After travelling through Utah (not our favorite state, mostly due to the wonky alcohol laws), we drove into Colorado and stayed on a legit farm. A peach farm in Palisade called Rancho Durazno. And although the farmer was a little bit of a weirdo (there were several instances involving a pink thong), the experience was still amazing, and we came away sunburned, sore, and with new friends and a new (old) cookbook!
A hill of moldy peaches. One of our more fun jobs. Barbara, the Hungarian intern, insisted we save all the best moldy peaches so she could take pictures
Our first day of real work. Heather did not last. She took a nap in the truck after we "cleaned" baby trees for 3 hours. Not fun work.
Devon's shoes. The sticky plants love her.
Making wine and drinking wine. Wuzzup.
Everyone getting their ass kicked by Pierre in every card game ever.
The local distillary. Damn good cheap drinks, free pretzels and a band, who we befriended! (Because we were the only ones paying attention to their music. The blonde bass player had nothing to do with it ;)
Food stuffs:
Failed vegan cookies
Peaches in cream. It's a real thing. And also the best thing you've ever had in your life. Seriously, try it.
Sucessful vegan cookies!
Our trip to Aspen!
It was very cold. We were not prepared.
Devon is very seriously deciphering the map. Serious business.
Snickers. Yup. That's what they eat in Aspen.
The best angle that cuts out all the bird-watching old tourists. At least we could surpass them on the hike, and they would call us "younguns" and talk about their ailments.
Heather is a teddy bear. Devon is superman.
Your guess is as good as ours... getting in touch with nature? And taking pictures of it..?
Ahh yes, nature. Those are real aspen trees yo.
Pierre's going away barbecue. The guy in the purple on the right is Thomas the farmer. And the adorable old lady on the left gave Devon her cookbook she wrote 20 years ago. She is a cheesecake master.
Burning junk sticks and weeds...and in the process almost setting the baby trees and possibly the whole hillside on fire. But hey, all's well that ends well. Lesson learned here: fires burn much faster in the desert.
Rancho Durazno seen from above! Pretty epic yeah? Devon, Barbara, and Jara hiked to the top of that shit.
Barbara on the left, Jara on the right.
Another view from above. Barbara looking
No swimming in the canal. Except everyone swam in the canal. Except us, cause it was too cold for that shit.
Riding the tractor, picking up trimmed peach branches. Fun (mostly because of the tractor riding), but we were scraped to hell by the end of the day.
The magical peach trees (sans any actual peaches)
Oolie! We (meaning Barbara) babysat him for a week. He is the best. It makes working a lot more fun when you have a lab trying the wrestle all the branches away from you.
Adorable.
We found some forgotten peaches! They didn't end up tasting that good.
Our next door neighbor
Forging the river! Heather and Jara found a huge ass rock, rolled in down the hill and into the river, and we all used it as a bridge. Except Barbara. She just walked through the water like a real mountain woman!
The approaching storm...we walked to town with Oolie, thinking that drinking some alcohol would make us warmer once the bad weather hit.
We were wrong. It got cold as fuck! So we just bought some alcohol and called someone from the farm to come pic us up.
4 of us and a dog. We fit into the car. Kind of.
The next day. Snow and clouds! Our first experience with snow so far on the trip!
Heather mischievously turning the knob of an old tv. This is in the peach packing house.
We're free of the drudgery of farm work and staying in the neighboring town (Grand Junction) for the weekend! We stumbled upon this marching band parade the next morning after drinking all night. It was seriously a parade of just marching bands. We decided to have a dance party in the street. It was definitely as fun as it sounds.
The rules.
We spent $3 each on some dope tella tubby rings. And proptly lost them by the next day.
Our new favorite person Onyx! We met her the weekend before through some random events, and she proved to be quite the host. She introduced us to all her friends in Grand Junction (which was basically everyone in the whole town), found us this sweet hot tub to chill in, then decided to come on the road with us for 2 weeks!
Onyx's cat
