventure and culture, tubing down Clear Creek is a popular local activity. Moreover, a trip to the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre offers picturesque hiking trails of moderate intensity, with opportunities to get close to the glowing red rocks. Additionally, Golden is the home of the Coor’s brewery, which gives tours Thursday through Monday. I would recommend, however, going to the 2nd largest brewery, and only other brewery, in town, The Golden City Brewery. It’s tiny, and housed in an old carriage house. They serve delicious wraps, and you can order a flight of their brews for about $6. At night, drive up Zion Mountain for an all-encompassing view of the city and surrounding areas lit up in the dark.

Breckenridge

About 90 minutes west of Golden you’ll find the charming mountain town of Breckenridge. This is one of my favorite cities – not only in Colorado, but also in the world. Summer travelers will love the endless amount of hiking trails available, to lakes, peaks, gorges and waterfalls. Furthermore, the town has an endless amount of boutique shops selling food, art, clothing, accessories, massages and gear. A stop at Breckenridge Distillery, the highest distillery in the world, is a must, as you can try free samples of their vodka, bourbon and bitters. I’d also suggest buying some elk and buffalo jerky from Climax Jerky, to sample some local flavor.

Grand Junction

Drive three hours west, and you’ll get to Grand Junction. Here you’ll find Colorado’s undiscovered wine region. Because of its very high altitude, rich soil, cool winds and mild climate, the area is able to make some of the world’s best wines. Furthermore, the altitude allows for fruits to grow close to the sun, bringing out their intense flavors. The area here produces 70 percent to 80 percent of the state’s wine grapes, as it has the longest growing season. This is in part due to the cooling effect from nearby canyons, and milding effect from the Grand Valley. Visit Carlson’s Vineyards, a winery featuring a wide selection of wines and quirky concoctions, and Colorado’s oldest winery, Colorado Cellars Winery.

Additionally, you can partake in some of the state’s most scenic hiking at Colorado National Monument. This red rock canyon is over 200 years old, and features towering monoliths, expansive plateaus and panoramic views. It’s 450 feet tall from its base to its top, and is 5,739 feet in elevation. Common wildlife includes bighorn sheep, eagles and collared lizards.

Crawford

About 45 minutes south, you’ll come to Crawford. This is a great city to really feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere, and experience the beauty of nature. Here you’ll find the country’s newest national park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison. There are moderate hiking trails, which allow you to view the famous Black Canyon, which some say is even more impressive than the Grand Canyon. Moreover, this is a great place to stay on a ranch and partake in activities like horseback riding, archery, fly-fishing, trekking and line dancing. When I went, I stayed at the Smith Fork Ranch. While a bit pricey, you’ll have all your meals and alcohol included, and the atmosphere will really help you assimilate into country culture.

Ouray

Drive an hour south, and you’ll get to the adventure-rich town of Ouray. It’s similar to Breckenridge in that it’s full of scenic hikes, boutique shops and outdoorsy locals; however, Ouray has a bit of a grittier exterior. The city was once an old mining town, which is apparent by looking at the historical buildings, many of which haven’t been changed since the late 1800s. There are many adventurous options for the summer traveler, like canyoning, off-roading, rock climbing and alpine hiking. I’d highly recommend canyoning with San Juan Mountain Guides, as you get to repel down an 80-foot waterfall into a deep, narrow slot canyon. Additionally, there are many unique food shops and boutiques in town. Stop in Mouse’s Chocolates & Coffee for their locally famous Scrap Cookie. After making their chocolates, they take the scraps and save them to add into their homemade cookie batter. Each cookie is a surprise, as you might get nuts, toffee, caramel, turtles or other sweet possibilities depending on what was left over. By the same token, they have unique chocolates like bacon clusters with chardonnay salt and “Dark Hippie Bark,” a mix of coconut, pumpkin and sunflower seeds. For a unique brewery experience, visit the Ourayle House, where you’ll be heckled by Hutch, the owner, who made the bar out of scrap wood in his garage.

If you’re flying back, you can make your way to the airport at Grand Junction, which is about an hour away.

Potter Fans Want Quidditch To Be An Olympic Sport

by Kraig Becker on

Harry Potter fans from around the globe have descended on Oxford, England, to take part in the first major international quidditch tournament and to promote the sport for possible inclusion in future Olympic Games. Players say that the real world version of the fictional sport, created by author J.K. Rowling, is as physically demanding and competitive as Rugby and less ridiculous than some of the other sports that are already included in the Olympics.

