You Can't Get Lost

Day 3? It seems like Day 6 or so already....Wow!

Actually, today was a quieter day. When I walked into the house, Tom and Jere's plumber was there talking about bathroom and kitchen fixtures and how and when to install them. They have a inch thick plus catalog to make their decisions from. I wish them well. I spent the afternoon talking with Jere about the family and who all is doing what. Always nice to catch up like that.

Jaye called and they all are going to be in Las Vegas with Byran and his family over the same weekend that I'll be there, so we'll have a chance to get together. I haven't seen Byran in many years, so it will be nice to catch up with them also.

For dinner, we did something kind of special. Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction has a Hospitality and a Culinary Arts program. There is a hotel on campus at which students in both programs can work. The Devil's Kitchen is the restaurant and is rated 4.5 stars on Yelp. To start, I ordered a "Grilled Artichoke and homemade salt and vinegar chips". I thought it was going to be an artichoke dip and chips, but it really was a grilled artichoke split in half. I've never eaten a grilled artichoke before. Once we got into it, I found it was a whole lot of choke and very little arti. (And yes, Marlow, I know the story. The poor Mafia hitman named Arthur who was hired to assassinate three men. The headlines ran "Arty chokes three for a Dollar!" Ba-boom...) But it and the chips were very good. I've finally figured out what an artichoke heart really is.

Tom and I both had the Bison Tamale Stack. Again, I expected two or three tamales with bison filling stacked on each other with a tomatillo and cheese sauce over the top. Nope, it was cubed bison tenderloin and mushrooms in a heavy reduction with a three-inch disk of masa on top with a tomatillo along the side. Not what I expected, but it was also very tasty.

And that, I guess, is what fine dining (and travel) is about. New tastes, new ways of looking at things, new appreciations. There I was happy to get lost and find something new.

By the way, the Devil's Kitchen is a trail and rock formation in the Colorado National Monument and not an indication of the menu or the cooks.

Speaking of, the Colorado National Monument is located about five miles south of Tom and Jere's house. They are located in the Colorado River valley, with the south bank being the Monument and the north bank being the Bookcliffs. To the east is Grand Mesa, the largest flat-topped mountain in the world, with an area of about 500 square miles. They can see all of this from their house. It's a pretty spectacular setting.

IMG_2889 - Bookcliff Mountains with white pipe fence