Real Chick Hiking: Paonia Revisited

After finding this town on my way home from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, it was determined that a second visit was in order. I had heard about their Mountain Harvest Festival and thought to myself, "Self, you like mountains, love local, organic food and have an appreciation for wine. You should go back to that." This festival ended up being so much more.

Out of sheer selfishness, I am not divulging where we stayed as it was an awesome cabin on the river that was WAY under priced...and I want to book it again next year. Can you blame me? On second thought, it would be against everything I stand for to keep it to myself because the winery/orchard to which it belonged was fabulous and we received excellent service, company and too many extras thrown in. So, shout out to you, Lee and Kathy at Black Bridge Winery, you guys are awesome. Thanks for a great experience.

There was a whole lot to do at this festival. We visited sheep farms and wineries, went picking for peaches and veggies, took part in the Saturday night concert series, (which shut down 2 (of the 3) downtown blocks for concert-goers to move among 4 music venues, on the hunt for good tunes), took walks by the river etc. It was a great experience.

This is a town that hasn't really been discovered yet, although a lot of Colorado products come from this fertile belt- from produce to meat to alcohol. Most establishments refused to take credit cards, everyone in town knew one another and would order breakfast by walking into a restaurant and letting the owner know they "were ready for breakfast whenever they had a minute." This is a hippie town, where "Buy Local. Eat Local" is a mantra that's followed. We kept hearing from locals that it was going to be crazy busy for the weekend but the highest number of people we ever saw was in the farmers market on Sunday...and we're talking maybe 100 people. It was quiet!

Now, I've been a baking fool, trying to use up all of the peaches, pears and other produce we walked away with- some of it as a FREE parting gift from our hosts. I am inviting some friends and co-workers over for a pie-a-thon this week to help us devour all that I've cooked up. It was a wonderful, relaxing weekend. Next year, we plan to go earlier to take advantage of the farm-to-farm bike tours and bee-keeping classes.
I don't have room for bees I don't have room for bees I don't have room for bees.

I'm going to let the pictures do the rest of the talking.