Here Comes Santa Fe

The morning of our day in Santa Fe began in the most unlikely of ways: we actually slept in. For hours! But we still fit plenty in once we got rolling. We started with breakfast at Cafe Catron, where we sampled a New Mexico staple: a burrito (breakfast, in this case) served "Christmas style" (smothered in both red and green chile). Pretty tasty. Locals may now jump in and name five other places they think serve a better breakfast burrito.

We decided to grab some coffee to walk around with, and the name of one spot in particular demanded our attention: CrashMurderBusiness. I was wondering what had inspired such a bizarre name, until the sign at the door made it all clear -- it was a play on fun-sounding "mass nouns," which extended to the menu and the "Race of Roadrunners" I ordered as my beverage. (It tasted like a chocolate bonbon with chili powder. Perhaps you sense a theme of New Mexico.)

We wandered the Railyard Artisan Market for a bit, partly for "nothing in particular" but particular for something very particular. From our trip to New Orleans a few years ago, our one lingering regret is that we didn't buy a pair of paintings that really caught our eye. Since then, on any trip that takes us near the possibility of picking up some art, we take a look. Nothing spoke to us in the same way this time -- not even with the added ease of driving it back home. But we'll always have Julia Street in New Orleans... and, until we find something, a nice reason to appreciate some local artists when we travel.

Art was also the theme of the next stop, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. This multi-room gallery is dedicated to the famous artist who ultimately made New Mexico her home, and is filled with many of her paintings as well as the work of a few contemporaries, and one room of modern artists creating in response to her work.

Next, we walked the area around Santa Fe Plaza, a shopping district with a wide range of stores. We spent a few hours, first grabbing drinks at a pub called Desert Dogs (where we caught a bit of the World Cup final, including the eclectic halftime show), and ultimately picking up some clothes. I finally was able to find a hat I think works pretty well for me. (But sorry, I don't have a decent picture of me wearing it yet. Perhaps that'll come on some future trip.)

In the afternoon, we took a short trip out of the city to Nambé Falls. You wouldn't expect to find a 120-foot waterfall less than an hour outside Santa Fe, but there it is -- and with only a modest 1/4 mile hike to reach it from the trailhead. Unfortunately, we weren't prepared enough to also take the 1/4 mile hike through water to reach the base... but if you're going to be in the area and are interested, I'll throw that out there for you: take shoes you can take in the water.

By dinner time, we were back in Santa Fe and continuing the Mexican food theme: this time at a place called Tres Colores, where I took a shot at Mole Enchiladas (not a normal order for me by any stretch). It wasn't quite my thing, but I was glad for the vacation change of pace. And from what I gather, it was really good mole sauce, as evidenced by a conversation at a nearby patio table between a patron raving about it and one of the restaurant owners proudly explaining it was a family recipe.

We finished the evening with a pair of stops for after dinner drinks. First was Santa Fe Spirits, a distillery where we picked up a bottle of whiskey to tap into later for trip memories; then finally Nuckoll's Brewery, a place with a large balcony overlooking the depot where the train we'd ridden the night before pulled in after another sunset trip.

We talked about a possible morning detour to Bandelier National Monument the next day... but pretty much already knew we weren't going to do that. In the morning, we tried one more breakfast burrito stop (Tortilla Flats this time), that one more stop pretty much ending my desire to have Mexican food for the next week or two. (Nothing against that place. When in Rome... stuff your face with the local cuisine. That's pretty much how that saying goes, right?) Anyway, after a satisfying few days that we'd found very relaxing, we decided against another hike before immediately jumping in the car for a six-hour drive home.

It was a lovely little getaway to get the batteries charged ahead of Gen Con. (I know this blog has become rather intermittent anyway, but don't expect any posts for most of next week.) Colorado's neighbor to the south is a nice place to visit.

New Mexico, New Outlook

Next week is Gen Con, billed as "the best four days in gaming," but for me and many others is also a "big week at the office." To help reset and mentally prepare, my husband and I took a long weekend to road trip down to New Mexico -- which, blessedly, was actually 10 to 15 degrees cooler than the Denver area right now.

After sleeping in the best we could (how better to start a long weekend), we set out on the drive. We stopped for lunch at Brues Alehouse along the waterfront in Pueblo, but from there it was south on down to Albuquerque. Our late start and a late afternoon delay meant there wasn't much time for activity that first evening. Still, we had the first of many Mexican meals at High Noon. Well... this meal was a bit "opt in," actually, as they're also known for their steaks. But I quite enjoyed my shrimp enchiladas.

After dinner, we enjoyed drinks at a bar along a stretch of what was once the historic Route 66 -- though that factoid was not the reason we picked it. A few years ago, we were briefly caught up in the whirlwind of a Netflix reality show called Drink Masters. A dozen different bartenders competed over several episodes in a cocktail making competition. We found it engaging, despite having the same central shortcoming that all the foodie reality shows have: you can’t taste anything being judged. But one of the show's contestants, Kate Gerwin, opened up this bar in Albuquerque. And while maybe you couldn't taste exactly what was made on the show, you could sample what she makes when not under time pressure and forced into bizarre restrictions.

You could also get a thrown martini -- not shaken, not stirred -- something I hadn't even heard of before this. Had to order one. Thrown, it turns out, is what you imagine a mad scientist doing to mix a concoction, showily pouring it back and forth between two containers. Martinis aren't my thing, so I certainly can't tell you if it makes a difference. But it's certainly a fun presentational thing for a bar to do.

