Big Doings in Small Wine Country Town

Renewed Town Plaza to premiere in pocket-size Palisade, the unofficial capital of Grand River wine country

In Europe and in the longer established wine regions of North America, vineyards surround charming towns boasting a few lovely little inns and a handful of terrific local restaurants, cafes and bakeries. Rather than centuries or even decades old, Colorado's wine industry has mushroomed from virtually nothing to significance in just over 20 years. Of the state's two American Viticultural Areas, the Grand River AVA centers around the Town of Palisade.

Palisade is stunningly set between the signature Book Cliffs and the soaring Grand Mesa and with the Colorado River (originally called the Grand River) flowing by its doorstep. Surrounded on three sides by orchards and vineyards, it is working hard to retain its agricultural ambiance and also boosting the appeal of the town itself with much-needed visitor-pleasing amenities. The centerpiece is the renewed Town Plaza at Third and Main Streets. The dedication, which is open to the public, will be on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 5:00 p.m. and will include live music, food and refreshments.

Town-center improvements include more parking, landscaping, railroad buffering and most importantly, an inviting public gathering place for festivals, events, markets, or just meeting friends. The one-acre Plaza features new trees, shrubs, 15 planting beds, a two-tiered seating wall with a sandstone veneer and improved lighting and electrical service. The Plaza also is the venue for local artist Lyle Nichols's sculpture “Harley,” to be unveiled May 10, 2009. Eventually, a town clock will be located nearby, thanks to the generosity of the Palisade Lions Club.

Palisade has several appealing bed-and-breakfast inns (A DiVine Thyme, Dreamcatcher, Palisade Wine Valley Inn, The Orchard House and Vistas & Vineyards), an unremarkable motel (the Mesa View) and since last summer, a sizable inn set in the middle of vineyards. The 80-room Colorado Wine Country Inn has more rooms than all the B&B's combined and provides in-town lodging for visitors attending the town's myriad special events (see below) or creating their own special events (weddings being a specialty).

Among the upcoming events on the Palisade calendar are the Peach Blossom Art Show (next weekend, April 17-19), the Grand Valley Winery Association's Spring Barrel Tastings (April 25-26 and Mary 16-17), the Palisade Bike Festival (bicycles, not motorcycles, May 8-10), Palisade Bluegrass & Roots Music Festival (June 23-13), Parade of Roses (May 30-31), the 41st annual Palisade Peach Festival (August 13-16), Ravenshire Renissance & Pirate Faire (August 21-23) and the Colorado Mountain Winefest (September 17-20). For Coloradans and visitors alike, Palisade is easy to reach. It's right off I-70 and railroad tracks run right through town. Amtrak trains, of course, do not stop in Palisade (the old depot now houses the Peach Street Distillers, which makes vodka and Colorado's first bourbon in the middle of wine country), but the California Zephyr does serve Grand Junction, just a dozen miles away.

Palisade has scenery that won't quit, vineyards and wineries, orchards and fruit stands, a handful of neat shops, galleries and eateries, places to stay, easy access and terrific festivials other special events. All it needs now, IMO, is a few more really good restaurants -- and locals and visitors to patronize them.

Travel Babel Wins SATW Award

I'm thrilled that this blog has just been honored with a Bronze Award in the Travel Blog category from the Society of American Travel Writers Western Chapter, which has just wrapped up its meeting in Boise, Idaho.Writing awards have been presented for many years, but blogging honors were just added. I'm pleased that Travel Babel was in the freshman class.

Delta Offering Mileage Bonuses`

Delta + Northwest offer 2,500- to 50,000-mile bonuses on select flights

Flyers who play the mileage accumulation game are having a field day by flying the now-merged Delta and Northwest airlines' current bonus offers -- or by not flying at all but applying for an affiliated credit card. There are a few hoops to jump through, including online registration for each offer, and you do need to check the fine print. Thanks for Frequent Flyer Bonuses for the tip about these offers:

Transatlantic nonstop roundtrips between North America and Great Britain earn up to 50,000 bonus SkyMiles (BusinessElite/Business Class (fare classes, J,C,D,S and I on Delta-coded flights and J,C,I, and on Northwest-coded flights) and 25,000 bonus miles for paid Premium Economy Class (fare classes Y, B, M on Delta-coded flights and all Northwest-coded flights) to or from London (Heathrow or Gatwick), Manchester (MAN) or Edinburgh (EDI). Online registration is required), and then book online until June 30, 2009.

