Colorado High. Down Route 17

ALAMOSA, Colorado, December 4, 2009. Some places are glamorous. Some places are just good people. Sometimes both are attractive.

You cruise down route seventeen to get here to Alamosa. Down from Denver, down from Vail and other points north. Down through Moffat. Paved. Dirt roads off to the side.

There is no cell phone traffic along much of the way. No noise except the engine of your car. Hawks fly overhead.

The telephone poles to your right are equally spaced. Placed by a rural telephone cooperative. One mile exactly between each pole. So if you go sixty miles an hour, you see a pole every single minute. It’s like clickity clack, click, clack on your way here.

And that’s about all you see or hear. Except for some blossoming blue thistle and wild orange sunflowers, and then, getting close to Alamosa on the right, you see a solar electricity experiment in the thin high-elevation Colorado sky-blue sunlight. You see signs for viewing UFOs at night.

You see signs to get to the Sand Dunes National Park, bigger than any Atlantic sand beach I’ve ever witnessed. Pressed up against the Rocky Mountains by a prevailing wind blowing off the western desert.

You cross the Rio Grande River, up-stream. Then roll into town. Civilization. Cozy. Barbershop on the left. Nice small town main street stretching east to west. Everything you need and want is here.

Some places are glamorous. Alamosa isn’t. In Vail, Lionshead Ski lift to the mountaintop at eleven-thousand feet or so. Stayed with hospitable, creative people in Edwards, a gated community, Arrowhead. Sunning by the pool. Cocktail party at the club. Jolly dinner at the Saloon at Minturn, a little town just south of Vail. A viewing of a movie provided by my host, Norm, who produced it. The movie: “Under the Same Moon.” A hit (information below). And so was my pleasant stay in Vail a hit.

I rode to Alamosa to get our Lincoln Town Car serviced after a transcontinental trip from Washington, DC. The service. Town and Country Ford and Mercury dealer on Main Street. What do you see when around here? People riding bicycles for transportation. The dealer said there was a right rear tire leakage. While other mechanical car things needed some attention.

So we were chauffeured into the center of town by Rodriguez.

As we were escorted by our dealer, he recommended a tire shop. Our driver said, “Jim’s Tire Store is the best guy for tires in town. You’ll like Jim.”

“Oh,” and he continued, “And if you need to be taken anywhere in town while we fix your car, please just call and we’ll pick you up and take you wherever you want to go.”

So I was waiting for my new tire purchase. Jim has a braided pony tail reaching down to the middle of his back. As he processes my credit card order, a couple pulls their car into Jim’s parking lot in a heap having a nearly flat tire.

“See what we can find,” Jim announces.

Jim rummages around his shop to find a used tire that, with some help, would work. This interrupts his sale and service to me. It was clear I had to be patient. For I was not first in line. When the couple asked, “How much?” Jim answered, “$2.00”

I am on hold about my tire, I walk down toward Main Street. I pass the rail station that offers and takes tourists on steam engine rail rides from Alamosa to La Veta through thrilling Rocky Mountain countryside. I cross the tracks. In that Alamosa neighborhood there are many bars and clubs for about three blocks. Somehow that is very comforting to me. And yet really not that different from the cocktail party in Vail.

My friend and I, later, bought some car/cleaner wax and buffed our car down at the city park, Cole Park. Many walkers came by to chat with us about trivia, life, cars, and the universe.

A contrast. Vail and Alamosa. I like them both.

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NOTES: Alamosa is 45 miles north of the New Mexico border. The town is 31 miles south of the great Sand Dunes National Park off route 17. Alamosa is the county seat of Alamosa County in the San Luis Valley region. The town’s population is 9500. Fly into San Luis Valley Airport from Denver. Home of Adams State College which has a great theater department.

LINKS: Basic Alamosa information: http://www.alamosa.org. Information on the movie Under the Same Moon, Norman Dryfus, producer, http://www.foxsearchlight.com/underthesamemoon/. Places to stay in Alamosa http://www.alamosa.org/Lodging.aspx. Basic information on vacations in Vail http://www.colorado.com/Listing.aspx?did=437.  Of interest on energy issues, Gender, Energy, and Development at http://energyfordevelopment.blogspot.com.

Copyright © Russ Barnes. Bethesda Maryland, 20814. All rights reserved.

A HOP, SKIP, AND A GRAPE AWAY FROM WASHINGTON

VIRGINIA WINERY OFFERS SPECIALTY WINES AND OTHER REFRESHMENTS

by Russ Barnes

WASHINGTON DC. November 2, 2009. Here in Washington, people make policy. It’s important stuff done here. Capital of the free world.