The next morning, we stopped at Golden Crown Panderia to grab some empanadas on our way out of town. (The place has a 24/7 vending machine for pastries out front... but being there during business hours, we didn't need to use it.) Then it was west on I-40 for a stretch until we reached the Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano. We'd heard about the place from a friend, and decided we had to check it out for ourselves. Over a roughly 1.5 mile hike, you climb to the edge of a volcano crater, and along the path where flowing lava cut a trench several thousands of years ago.

Then a bit later on, you head down nearly 100 steps where you feel the temperature drop about 5 degrees with every 10 steps. At the bottom, you reach a cave where the temperature never rises about 31 degrees Fahrenheit, where dripping water has collected over the ages into a sheet of algae-covered ice. Like I mentioned earlier, New Mexico isn't as hot as Denver right now... yet it was still wild to descend from a warm summer morning into a frigid cave in barely a minute.

It's a fair drive out to the Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano (but worth it), and we were actually headed to Santa Fe for the evening. Still, we had time for a few stops, including La Cumbre Brewing Company. Some of you may recall the craft brewery map I picked up about a decade ago, where I mark places we've visited with pins. The craft beer industry has been going through quite the contraction since the map was new, and many of the places it shows don't exist anymore. But the possible quest to put a "gold pin" in every state continues with this stop (which had a great Mexican-style beer made with blue corn).

Our evening concluded with a "sunset serenade" excursion on the Sky Railway. Operating on a section of railroad track dating back to the earliest days of rail in the area, this tourist train takes you out to a picturesque spot in the desert to watch a truly beautiful sunset. The "serenade" part was a local Albuquerque musician who set up in the car and performed on his guitar on the two-hour round-trip journey.

Our long weekend still had one more full day ahead, which I'll recount later this week. 

We Had a Grape Time

Although we got to see plenty of gorgeous scenery on our recent trip to Palisade, the main reason for the trip was to visit wineries in the area. On the afternoon we arrived, and over the next two days, we stopped at a number of places -- and here are some of the highlights.

Maison La Belle Vie Winery was an impulsive stop on the first night -- it was literally just across the street from where we were. It had a lovely outdoor patio area that would have been ideal just a few weeks earlier before the evening chill was so strong. They also had (among other good options) a tasty port-style wine that I enjoyed enough to buy a bottle. Regrettably, I didn't snap a picture there (since the sun had already set), but I'll swap out for an image of the rainbow that welcomed us to the area earlier in the afternoon.

On our first full day, we got to go to university. We stopped by Varaison, hitting it at just the right time where the owner and head winemaker Ron personally oversaw our tasting. And in his own words, "I'm not just going to shove a menu across the counter at you." Instead, he did a deep dive on exactly how to get your palate to perceive different flavors, and then how to drill in on exactly what about the wine is contributing to the flavors you like. The goal: once you know what you like and why, you should be able to find more wines that also suit your tastes.

Along the way, Ron taught us about De Long's Wine Grape Varietal Table, how alcohol content corresponds to fruit ripeness (and what numbers you should be looking for, depending on your own preference for fruit-forward wines), and much, much more. He also regaled us with stories of his past work for a massive beer conglomerate, a later stint in California wine country, and more. Ron seems to have done it all, and wanted nothing more than to share his experience with others.

Two Rivers Winery was another spontaneous stop, this one on day two, after our drive through Colorado National Monument. This winery is in Grand Junction, just minutes from the Monument, and was picturesque inside and out. We had the French-style chateau completely to ourselves, sitting in a big hearth room with a window to the distillation room and lined with paintings. Their highlight was the less common Baco Noir grape, grown right on their property, and great both on its own and in a complex red blend.

 

The final winery of the trip was Restoration Vineyards. It's location further away from the cliffs made for a sprawling view in any direction, which you could enjoy in their spacious yard peppered with inviting clusters of chairs. It was a beautiful setting for a full glass, and a sort of "summation" of the whole trip.

Palisade turned out to be a lot more like Napa Valley than I'd have ever imagined. Though not every turn revealed a new "wine Disneyland," you could certainly find just about anything here in Colorado that you might look for there -- whether that's a beautiful view, a sprawling estate, a hidden gem... or just a tasty wine. In all, the trip was an excellent reminder that from time to time, it's great to play "tourist" close to home. 

Monumental Views

This past week, I made myself a tourist in my own home state and headed to the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, to Palisade. We were several weeks past the peak of the peaches for which the city is well-known... but it's also Colorado's wine county -- a little slice of Napa or Sonoma Valley just a few minutes east of Grand Junction. (With bizarrely named roads that are just mile marker fractions. Think "turn left on D 1/2 road, and we're at the intersection of 37 3/4 road.")

I'll often post a chronological recap of my trips -- as much for my own later reference as for sharing with others -- but that doesn't quite seem the right approach on this occasion. A lot of our activities were wine-related, and not all the wine was worth a detailed blow-by-blow. So I think I'm going to break things down into a "booze" and "non-booze" post... and start today with the latter.

On our first morning in Palisade, we started by backtracking east a bit to drive the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway. Along the way, we saw bighorn sheep grazing right by the road, a curiously decorated golden toilet marking the start of someone's private driveway, and plenty of beautiful mountain scenery. But as we approached our destination, an overlook known as the Land of Lakes, the weather took a turn. A drizzle increased to full-on rain, and we were high enough for low-hanging clouds to become a view-spoiling fog.

We were the only car in the parking lot when we stopped long enough to reinflate tires after a pressure warning had gone off. (I need to get a portable compressor for my own car!) Just the time that took, standing out in the freezing rain, was enough to discourage us from trying even a half mile hike to what surely would be a view of fog. So we bailed and headed back down the mesa. We might have missed The View we'd been seeking, but the sights were plenty beautiful on the return trip. The weather was clearing as we got to the bottom -- not quite enough to convince us to turn around and try again for the hike, but enough to promise that our winery-hopping afternoon wouldn't be spoiled by rain.

