Goat Land
My oldest daughter Eleanor started preschool last week 🥹. So to squeeze the most out of summer, we went on a short road trip to Paonia, Colorado the weekend before her first day.
We stayed at the Western Culture Farmstead & Creamery. A small goat dairy, which will forever be known to us as "goat land".
It was a lovely place, and you should go.
The cooking accommodations, however, were pretty sparse, with a single hot plate, an old toaster oven, and Chef Mic. So we weren't cooking any gourmet meals while we were there.
Instead, we made all of our dinners ahead of time and brought them with us on the road. Here's most of what we made:
• Salmon & White Bean Salad
• Olive, Green Chile, & Cream Cheese Pinwheels
• Ramen w/Egg and Ginger-Braised kale
• Yogurt w/Blueberries
• Nonnie's Bagel Breakfast Extravaganza
• Plus various fruit and snacks for the road
We had planned on eating breakfast and lunch while we were out and about, so this took care of dinners and road food.
In general, I love flying by the seat of my pants and trying as much local food and restaurants as I can when traveling. But, Paonia is pretty teeny tiny, and options were limited. Plus, having dinners planned AND pre-made was the right move considering our under 1 and 4-year-old traveling companions.
Aside from our couple of homemade dinners and on-the-go snacks, we tried a local coffee shop/bakery for breakfast and ventured to Big B's orchard for lunch and some peach picking.
For better or worse, our trips almost always end up revolving around the question "what are we going to eat next?". And for a couple of very reluctant decision-makers, I think this makes planning each day's activities a little easier.
If we know where we'll be eating, we can usually find other activities in the same vicinity. However, in this case, there was really nothing more than 5 minutes away from anything else. So it was easy to fill our couple of days and keep everyone entertained.
I wouldn't call Paonia a "food destination", but I think we did a pretty good job eating well in our short time there. After all, it's what we do best.