In the Harry Potter books and films quidditch players fly around the playing field on magical brooms while attempting to score goals on their opponents. Since no one has figured out how to create a flying broom just yet, the game was adapted for play on the ground instead. In 2005, a group of students from Middlebury College in Vermont came up with a set of rules for the sport, which features teams of seven and employs three different balls. In a nod back to the original source material, each of the players are also required to keep a broom between his or her legs at all times.

Since its creation the rules of the game have been refined and ground quidditch has taken off across the globe. The sport is now played by 700 teams in 25 countries around the globe and while many players are obviously Potter fans, an increasing number have never read the books or seen the movies. They’re all drawn to the unique combination of rugby, dodge ball and tag that makes the sport stand out from any other.

Whether or not quidditch will ever get included in the Olympics remains to be seen. Before it can achieve that level of recognition, it first must become more universally recognized around the world as a true sport and create an international governing body. Once that is achieved, that governing body can file an application to be included in the Games as a demonstration sport. After that, a second application can be filed for full inclusion in the next Olympics.

While I have to admit the game actually sounds kind of fun, the thought of running around a field with a broom between my legs just seems ridiculous. Then again, curling uses brooms and it seems way sillier than this.

[Photo credit: Christopher Capozziello/Getty Images]

Sipping Vino At The Northern Hemisphere’s Highest Winery And Vineyard

by Jessica Festa on

Terror Creek Winery and Vineyard is located in the West Elks American Viticultural Area of Colorado. The establishment gets its name from the snow-fed stream residing along the property’s edge, called Terror Creek. What makes Terror Creek really special is the fact that, at 6,400 feet, it’s the highest winery and vineyard that’s estate bottled in the northern hemisphere.

The winery sits atop the Garvin Mesa in the Rocky Mountains, allowing visitors to sip boutique vinos while having a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding landscape. It’s run by Joan Mathewson, a Swiss-trained winemaker who takes pride in the fact that she creates unique Alsatian-style wines, know for their fruit flavors and crisp acidities.

When asked how her style differs from other vintners, she responds with a smile, “I don’t know what other wineries do. I know what I do.”

Mathewson offers five varieties of wine, including a dry riesling, a full-flavored and spicy gewurztraminer, a unique chardonnay vinted without oak, a rich and fruity pinot noir and, her signature creation, chalet, a light red blend that can be served chilled. Tastings are free, and bottles start at $10.

For more information, click here.

The Burmese Bad Boys Of Mandalay: The Mustache Brothers

by David Farley on

I was lost. Well, not “lost” as in I-can’t-find-way-home lost, but in that way where you suddenly find yourself in such unfamiliar territory, you just feel like you’ve stepped into another dimension. I knew I was in Myanmar, the country still sometimes referred to as Burma. And I knew I was in Mandalay, the second largest city in the country. I was traipsing through a street fair when I happened upon a booth selling posters. Next to images of the Chinese version of Justin Bieber (or is Justin Bieber the American version of this guy?) were displayed posters of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient and the main thorn in the ruling junta’s side.

I took a picture of it. And then someone said to me, in English, “Be careful.” I knew what he meant. After all, this was Burma. Government agents, I’d been told, may or may not be shadowing tourists like me.

Displaying pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi – who has served several stints under house arrest but was recently elected to Parliament – was verboten a year ago. Now they’re nearly ubiquitous. Still, though, despite the recent changes in the country, this is an isolated land. Decades of totalitarian rule by the Burmese military have left the country in a freeze of sorts. There are no Starbucks or McDonalds in Mandalay or Yangon, the city formerly known as Rangoon. Cellphones from abroad don’t work, so visitors who want to get any kind of reception have to fork over heaps of cash to buy a SIM card. And it has to be cash, as there are no ATMs in this land. You can’t buy an iPhone or a BlackBerry but you can score a Chinese-made knockoff called a Black Jerry (I’m not kidding) for about $100.

The country is so insolated that kids walk around wearing T-shirts emblazed with the Nazi swastika (or, as you see from this pic I took, on the back pocket of their jeans). They’re not Nazis. Nor do they necessarily hate Jews. As one local told me: “People here somehow believe the swastika is a symbol of modern Germany and have no idea of its connection to the Nazis.” With this kind of information control – or, rather, lack of information available to the populace – is it any surprise that after George Orwell spent five years in Burma, he went on to write 1984? Answer: not at all.