We had much better luck with our morning hike on the second morning. We drove into Grand Junction to have breakfast with family from the Denver area that was coincidentally driving home from their own road trip, and then pressed on to Colorado National Monument. It's a location that I think gets forgotten amid beautiful and well-known spots in other "four corners" states, but it's absolutely worth seeing -- a long loop road that circles Monument Canyon and provides access to gorgeous hikes of many lengths and difficulties.

We drove in at the western entrance and stopped at Canyon Rim Trail. The visitor center was closed due to the current government shutdown, but the trail itself was the main attraction. As the trail name suggests, we hiked along the rim of the canyon, getting a wonderful view of several named rock features out in the canyon. It's about half a mile to a marked overlook spot -- though honestly, the view was more breathtaking along the way, and no less so on the short walk back.

While on that hike, we'd seen other visitors at an overlook on a different point of the canyon, and decided to seek that spot next. That turned out to be Otto's Trail, an even shorter quarter-mile hike that takes you right to the edge of canyon rim. (Though the uphill return trip caught us maybe a little off-guard after the level Canyon Rim Trail.) If you're ever in Colorado National Monument, you should absolutely plan on one or both of those two hikes; they're a real showcase of what makes the site special.

We continued with the full loop, making other shorter stops for photos -- but ultimately deciding against any further hikes in favor of grabbing lunch back in Grand Junction and then getting back to afternoon winery-hopping. These morning drives -- both the one that went according to plan and the one that didn't -- were a welcome reminder that when you live in Colorado, beautiful locations are really right there in your "backyard." I'm glad they were part of our getaway.

I'll be back later this week with highlights from our winery visits. 

And They're Off!

"Previously on... my vacation..."

On mid-afternoon of day three, my husband and I were just heading to our second event at Bardstown Bourbon Company, Rickhouse Thieving. A guide led us across the grounds and inside one of the distillery's many rickhouses. There, he talked about the distillation process -- with an expected emphasis on maturation -- as we were served samples of three bourbons pulled straight from the cask. That itself was not a completely new experience, as we've attended the annual Cask Thief event at Stranahan's in Denver several times now. Still, the massive scale of this rickhouse, with its seemingly endless rows and towers of barrels, was quite a sight to see. (And for me, Bardstown Whiskey in pretty much any form is a delight.)

While we were in the rickhouse, another afternoon downpour opened up like it had on our first day. The rain on the roof made quite a roar inside the massive building, and the claps of thunder echoed throughout the space in a slightly eerie way. Our tour waited inside as our guide called for a cart driver to come shuttle us all back, a few at a time, to the main building.

Even though the rain let up before too long, it left mud everywhere -- and continued to come and go over the next hour. So we had to cancel a short hike we'd found in the area, one of our planned non-whiskey activities. But... checks notes... beer is not whiskey. So after making our way back to Louisville and regrouping for a while at our hotel, we headed out to hit a couple of breweries that came highly recommended by online enthusiasts.

The online community went two for two this time. First up was Atrium Brewing, where a whole flight of taster glasses we shared didn't have a single dud in the bunch. One of the apparent regular beers there, Key Lime Cheesecake Boy, was delicious -- and the focus that day of a special release of variant flavors. Sadly, all but one of the variants had already kicked, but there were too many delicious alternatives on their beer list to fret much over what we'd missed.

Second was Gravely Brewing -- a music and retro themed spot -- where there was one thing in particular I wanted to try: Sable, a dark cream ale. I'd never even heard of such a thing, but it was a delightfully different mashup of a cream ale and a... porter, maybe?... that gave "dark beer" richness and "light beer" drinkability. We sat at the bar and slowly enjoyed vintage reruns of The Price Is Right played on the TV. (Staying home sick from school had never been like this.) Dinner that night was at Parlour, a great pizza place in walking distance of the hotel that I'd never hit on my work trips. (But if I go back for work again, before GAMA moves to Baltimore, I definitely will go there again!) And with that, we called it a night.

We were heading home to Denver the next afternoon... but with just enough time after breakfast for something else. So we headed to Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. Absolutely perfect would have been to see a horse race (and place a small, utterly uninformed bet). No races were scheduled for that day. But we did the next best thing. We cruised through the on-site museum, and went on a brief guided tour that took us out the stands to overlook the track itself.

Between the museum and the tour, we learned all kinds of fun, random tidbits about the 150-year history of the Derby. (Fillies have won three times; general admission in the center of the track on Derby day unofficially makes that field the third-largest "city" in Kentucky; no horse has ever won starting from the 17th position.) And though I've never in my life had a Mint Julep before this, it felt as though when you're at Churchill Downs, that's the drink you have to try. (I liked it far more than I expected. Let's just say they'd be dangerously refreshing on a hot day.)

 

With our souvenirs padded the best we could inside our luggage, we finally headed back to the airport, dropped off our Bette Midler karaoke car, and brought our Louisville trip to an end. We had a great time, and I especially enjoyed seeing other places beyond a half-mile from the convention center. But as soon as I pickup that set of cylinders and eye droppers for whiskey blending, I'll be able to revisit the trip any night I want to.

House Blend

For day three of the Louisville trip, my husband and I headed south to Bardstown -- the city generally, and ultimately the distillery specifically.

First, we stopped at Heaven Hill, having heard they had both a nice distillery and good bourbons. As to the first -- I can confirm. Heaven Hill is a mega-conglomerate of the bourbon world, and they've used their success to build massive and modern buildings across a huge sprawl of land. That includes a museum you can walk through, full of exhibits detailing the growth of the bourbon industry in Kentucky and many of the people who were pivotal in that history. We walked through (in part because it was interesting; in part because so many people come to Heaven Hill that you can't really do anything else without having booked an experience in advance).