Out in places like Loudoun Country, Virginia -- a hop, skip and a jump from downtown Washington --people make things. At one spot, Loudoun Valley Vineyards, they make good stuff. Bree Ann Moore, and her husband, Cameron, make things. Wine. A line-up of very locally indigenous wines.

Tasting Room, Loudoun Valley Vineyards

Photo Credit: Michele Surwit

Their grapes are grown, harvested, fermented, and oak-barrel aged within a unique micro-climate. The vineyards are located near Waterford in the rolling foothills of the Shenandoah mountains. The weather and the alkaline soil resemble regions in Southern France and California’s Sonoma Valley.

Bree Moore, 30, the youngest vintner in Virginia, with whom I talked last week at her Vineyard’s “tasting room” is an heir to the art and science of winemaking. Her father operated a vineyard in Sonoma Valley. Bree is obviously keen on the challenge of creating fresh wine labels emerging from the local conditions of the Virginia countryside.

Travelers take note. A journey to a place like Loudoun Valley Vineyards, and other specialty wine makers in the Virginia countryside, offers a refreshing contrast for long-time Washington residents, visiting business people, and traveling vacationers alike.

It’s a short drive from downtown Washington. And there are several limousine and hotel shuttles that will take you out of the Washington intrigue toward a refreshing aside.

Things -- wine and the hospitality that go with it -- are made at this small family farm in Loudoun County, Virginia.

The cares of Washington -- the policy, the publicity, the lobbying, the calculating, the idealism, the long busy work hours -- all these melt away as you meet your equal enthusiasts at the tasting room and maybe a large friendly Virginia dog on its veranda.

At my tasting, along with my photographer friend Michele, I met several fellow appreciators. Folk from Germany, Switzerland, Russia, and England. And a pair of motorcyclists cruising the Virginia countryside who had more knowledge about wine than I do.

One informed me, “Virginia wine has a different taste. There are many good wines in the world. But here they are in a class by themselves. I

like this Classic White. It is sweet, but smooth. Only place you can find it on this earth.”

The view outside the tasting room is made aesthetic by the facility’s generous glass windows and doors, its tile patterned floor and its abundant outside verandas.

What your eyes see from the tasting tables are six acres of chardonnay and five acres of chambourcin grapevines in orderly vineyards that gently roll out in different directions against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge and Catoctin Mountain ranges.

It makes for a relaxing view of one of the unique Loudoun County micro-climate’s landscape and bounty. There is live music many days and evenings in the tasting room.

“Ninety-nine percent of our wine is sold right here,” says Bree. “The other one percent we sell only to boutique delicatessens and wine shops. We don’t sell to big chains. We give exclusive rights to independent boutiques.”

“This is small farming,” Bree continues. “It doesn’t emit the global warming methane gasses in the huge quantities of industrial farms. We do fertilize with some nitrogen. But we also have a trade arrangement with many equestrian VIrginia farms.”

“Horses love to eat the grape must [part of the grape skin] which we dispose of anyway. So we ship the must to the horse farms. In return, they truck us back the horse manure that is THE best fertilizer for grapevines.”

There is something fundamentally human and god-like about wine and wine-making. And you feel it in the atmosphere of Loudoun Valley Vineyards. Theater, the ancient ancestor of our modern movies, began at the Temple of Dionysus,dedicated to the god of wine, in Greece. And Virginia celebrates this heritage in its many theaters and provides many settings for modern movies.

If you go to Loudoun Valley Vineyards or other wineries around Virginia, there are many ways to get there. You will see some transportation methods and directions in the sidebar below. There are also many other attractions in the area which are referenced.

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© 2009 Bethesda, Maryland. All rights reserved. Text copy is owned by Russ Barnes. All original photos are owned by Michele Surwit. Licensing of either may be arranged by contacting russ@bonmeasure.org or msurwit@gmail.com. Or call 301-637-7841.

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IF YOU GO:

Loudoun Valley Vineyards. www.loudounvalleyvineyards.com

Custom limousine tours. Point-to-Point: http://www.visitloudoun.org/things-to-do/details?id=77822

Specialized tours at http://www.visitloudoun.org/things-to-do/details?id=49603

Nearby attractions at www.VisitLoudoun.org; www.YouTube.com/VisitLoudounHD

Hunting for a Holiday?

CHESAPEAKE BEACH, Maryland. August 4, 2009. Where do you go for adventure? snorkeling in Australia? cruising the Caribbean? trekking in the Himalayas? Nothing wrong with that -- except those places are far away. But how about checking out what's close-by?

Not romantic or exotic enough? Think again.

