Colorado~Part 1, Early Morning Walks & Sweet Honeyville!

We recently spent six delightfully rejuvenating weeks in Colorado.  It was our fifth time in six years camping in the San Juan Mountains / Vallecito Lake area.  After suffering through the unbearable Texas temps before leaving, my best description for the glorious mountain weather is ooo-la-la!

Peaceful Morning Walks  

For the first time, early morning walks with our furry owners became part of our daily routine.  

The lightly traveled road just outside the RV park dead-ends into the Vallecito Campground at the San Juan National Forest which was our daily destination.    

It's a lovely and peaceful two-mile walk (round trip) and quite invigorating, thanks to a calm chill permeating the air and the warm sun that peeked through the trees almost every day.

Homes, new and old, big and little, most of which are cabins or cabin-like structures dot the road as do yellow and purple wildflowers.  

Does anyone know what these 

black and white dudes are?   

🧐

Yellow wildflowers (perhaps yarrow?)
 hosting butterfly-like friends. 

The wings are not the right shape for butterflies, and I couldn’t find anything that told me they were moths. 

Continuing the walk, towering evergreens were plentiful and seemed to be in competition to see who could reach the sky first.  Oh, but the generous amount of gorgeous aspen trees were a joy to behold as they showed off the creativity of God.  Be still my heart!  

A variety of wildlife was usually out and about—wild turkeys, marmots and deer scurried by.  

The marmots (aka Whistle Pigs) sound a shrill alarm to alert others of predators (namely us) in the area.  Their somewhat startling whistle sounds akin to a smoke detector with low batteries!  Quite shrill.

Chewy, our chihuahua, did not like walking past the whistle pigs.  In protest, he would stop, plant his feet, and pull back on the leash.  Hubby Geo carried him past that area and he’d strut along just fine the rest of the way.

A Sweet Time in Honeyville!

Just outside of Durango is Honeyville, a fun country store, dubbed a honey factory, where everything honey is available.  

  

Bath and beauty products, jams, syrups, flavorful whipped honeys (many of which are fruity), dipping sauces, grilling sauces, and so much more line the shelves. 

The Honey Factory is a distillery too.

A shiny, hive-shaped still 

is displayed behind glass. 

The still sparkles and shines.

A variety of whiskeys have been conjured up here, all of which include Rocky Mountain Wildflower Honey.  Other types of honey liquors are sold as well.

So many choices!

* * * * * * * 

Chokecherries & Bumbleberries, Oh My!

Wandering through the store was a bit of an adventure.  A product named "Chokecherry Whipped Wildflower Honey" caught my attention.

Chokecherry?  

Sounds alarming, right?  

Just exactly what is chokecherry?  

Is it a berry?  

What does it taste like?

What’s “choking” about it?  

Where is it found? 

This blogger had to know so with a bit of light finger use and some serious eye exercise, good ole Google answered these questions:

• Chokecherries are berries and, surprise, surprise, they're in the cherry family.   
• The berries themselves are not poisonous but the seeds, bark and leaves can be fatal as they contain amygdalin which our bodies convert to cyanide.  Yikes!  
• The astringent, bitter taste comes from the pit and is also the reason for the name.  
• Chokecherries are found naturally in foothills, mountain canyons and near water.  They adapt well to extremely cold temperatures too which makes sense since it is Colorado.

A couple days after discovering the Chokecherry Whipped Wildflower Honey, we came across red berries while hiking.  One of our friends identified them as chokecherries!  It was exciting to see them on the shrub in their natural environment!

 

Chokecherries are large suckering shrubs.

We purchased the Chokecherry Whipped Wildflower Honey and found that it's rather sweet but quite tasty. 

I also asked friends around the park if they’d heard of chokecherries and lots of people were familiar with them.  Apparently, moi was the only one in the entire world who had never heard of them.  Ahh, such is the clueless life!

* * * * * * * 

What are bumbleberries?  

The answer to that question was easy.  

Bumbleberries are not berries!  

They do not exist.  

“Bumbleberry” is merely a cute word created to describe pies (and other foods) made with more than one berry!  In fact, it’s usually three berries as seen in the description on the label above.  

Bumbleberry!

It’s is an amusing word that makes me smile.   

Has anyone out there ever had Bumbleberry pie?

As you might expect, Honeyville also sported a hive full of buzzing bees performing their usual busy work.  

Below is the bees entry which 

leads them to the above hive inside.

Can you see the slot where the 
bees enter just below the awning?

Quite a few bees hovered about near the entry way.

Honeyville is well worth a visit if 

you like honey and/or bees and 

maybe even if you don’t like any of it.

We made two visits for double the fun.

Well, friends, that’s it for now.  

Be back soon.

Smiles,

Donna