As to whether Heaven Hill has good bourbon? That's almost certainly true as well, no matter your particular taste. That's because they are ultimately the parent company responsible for a huge number of well-known brands. Besides one actually branded "Heaven Hill," they make Elijah Craig, Evan Williams, Pikesville, Bernheim Original, Rittenhouse, and a bunch of others. Of the few we sampled, Larceny struck me as the best -- a brand I certainly remembered seeing back in Denver, though couldn't recall having had before. Your tastes may differ, but Heaven Hill probably has you covered.

We had a little time before scheduled events later in the afternoon, so we made another short stop at the nearby Preservation Distillery. This was the antithesis of Heaven Hill, a place that proudly proclaims itself to be "Bardstown's smallest distillery." Lots of distilleries in the area are set on farmland, but Preservation is still using it that way -- cows roam the grounds, and just a few small buildings are devoted to making bourbon. A lazy cat lounged outside the tasting room entrance, caring nothing for us or anyone else going in to sample. We tried just one whiskey each -- all we had time for, and all they would pour in any case. (Either they don't want to deal with sloppily drunken tourists, or you have to have more money and clout to serve any more than that in Kentucky?) Small though Preservation is, a map on the bar showed the other states they have managed to distribute in, with Colorado being one. So perhaps in the right mood, I might have some bourbon from them again some day.

The next stop was the focus of the day. We went to Bardstown Bourbon Company, a relative new kid on the distilling block, but already a personal favorite of mine. We had booked two experiences in advance, and the first one turned out to be one of the great highlights of the trip -- a one-hour session called "The Art of Blending." A guide took us into a backroom they call "The Library," a fancy, decorated room where the shelves were filled not with books, but with bourbons -- from throughout history, and from a wide variety of distilleries. Our guide pointed out a number of interesting and rare bottles, from one actually distilled in the late 1800s (and containing the original spirit!) to a souvenir bottle of Dickel with a distinctive shape that made it a go-to prop on the original Star Trek. 

In this unique setting, each participant in this small event found a station with three drams of different bourbons set up -- two completely different 4-years from Bardstown, and a 12-year from an (officially) unspecified third party. One of Bardstown's own "Fusion Series" of bourbons was made from exactly these three components, with the exact ratios specified on the actual bottles and on a reference sheet in front of us. We got to taste each of the three separate components, and then -- using graduated cylinders and an eye dropper -- measured out the exact blend of the Fusion for ourselves to compare the results and see how each separate whiskey might have influenced the results.

Then it was experimentation time. Each of the seven people attending the event played around with mixtures of our own, ultimately writing down the one we thought turned out best and handing it to our guide. (Remember to pay attention to color, aroma, and taste, we were reminded.) Then one blend was selected at random for everyone to make, sample, and comment on. It of course totally helped my enjoyment of the experience that mine happened to be the selected blend... and it seemed to be well-received by all.

Our guide in the class gave us ideas to bring blending home with us from this short class. This can be a way to use up a random, disappointing bottle of whiskey you might have; just grab your own tubes and droppers and start blending -- maybe you can save it! Or this could be the basis of a party with your whiskey-loving friends: invite everyone to bring a bottle, and then get everyone engaged in making blends from those ingredients. You can even make a little competition out of who creates the best blend! I must say, I've already done some "window shopping" for the tools to blend at home.

We had tickets for a second event at Bardstown, but with enough time in between to have lunch at their restaurant. After having been told by both our waiter and our blending class guide that the chicken sandwich in the restaurant was famously good, we decided to put it to the test. Test passed, with flying colors... it was the tastiest fried chicken we had during the whole trip (among more examples than is probably healthy).

Since this post is starting to run long, I'll take this moment to pause the narrative until tomorrow, when I'll pick back up with the rest of this day and the final morning before our flight home.

This Space Is Reserved

For the first full day of our Louisville trip, my husband and I drove east toward Lexington. You can head pretty much any direction out of town and hit half a dozen major bourbon distilleries who distribute nationwide, but our first stop was actually a smaller, local place. In Lawrenceburg, in an unassuming, warehouse-looking building (with a kangaroo statue out front), you'll find Larrikin Bourbon Company.

We were prepared for this place to be hit-or-miss; it was really just a convenient stop before a scheduled tour we had a short while later. But it turned out that this random small batch distillery made really solid stuff. We sampled several good options, with the clear winner being their American Maple -- with just the right amount of "drenched pancake" flavor to be different without actually tasting like syrup.

Well... strike that. Their clear winner was their "Smidge of Maple Bourbon Cream," with a taste surpassed only by the bartender's endless suggestions on how to use it (as an ice cream topper, in hot chocolate, just to name a couple). But leaving a cream-based spirit in a hot car all day just seemed like a supremely bad idea, so the American Maple was the souvenir we took back home.

The next stop was Woodford Reserve, a more-well known brand with a huge operation on a sprawl of beautiful land. We took a guided tour of the place and saw all parts of the operation in full swing -- from fermentation (with giant two-story vats of sweetly bubbling goodness) to barreling (with freshly-filled barrels rolling down a gently-sloping track) to storage (with towers of racked barrels signed by everyone from state celebrities to fellow tourists sneaking in their graffiti) to bottling (sorry, you can't go in that room, but by all means take a peek through the door). Of course, the tour concluded with a guided tasting, sampling five different whiskeys in Woodford Reserve's repertoire.