I wasn’t just aimlessly wandering around Mandalay. I was on my way to a show. But this was no ordinary show. Meet the Mustache Brothers. They consist of mustached siblings Par Par Lay and Lu Maw, and their barefaced cousin, Lu Zaw. Every night of the year they put on a show for tourists in their garage-cum-theater that’s something like a mix between vaudeville, folk dancing and the type of show you see on cable access at 3 a.m. and wonder the next morning if that was for real or if what you had been smoking was just really potent stuff.


I walked down a dim alleyway and then made a left down an even darker hallway before being spilled out into the 25-seat performance space in a garage. It was occupied exclusively by foreign tourists, mostly lumpy looking northern Europeans. The reason? Par Par Lay and Lu Maw have both served time in prison for openly criticizing the government. After their release, in 2002, they were banned from touring around the country doing shows for the Burmese. So, they set up shop in their home and now only perform for tourists.

“It’s the tourists and the international attention the audience brings,” Lu Maw said when I introduced myself before the show. “This protects us from the government. ” And then he asked if I would please write about them for my blog. I didn’t tell him I had a blog. Nor did I say what I do for my job. I figured he just assumed everyone in the West has a blog these days.

Lu Maw began the show with rambling banter punctuated by political jokes. Example:

A Burmese man goes to a dentist in Thailand. And before the dentist examines the Burmese man’s teeth, he asks: why did you come all the way to Thailand to see a dentist.

“Because,” the Burmese man says, “in Burma we’re not allowed to open our mouths.”

“We’re not afraid of getting arrested anymore. Thank you Aung San Suu Kyi and Secretary Clinton,” Lu Maw said to the audience. He said the current international focus on Myanmar means the government has to act very carefully now. Though he did concede: “The New president? He’s a new bottle, same wine.”

Somehow during the show they managed to reference Ashton Kutcher, Bruce Willis, Al Pacino and Rambo. They held up hand-painted signs scrawled with phrases to emphasize a point or as the punchline to a joke – “Back Door Man” and “Whoop It Up,” for example. Other times, Par Par Lay would sit around in chains, looking not unlike some kind of circus sideshow act, referencing the time he was a political prisoner (see photo above). In other skits, the entire family took part. Wives and kids danced. There were costume changes. There was some hollering. In the end, it wasn’t the best show I’d ever seen. But that’s not at all the point. That they’re even performing, saying the things they’re saying – in public – in a land where getting imprisoned for the words you choose to use, is the point. And I was happy to support it.

After the show, just before the 25 or so of us shuffled out, Lu Maw hollered: “Don’t forget to write about us on your blogs.

It was a promise I said I would keep.

Travel Clichés: They Go With The Territory

by Sean McLachlan on

I’ve recently been dipping into “The Cat’s Pyjamas: The Penguin Book of Cliches” by Julia Cresswell, which is a good summer read.

Cresswell really put her nose to the grindstone for this weighty tome, leaving no stone unturned in her quest for the real deal about cliches. We’re informed that “wend your way” dates back to the Anglo-Saxons, with “wend” meaning “to go.” It was on its way out as a word when Sir Walter Scott and other nineteenth century romantic authors breathed new life into it.

Other cliches come from the Bible, like “the four corners of the earth” and “the ends of the earth.” Cresswell writes, “the persistence of an expression once it has become fixed is evident in the way that no one is uncomfortable with these phrases, despite the fact that flat-earthers are few and far between.”

Some phrases are of more recent vintage. “The fast lane” can only be traced back to 1966.

Bad travel writing is filled to the brim with cliches. Terms like “unique” or “hidden” or “authentic” or “off the beaten path” are like nails on a blackboard to my ears. Yet none of these chills me to my marrow more than that most wretched of adjectives: “quaint.”

When I became a travel writer ten years ago I swore upon a stack of Bibles never to use “quaint” in an article. I have stuck to that vow like glue, except when a snake-in-the-grass copy editor stabbed me in the back. I had written an article about British thatched roof houses for a certain magazine that shall remain nameless and titled it simply, “Thatched Roof Houses.” The copy editor stole my thunder by adding the subtitle, “The Story Behind The Quaintness.” This led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Sometimes travel cliches can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, especially when they perpetuate stereotypes. Here’s some tongue-in-cheek advice on writing about Africa that will have you splitting your sides with laughter. So, fellow travel writers, I beg you on bended knee, when you put pen to paper and are stuck for the right word, don’t fall back on cliches. Avoid them like the plague.

[Photo courtesy shutterbug Jonas Bengtsson]