Slip on down, for example, to the Chesapeake Bay and step onto, say, skipper Randy Dean's charter fishing boat, the "Bay Hunter," and you enter a near-by world that never stops in providing multi-faceted fascination and fun. It's local if you live in the Washington, D.C. area, fifty minutes from Northwest Washington. Chesapeake Beach and the Chesapeake Bay are also local if you're visiting family and friends in the D.C., Baltimore, Wilmington, or Philadelphia areas and want to experience something singular.

Local Vacations?

What's so special about local? For starters in this instance, the Chesapeake Bay has a shoreline longer than any other estuary in North America, including San Francisco Bay. Its bio-diversity is specific and unique. There are hundreds of different species of oysters in the myriad feeder rivers and streams that characterize the Chesapeake Bay’s extensive meandering shoreline.

Knowing about the grandness of the Bay, only a few days ago I negotiated my way from the Fishing Creek Marina dock to the step-stool stairs of the swaying "Bay Hunter" charter boat. On-board you find a father and son team: Captain Randy Dean and his seventeen-year old son, Ryan, the boat's first mate. You immediately recognize that this is no national chain operation. It is a family business.

There is always weather on the Chesapeake. It was beautiful on this August 4th day, 92 degrees, but a heavy cooling southern wind prevailed with a few mildly threatening clouds hovering low to our west.

"Bay Hunter" Sails. Chesapeake Resort is Along Shore

The "Bay Hunter" departed the Marina fast by the Chesapeake Beach Resort and Spa complex of buildings, shops, and restaurants. Our mid-summer, dog-days mission was to fish for rockfish (AKA striped bass), bluefish, spot (for bait), and Spanish Mackerel.

First we fished for bait. What we were after, said the Captain, was to catch forty small spot, the smaller the better. That quota was met. We were off to the adventurous search for the prized rockfish. Captain Dean pursued these fish diligently, using both high and low technology to seek out the fish sanctuaries of the moment. High-tech was the sonar technology used to see the depths by means of computer screen -- low-tech, or what we also might call human and bio-tech, was the use of binoculars to extend "the amazing eyesight" of the sea birds, mainly gulls, as they hovered around rockfish congregations "breaking water" signaling their temporary presence.

Fish on Port Line

Being on a vessel like the "Bay Hunter" is not a passive outing. You are decidedly and vigorously, engaged. "Fish on port line," the captain commands. And you grab the rod, digging its butt into your groin, lift its tip, and begin reeling in the ducking, dodging and spinning fish as it breaks the waves in the wake behind to the boat's stern -- and then into Ryan's waiting net.

"The fish are on the move," says Randy Dean. So he starts up the boat's engine and we ride the waves in pursuit. In the meantime, we talk in the pilot house with, Ryan, Dean's seventeen-year-old son and the boat’s first-mate.

I ask him, "Do you have a girlfriend"

Ryan answers, "No, not right now."

"How long do you go between girlfriends?"

"As long as I can," he answers grinning. "You know, girls can be just like a school of fish -- they all look good, and you get one --- and then another one comes along, and she's better than the one you've got. Sometimes they are all over the place. Then they are like a school of fish that just swim away."

Such is the kind of personal exchange you may get vacationing locally.

Ryan (AKA “Rye”) also said, "My mom likes organic." What's more organic than "pulling," trolling for, fish or seaweed out of the waters? These fish are not raised or fed on a farm. They are wild and free-range fed along the waters of the Chesapeake. Much like the complementary hotel and spa along shore. The Chesapeake Beach Resort and Spa is hardly a part of a collective chain of national hotels. The resort was designed by an independent architect living his life on a boat moored in Baltimore Harbor. The guest rooms at the resort are decorated in unique colors of muted blues and green and gray -- just like the Bay itself.

Feeding of Fishes

Fishing is sacramental. Or, if you will, “sacrafishal.” Cleaning fish makes a city slicker like me a bit squeamish. There is even a Gospel dimension to it. The loaves and the fishes. There is something redemptive about fish sacrificing their lives for us so we can have a delicious meal.

End of journey. The catch.. We too give up our lives for our posterity, our loved ones.

Go over to the man who cleans the fish for you. He guts and fillets your catch. He is much like the grave-digger in Hamlet in his sunny acceptance of life and death. I ask, "What do you do in winter?"

Cutting through the flesh and bones of a rockfish, he gives me a jolly look and answers, "I put together several manual jobs just to keep things going. But this here is the life I love."

© 2009 Bethesda, Maryland. Russ Barnes. All rights reserved. For permissions both text and photos contact russ@bonmeasure.org

To see a rockfish catch, visit http://www.bayhunter.net