I have no doubt that you could have a similar tour experience at whatever large bourbon maker might be your personal favorite -- all the big names have built grand buildings that are as much about impressing tourists as making whiskey. But Woodford Reserve has been around long enough for their buildings to receive historical preservation status, and to me the setting felt especially beautiful. I expect the sights we saw on the tour will flash to mind now whenever I have a pour of their bourbon.

We stopped for lunch at a small local place called The Stave. The extensive whiskey list might have you expecting a fancy restaurant, but really the place was a small bar with shelf after shelf of Kentucky bourbons stacked all the way the way to the ceiling -- because of course it is, when you can drive half a mile down the road to get some of them.

We were less than a mile away from another distillery called Castle & Key that merited a much quicker stop. I'd never sampled their stuff before -- but the distillery itself is built on the grounds of a much older, defunct distillery. Those grounds include a stone castle that's been standing since the 1880s, and a large garden area you can wander around. (And on an afternoon not at the height of summer, you might actually want to.) I wasn't wowed by the few things we tasted here, but the stop was more about the venue than the whiskey, so I can hardly say I was disappointed.

The afternoon was slipping away by this point, so we headed back toward Louisville for a non-whiskey activity, a trip to the Louisville Mega Cavern. It's a massive underground space left behind by limestone mining operations, and now you can tour the place... or, in our case, zipline through it. Ever since a trip to California, my husband and I had kept an eye open for novel places for a new zipline experience, and decided to take a chance on this one. I would say it wasn't quite as enjoyable... as you might expect, what really makes the experience is being able to see everything around you (and you obviously don't get that in a cave). Still, it was a fun change of pace -- and you can't drink bourbon all the time, even on the "bourbon trip."

We closed out the evening with a late dinner at Buck's Restaurant, which served a decadent meal of things wrapped in other things (shrimp in bacon, lamb in prosciutto...). When the waiter learned we were in town sampling whiskeys, and had visited Woodford Reserve that day, he brought a tiny splash of an 18-year bourbon from their own extensive collection (arrayed alphabetically around the bar).

Having had a delightful and full day -- and determined not to burn ourselves out with another full day ahead -- we decided that was a fine time to call it a night.

Bourbon and the Rose

I've been to Louisville, Kentucky twice for work. (Attending the GAMA Expo, since it moved there in 2024.) But in the way of work trips, all I got to see was a limited number of things within walking distance of the hotel and convention center. And with all the bourbon (and a few non-bourbon) activities in the surrounding area, is seemed like it might be a destination worth an extended weekend without work. So that's what my husband and I just did for the past four days.

We flew in on Thursday afternoon, rented a Honda Civic Sport... and I briefly wondered why I found those chords it played when you started the car to be so familiar. I put it out of my mind as headed out, checked in at our hotel, and made the most of the remaining day.

I've talked before about the large, canvas craft brewery map we have at home, where we stick pins marking all the places whose beers we've tried over the years. Gold pins mark the places we've been to in person, and my husband and I always look for an opportunity to add one to a new state. We decided to take care of Kentucky right away with a stop at the Bluegrass Brewing Company. Unlike the beer purists in Connecticut (who were shocked when I suggested that two of their beers together might taste great), this place had a blend right on their menu: "Schmeade," a combination of a wheat beer and a fruit beer influenced by the taste of raspberry mead. And it was quite good!

Now -- pausing for a moment to give some background: there's a place in the Denver area that hosts "Whiskey Wednesday" events all summer long, focused on different brands. When we attended one a few months back centered on one of my personal favorites, Bardstown, they revealed that they were now partnered with Green River, and so we got to try one of their offerings as well. Now, on the drive into Louisville, we saw a billboard proclaiming that a new Green River tasting room had opened on Whiskey Row. So with a little time to fill before a scheduled event, we went there and got to sample more of their bourbon and rye. (They don't supplant Bardstown for me, but they're a worthy partner.)

Unfortunately, this was the point where an unplanned activity interrupted the fun: a torrential summer afternoon downpour. I mean downpour. Thankfully, we weren't completely unprepared, having brought rain jackets with us. But we had a place to be at a specific time, and no choice but to go walking out in the weather. The jackets worked, but our shorts, socks, and shoes were utterly waterlogged, causing us to make a quick stop at the hotel to swap out for pants before moving along (still in the rain).

Next up was something we'd bought tickets for ahead of time: a "fill your own bottle" event at Angel's Envy. (Another personal favorite of mine.) You got to taste their standard bourbon (which I know quite well), alongside an ultra-limited single barrel that was exactly what you were about to bottle. You walk up to the counter, apply your own labels, stick the bottle under the machine, fill it, then use a clamp to get the cap on good and tight. (And then, due to some bizarre local liquor law, an employee has to literally take your bottle through the doorway to the next room to hand back to you.) I had imagined that perhaps you'd get to sample a few small batches to pick your personal favorite, so in that sense, this experience didn't quite live up to the imagined hype. Still, I liked the sample taste well enough, and now I have a "bottled by me" Angel's Envy in my cabinet for special occasions.

Everyone was quick and efficient with their bottling. (Even the poor woman from Down Under who was clearly being dragged along to a ton of bourbon activities despite her overwhelming dislike of the stuff. Those friends clearly wanted an extra bottle of single barrel for themselves here.) Because we finished up early, our host took us back to the distilling area to see where most of the magic happens. (Not all; the aging happens in large rickhouses outside of town.)

We had dinner at Merle's Whiskey Kitchen, where we enjoyed some Kentucky fried chicken (no caps on the "fried chicken"). But with the rain a clear deterrent and all the distillery tasting rooms closing early for the evening (our guide at Angel's Envy had called Louisville "the city that sleeps"), we decided we weren't walking anywhere else that evening. So instead, we went for a bonus gold pin on the beer map. We drove north across the river to Indiana and got a gold pin in that state for Floyd County Brewing Company -- a place with less memorable offerings. (But a gold pin is a gold pin.)

