Palisades was not at all what we expected. Who knew that there was a thriving community with many vineyards and wineries? While searching for our intended statue sites we ended up smack dab in the middle of the vineyards. Winding, well maintained, some dirt roads offered us a view of some beautiful homes and out buildings that served as the headquarters to the various crops and wineries. There were apple, cherry, peach, pear, plum trees and, of course, some grape vines, all being grown with the intent to make wine. I guess this is where an orchard becomes a vineyard, Brandon and I had some funny discussions with regard to the difference. We even asked Siri what the difference was, with humorous results.

The last post’s slideshow included 2 statues made of scrap metal, a chicken and a horse. They were attributed to downtown Grand Junction, they were in fact located in front of a winery taste room in Palisades. They are included again in the slideshow below, along with “Rusty’s Dream” , a giant corkscrew and a trout fashioned out of license plates. The last 2 were located amongst the various wineries. Just after the slide show I included a stock photo of a large winery showing plenty of crops and buildings, to give you a sense of how this area looks. Not quite sure why I was so fascinated by the closeness of the interstate, which winds around the base of the cliffs shown in the background. It isn’t easy to get to though, it took us quite sometime to navigate back to a road that went through, following strange road signs. It probably isn’t unique, but we thought it odd how the street signs read. “38 3/10 Rd and “G 2/10 Rd”, were just 2 of the names we were running into, no doubt some sort of grid marking, but still unusual to us. We managed to make it back to Interstate 70 and headed west toward Las Vegas, taking us over the incredible terrain of southern Utah. If you want more information on Palisades, go to https://visitpalisade.com, it is worth the read. This is one of the computer issues that I have mentioned, we just don’t have or can’t transfer easily, all of the pictures that we took that morning. The tree in bloom featured in the slideshow was located at the same winery that the scrap metal animal sculptures were. It was the only shot that we have of something in bloom, but EVERYTHING was in bloom. The drive, that early in the morning through the fields, a gentle mist rising over the crops and then all of the delicate flowers in different, , mostly pastel, colors in bloom, created a mystical aura, leaving us in complete awe of mother nature. We had just happened to be lucky enough to accidentally be there during this special time. We could not have planned it, even if we had tried.

Our next stop was Green River, Utah. I hadn’t traveled this area for about 30 years, Brandon never had. My impression of Green River had been that it wasn’t much more than a truck stop on the Interstate in the middle of nowhere that I wanted to be, but there was still a curiosity to witness what I had missed in the early ’90’s. We took the first exit marked Green River and found a town rebuilding itself. Turns out, 30 years ago, if my friend and I had traveled just a mile or two into town from the freeway, we would have seen the real Green River, a town chock full of lodging and restaurants. Brandon and I were mesmerized by how many little touristy motels that there were, and judging by the architecture, they had been there since the 1940’s or ’50’s. All of them reminded us of episodes of “Supernatural”, all that was missing was nightfall and a rainstorm that nobody gets wet in (among our favorite TV shows). Most of them had “Closed for Remodeling” or “For Sale” signs, a few had regrets about closing permanently notes posted on what was left of their marquis. All of them were blocked by major road work, on what seemed like the old main street. As we continued westward, there were taller, newer buildings appearing. Hotels and resort oriented businesses were prevalent. What had seemed just a dusty little Mormon town with a truck stop 30 years ago, had been a hidden destination with many interesting features, including; ancient Native American petroglyphs, unique geological formations, a ghost town and a highly rated golf course, all within a few miles. It would have been easy to spend several days here, instead we gassed up and moved on, talking about visiting again one day with more time to explore. Brandon is very interested in petroglyphs, hieroglyphs and cave paintings. He can even explain, at length, the difference.

I suspect that Brandon’s cohort had a 4WD, ATVs and more time than we did. He had also mentioned a huge Ferris wheel on the Vegas Strip, we have a thing for those and planned to actually experience it.

Having traveled this area and Northern AZ, over many Native American Reservations, extensively in the ’70’s with various family pre-Brandon, I was not surprised to see one of these outposts. The original draw was that almost everything that you found at these wayside spots was that the trinkets and sometimes very artistic, quality jewelry, were made from locally sourced rocks and metals. Arizona had turquoise and silver, I couldn’t remember what this area might have available, but most certainly nothing on the right hand necklace, some of the one on the left was probably native. Useless memorabilia, made special by this trip and memories made with B.

The young native donned a mask the moment she saw that Brandon was interested. He and she had quite a lengthy and informative conversation. She shared that the tribes took the pandemic very seriously, so much so that they were all avoiding tourist areas, and she said it nicer, avoiding white society all together, until it was over. She indicated that they still had a tribal memory of the losses due to a different pandemic just over one-hundred years ago. Her story was that she was manning the post for her grandmother and that this was among the first few days that her family had even considered attempting to sell from the side of the road, for almost a year. We were happy to make our contribution to the tribe and her family. Our discussion for the next hour was kind of dark, centered around the mistreatment of the Native Americans, the loss of their culture, history and misplacement from white man.

It wasn’t even noon yet and we had hours to drive until Las Vegas, so we got underway. There were more service stations and truck stop style outcroppings now, on the way to St. George, UT than there was in the 70’s through the ’90’s, I mean more than 2 covering almost a 300 hundred mile stretch. My apologies about going on with regard to the past and how much things have grown. I share because it kind of frightens me, the shear scale and scope of growth and transformation. If this stretch is any indication, humanity will soon out grow the planet. These wonderful little spots of interest will be overrun and forgotten, this concerns me somehow. Perhaps, because I may live to see it.

I pointed out the Mormon church steeples as we sped past little towns growing towards the interstate. My mothers 4th husband was Mormon and had pointed out the very distinct design of the Latter Day Saints steeples to me when I was a teenager. The spires were a very distinct signal that our location was smack dab in the middle of Mormanland. Several hours later, Las Vegas loomed in the distance. There were wind turbine and solar panel installations, large ones, bigger than we had seen before, along the side of the road. The NLV sklyline was unrecognizable to me, it was only early evening and full day light out as we started looking for our exit.

After finding our friend Laura’s place and unloading the car, we ventured back out as Laura wasn’t going to be home from work for several hours and we wanted to say hi and get a hug before settling in for the night. This was only the second full day of our trip, somehow, everything that we had experienced in just the last 12 hours had not tired us out, hadn’t killed our sense of curiosity and adventure. Nothing truly noteworthy happened in the next 3 hours, our foray into the metropolis included; an attempt at a drive up The Strip, a bad experience at a fast food drive through, an eye opening shopping trip at a grocery store, a hunt for a drugstore and a quick tour of the Stratosphere.