And on that journey, with a few more times starting the rental car, I finally clocked what it was about its slow, pulsing chords that sounded familiar. It's 100% the opening of Bette Midler's song, "The Rose." You might not recognize the song by name, but if you've ever seen Napoleon Dynamite, you absolutely know the song. And now you know exactly what it sounds like to start a Honda Civic Sport; the chords finally cut out just a moment before "some say looooooove......"

Considering that we'd only arrived mid-afternoon, we'd fit in a ton of stuff on our first day of the trip. But there was so much more in the days ahead. 

But How Was the Skiing?

Two days of posting about my trip to Banff, and I haven't gotten to the main point of said trip -- the skiing. (I could totally become a recipe blogger!) Alright, time to get down to business.

My husband and I have the Ikon Pass this season, giving us access to three different locations in Banff collectively known as SkiBig3: Banff Sunshine, Lake Louise, and Mount Norquay. We had four full days in Alberta, and our loose plan was to try each resort on one day and then, if we weren't too tired, return to our favorite.

On day "zero," though -- the night we arrived in Banff, we needed to pick up our rental gear. We'd decided not to lug skis, boots, and poles in our luggage, so we picked those up from a shop in town. This was my first time using rental gear since I'd struggled to learn years ago, and it was... fine. Once you know enough to know what feels right, anything else is, quite literally, "not right." But it would get the job done.

We went to Banff Sunshine on day one, which also turned out to be the coldest ski day we were there. After mistakenly exiting the gondola at a "mid-station," it took us a while to find our way to the more interesting places to ski. (And I should note that for us, "interesting" means "groomed blues." We're really not into moguls. A chance to ski into some trees -- but out again quickly -- is acceptable, but not required.) We tried a lot of different trails and found the skiing to be decent.

• At a moment I turned weird on (apparently) some patch of ice (?), I caught an edge and went down hard. I was glad to have my helmet from home... but I probably gave myself whiplash from the impact. My neck hurt to varying degrees for the rest of the trip. I'll blame it on the rentals.
  

• On one particular lift, you pass a sign telling you that you've crossed into British Columbia. And then, before you get off the lift, another telling you you're back in Alberta. I have to check out a map and see what strange spur of cartography made this possible; I'd thought the border between the two provinces was more-or-less straight.

• When you are ready to leave for the day, the run all the way to the bottom is rather nice. It's green, but not too green, and is a nice, long trail to end the day on.
  

Day two, we went to Lake Louise. It was almost twice the drive from where we were staying, and ended up having its pros and cons. The scenery is breathtaking, with beautiful vistas almost everywhere. Plus, there were long, blue runs everywhere -- just to my liking.

...but, we could only ever seem to find like two of them. It seemed like no matter which lift we took, no matter which way we decided to exit and start down, we'd very quickly link back up with a run we'd taken before, and find ourselves on the same trail to the same destination. The weather changed more than the skiing, from a biting wind up high, quickly down into a sunny day, and then into a low-riding fog bank, before back out into the sun again.

I hear there's more variety on the back side of Lake Louise? But I also hear it's mostly in the form of mogully blacks; we never went to see it for ourselves. It didn't take many of these long top-to-bottom runs to wear ourselves out (and doubt we'd ever find a different path). So, beautiful as Lake Louise was, we soon had our fill of it.

Day three was the mistake. "SkiBig3" turns out to be more "SkiBig2-and-a-quarter," because there simply isn't much to Mount Norquay. We knew going in that it was smaller, and we also knew that not as much snow had fallen there this early in the season, so not as many runs were open. But we really weren't expecting what was basically, two adjoining "learn to ski" hills, each with its own very slow lift. We skied at Norquay for barely an hour before deciding to just rest up and save ourselves for the final day.

We decided to go back to Banff Sunshine for that final day, and were glad we did. The weather was warmer than it had been on day one, and we were able to explore more widely. I got a photo on a run inexplicably called "Star Trek"...

...and we generally found the resort to be better than we'd thought on day one.

It was a good four days of skiing overall. But also overall, I think it made us appreciate just how good we've got it in Colorado. Traveling itself was nice, and skiing somewhere completely new a novelty -- but Coloradans don't have to travel to another country to have amazing skiing. Though we did have fun, I'd say the "SkiBig3" still fall short of Vail, Aspen Snowmass, and maybe even a handful of others right here in Colorado.

Maybe I just missed my own ski gear that much. I still have several months of the season to test that theory.

Men About Town

On our Canadian ski trip, we spent a lot of our down time in the town of Banff. It's the sort of town that accompanies many ski resorts, a couple square miles of shops, restaurants, and bars for the incoming tourists to wander. Just on the edge of town was the castle-like Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel -- not where we stayed, but part of the lovely view from the place we did stay.

Some of the destinations we visited included:

Park Distillery. A local maker of spirits, with a solid cocktail menu. Many of those were offered 50% off during a happy hour that ran every day from 3:00 to 5:00 pm -- easily doable on a "ski day" schedule, and thus a popular spot. They smoke one of their drinks by just charring a slab of wood and resting it on the glass: a low tech but effective technique. We stopped here enough that later, at the end of the trip, when we arrived early at the airport with little to do but stroll through the duty-free shop, I impulse-bought a bottle of their Maple Rye to take home. I'd never had a Park Distillery spirit straight, and it turns out they have their cocktails down to a science. The rye itself is syrupy in texture and sickly sweet. I'll need to experiment.

The Canadian Brewhouse. A sports bar, Canadian style. Which means dozens of TVs everywhere, nearly all of them showing hockey. We never actually watched our hometown Colorado Avalanche here, being too tired at the end of each ski day to wait around for the possibility. We did catch one Avs game in our hotel room, though. (Thanks to the greed of the team owners in TV licensing, it's generally easier to watch the team in Canada than in Denver.)

 

Tim Hortons. I'd heard about this donut-and-coffee chain but had never been to one. We ended up hitting the one in Banff a couple of times for something fast and easy when that's exactly what we needed most mornings. Not bad -- especially their classic "Honey Dip" style donut. Plus, they call their donut holes "Timbits," which is a bit funny/weird. Almost as funny/weird as a commercial we caught in which someone who gets out of physical therapy from a hospital going back to bring Timbits to their nurse in the strangest act of Yuletide cheer.

Three Bears Brewery. A decent restaurant and maker of craft beer. They have a big mural on the wall that we were seated right next to: a forest in which the three bears of their logo were hidden. I spent half the meal obsessed with finding the last "baby bear," and thankfully did at last, or it would have haunted me forever. Also, the place is a stop on....

Banff's Hot Chocolate Trail. For a month-and-a-half in November and December, something like 50 different places in town each offer their own custom hot chocolate concoction. Some are boozy, some are not. Some fit the theme of the restaurant or coffee shop, others don't. But you can pretty much pick at random and find a delicious hot chocolate anywhere you go. I wish I'd tried a few more while I was there, but there's kind of only so much sweet you can take, no matter how you appreciate the warming beverage.

Evelyn's Coffee Bar. There is a Starbucks in Banff... but I don't know why you'd ever choose their "tastes burnt" coffee when, just half a dozen doors down, you can support someplace local instead.

Banff Upper Hot Springs. We sort of tried visiting this place, expecting a natural spring you could soak in. Instead, water from the spring had just been directed into a large swimming pool... which was quite crowded. We took one look and decided "never mind"; if it had seemed more "attuned to nature," or less crowded, we probably would have stayed, but both seemed like a deal breaker.

The Maple Leaf. Our nicest dinner of the trip was at this place, that served us two tasty entrees: a delicious steak and a bison bolognese.

Zyka. An Indian restaurant we hit for dinner one night. Not as good as our local favorite Indian restaurant back home, but still very good.

Aside from walking in and out of more souvenir shops than I could count, that basically covers our time in the town of Banff. Which only leaves, for next time, the skiing...

National Park, Canada-Style

Hello, readers! I've just returned home from a fun vacation to Canada -- specifically to Banff National Park in Alberta. The place is renowned for skiing at the "Ski Big 3" destinations of Lake Louise, Banff Sunshine, and Mount Norquay, and my husband and I decided to check it out for ourselves.

I often blog day-to-day stories of a vacation, but I think my recap this time will be a little less chronological and a bit more "random observational." That's because each day of the trip was largely similar: skiing somewhere in the day and then heading into the town at night for eating, drinking, walking, and shopping. But there were certainly highlights from each day, and I want to record them on my blog for my own aging memory and your possible entertainment.

First, a few general observations. Banff National Park is a truly beautiful place. I am spoiled to live in Colorado, where beautiful scenery is easy to take for granted. But the Canadian Rockies do have some little bit extra. There's something about the landscape that feels more fantastical, something about the way they hold the snow that's a bit more magical. Take the first sunrise we saw, while having breakfast at the hotel where we stayed:

 Watching sunrises has sort of becoming a thing my husband and I have done on several of our trips, but we really didn't have to wake up early for this one. Up north in Canada, right at the winter solstice, the sun was coming up past 8:30 am and setting barely after 4:30 pm. Between so much darkness and so much time skiing, we actually spent a lot of time sleeping on this vacation -- sleeping in as we rarely ever do anymore, and always feeling like it was time to go to bed early.

Stepping out of our room at the Juniper Hotel and Bistro was always a pleasant experience, because there was always a smell in the air of a campfire burning. I never actually saw a fireplace anywhere, but the aroma of a freshly-served smoked cocktail was somehow always there.

Being in the room was not as pleasant. Every time the heat kicked on or off -- which was often -- it was preceded by a clicking noise like you'd use to train a dog. I myself felt properly trained to anticipate the furnace before the end of the trip.

There are a lot of people from other countries working in Banff. I lost of how many Australian accents I encountered. A server from the U.K. remarked that my own speech reminded her briefly of her home, before I clarified I'm from Colorado. (A place many people seemed to find quite exotic, when they asked.) According to Google, anyway, all the seasonal jobs in Banff make for lots of work visas given out, and lots of people from other countries eager to snap them up.

The "license plate game" is very difficult to play in Banff National Park. With only 10 Canadian provinces to spot (and 3 territories you likely won't), it felt like "collecting them all" would be doable in a nearly week-long trip to a national park. But everyone's car is filthy from driving around in the slush, covering up a huge chunk of the license plates. And, it seems, most Canadian provinces don't require a plate on the front of the car -- just the back; so you'll get no help walking back to your car after a day of skiing.

Conversions really are a challenge for an American traveling anywhere else in the world. You can quickly get a sense of the value of a Canadian dollar relative to an American dollar -- but since they're both "dollars," the conversion never becomes a thing you just do automatically. Celsius temperature wasn't too difficult, as the only numbers we really needed in Canada in the winter were "below freezing," "just above freezing," and "what to set the thermostat to." (click!) But gas -- by the liter, at Canadian dollars -- was inscrutable. And my very favorite conversion moment of the trip came in a candy store where something was being offered at $4 per 100 grams. Might as well have asked us to calculate how much dilithium would be consumed for each light year of travel at warp 8 -- which seems equally made up. (Yes, I suppose we Americans do this to ourselves.)

In the next few days of posts, I'll highlight some places we visited in town. And, of course, the skiing. But -- "spoiler alert" -- I both had a lovely time, and am glad to now be back home for the holidays.

One Last Trip Through History

It was the fourth and final day of our Washington D.C. excursion. We decided to hit one more Smithsonian museum, the National Museum of American History. It's a fascinating and eclectic collection of artifacts from the country's earliest days, props from movies and television, signs from various political campaigns, and vehicles from every era of the nation. There are even a few trinkets of the past decade or two that you might not even think to put in a museum -- but if you pause for a moment and take a longer view from 50 or 100 years from now, would totally make sense to preserve in a museum.

Julia Child's kitchen from her hit cooking show stands in a gallery devoted to the evolution of food in the modern era. (And was an interesting thing to see, in light of also learning about Julia Child at the Spy Museum the day before.) The same gallery displayed everything from a collection of craft beer cans representing the explosion of that market to a fondue pot exactly matching one in my friend's cabinet at this very moment.

If a tour featuring items you might find in your own house doesn't sound impressive, then the second floor is probably more for you. That's where you will find the literal Star-Spangled Banner, the very flag that flew above Fort McHenry and inspired the poem that became the country's national anthem. The flag was known to be significant even in its time, which is why many pieces were cut off of it over the years as souvenirs. What remains is still an impressive enough 30 by 34 feet, and the efforts to preserve it now are so heightened that the flag is displayed in low lighting in a special room where photography is prohibited. There's something simultaneously awesome and uncanny about looking at it; you may eventually realize that the uncanny aspect is due largely to the fact that the flag has 15 stripes, not 13. Practice at the time was to add a star and a stripe to the flag as each new state joined the union; one can only imagine what the flag would look like today had that continued.

I mentioned that when we toured the U.S. Capitol, we saw a number of statues all throughout the building. One statue that used to be there and now resides in the American History Museum is one that was too weird to keep displaying where the government was trying to do business, this bizarre rendering of George Washington:

In the political campaigning section, you'll find all manner of protest signs, buttons and bumper stickers, and one of those Florida ballots that caused all the trouble in 2000. You can totally see how someone intending to vote for Al Gore might have voted for Pat Buchanan -- and how little chance of making a mistake you'd have trying to vote for George W. Bush. (And the sign nearby reminds you of this moment when everybody had to learn what a "hanging chad" was.)

The pop culture section was a feast for any fan of anything -- it boasts the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, one of Prince's guitars, an Alien egg, Captain America's shield from The Winter Soldier,  the original (not yet blue) Grover puppet, and so very much more. It even had two costumes from Star Trek: Discovery -- the Emperor's outfit from the Mirror Universe, and the Red Angel suit from season 2.

But soon we had had our fill of standing and admiring things, no matter how interesting. So we decided to sit for a leisurely lunch at a nearby pub, slowly passing the time before we needed to head to the airport for our return home.

There's a ton to see and do in Washington D.C. In talking about my trip, I've had many people tell me they recall going there as a kid -- and that totally makes sense. But I think there's probably even more to appreciate as an adult. I'm glad to have visited.

Your Vacation, Should You Choose to Accept It....

After the Air and Space Museum, it was well past time for lunch. We wound up getting that at the Wharf, a collection of restaurants and stores along the Washington Channel. The Wharf hadn't been a "planned stop" on our trip, but was a lucky find; it was just a nice spot on the water with plenty to see.

Then it was time for our second museum of the day, the International Spy Museum. It's one of many DC museums that isn't part of the Smithsonian Institution, but it's well worth going. It's a perfectly curated collection of artifacts and stories of real spycraft, peppered with just a hint of famous fictional spies.

In the museum, you can hear about revolutionaries who spied on the British for George Washington's forces. You can learn about a tunnel painstakingly cut beneath the Berlin Wall. You can see real-life Bond-style gadgets used to surveil, pass messages, assassinate, and more. I learned about Julia Child's unexpected connection to intelligence gathering. About the brilliant Russian spy hung out to dry by Stalin. About the real Mata Hari, not the much glamorized version of fiction. And you get to role play a little, if you're into it: as you move through the exhibit, a series of computer stations presents you with a cover identity, a mission, complications to avoid, and ultimately a debrief.

And then, in a special extra exhibit, we saw a collection of more than a dozen different vehicles from James Bond movies. They ranged from pristine to bullet-riddled, from tiny taxi to huge speedboat/glider combo, from the 1960s to the 2000s. A fun little walk through film history that made me want to go back and watch some of those movies again.

Then we decided to go to the Washington Monument. While it is possible to go inside, tickets are incredibly limited, released the day before, and get snatched up in literally seconds. We'd been trying every day to get in without success, and now knew for sure we wouldn't be going inside before we returned home. Previously, hoping that we would get in, we hadn't really gone up close to the monument on our initial tour of the National Mall on day one -- and so we did so now.

It turned out to be fortuitous, because as we were touring the plaza around the Washington Monument, we saw a marine helicopter circle and land in the lawn at the White House. Still reeling over how neat that had looked (and what great pictures we snapped of it), we watched as the helicopter took off again, made a circuit around the monument, then went back and landed at the White House again. And again. And again. Some kind of practice drill, clearly.

But it was enough to spur us to head in the direction of the White House. It turns out that you can't get anywhere near as close to it as you used to be able to -- barriers and stern-looking guards establish a perimeter many blocks away from the building itself. Still, the marine helicopter kept entertaining us as we got as close we could, snapped a few pictures... 

And then decided it was time for dinner, and for closing down for the night. We had one final day in DC remaining.