There don't seem to be a lot of strings attached to the new offer of 2,500 bonus SkyMiles on flights with Delta Northwest or their commuter partners Northwest Airlink (Mesaba, Pinnacle, and Compass) or Delta Connection. Online registration is required, and then bookonline online by June 4, 2009.

Up to Triple Elite Qualification Miles are being given for every Delta and Northwest flight through June 15, 2009. Premium fares (Delta fare classes J, C, D, S, I, F, A, Y, B and M) good toward Medallion qualification status. Discounted Economy fares (Delta fare classes H, Q and K) earn double miles Online registration is required, then book online until June 15, 2009.

Earn double SkyMiles by flying Delta or Northwest nonstop between Minneapolis (MSP) and Chicago O'Hare (ORD) or Chicago-Midway (MDW). Online registration is required, then book online until May 31, 2009.

Nonstop roundtrip travel between Cincinnati (CVG) and Atlanta (ATL) and Newark (EWR) , Baltimore (BWI), Philadelphia (PHL), Charlotte (CLT), Phoenix (PHX), Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), San Diego (SAN), Denver (DEN), San Francisco (SFO), Kansas City (MCI), Seattle (SEA), Los Angeles (LAX), Washington National (DCA) or New York/LaGuardia (LGA) can earn up to 25,000 bonus miles if that make the entire series of five roundtrip flights, The first and second roundtrips net 3,000 each, the third 4,000, the fourth 5,000 and the fifth 10,000. Online registration is required, then book online.

And finally, sign up for the American Express platinum card affiliated with Delta and earn 20,000 SkyMiles, including 5,000 toward Medallion status.

Pushing for Return of the Pioneer Rail Route

The railroad built Cheyenne, and hopefully train service will return. Efforts are underway

As the Union Pacific laid tracks westward in a rush to complete the transcontinental railroad, Cheyenne sprang from Wyoming's eastern plains in 1867. It soon was a full-blown brick-and-mortar city with magnificent mansions, a lively downtown, a railroad roundhouse and a truly glorious railroad depot (bold), now a museum but very spacious and hopefully capable of accommodating passengers again.

Cheyenne was no podunk town along the tracks. It became the second city in the world after Paris with electric street lights. Except for the train that rolls up from Denver for Frontier Days every summer and an annual steam-train excursion for railfans, Cheyenne's glorious (and beautifully restored) 1887 Union Pacific Depot hasn't seen passenger rail service since Amtrak discontinued the Pioneer route in 1997.

The Pioneer started in Chicago and stopped in Omaha, Denver, Cheyenne, Ogden, Salt Lake City, Boise and Tacoma before terminating in Seattle -- and vice versa. Click here for TrainWeb's page devoted to this route. I don't know what other cities along the route are doing to bring the train back, but the City of Cheyenne and local organizations are working to encourage Amtrak to re-establish the abandoned Pioneer route. Amtrak has hired Patterson and Associates of Orange, California, to analyze the Pioneer's viability. Patterson’s study is expected to be complete this fall.

Cheyenne Mayor Rick Kaysen, an economic development group called Cheyenne LEADS and the Cheyenne Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (CACVB) have sent letters of support for the Pioneer route to Amtrak, and the CACVB has developed a specific website devoted to the effort. The site’s purpose is to share information about the feasibility study process and foster support from communities and organizations along the route. As one who would love to see the train return, I'm planning to check the site often.

Travel Thumbnail: Old Idaho Penitentiary

Boise landmark, once a fearful prison, now a tourist attraction and history lesson

This is the eighth of a series of periodic reports on specific places I've visited -- and which you might want see to as well.

The Place: Old Idaho Penitentiary, Boise

The Story: The Old Idaho Penitentiary State Historical Site, located on the outskirts of Boise, functioned as a prison for 101 years. Construction began in 1870 as a single cell house, with the first prisoners incarcerated there in 1872. Inmate laborers expanded it into a complex of several buildings that held, among others, Idaho's most notorious criminals. Until it finally closed in 1973, the Old Pen housed a total of more than 13,000 inmates -- including 222 women prisoners. The maximum population at any one time was 603 inmates. Eleven prisoners were executed there by by hanging. Below, an old image of the Old Pen from the page on the Idaho Historic Society website devoted to the Old Pen.

When visiting the Old Pen, you can watch an 18-minute video and look at small museum's exhibits and then either take a self-guided tour or take a 90-minute guided tour, which I highly recommend. Especially in the summer, the tour guides are historians or historians-in-the-making, largely young people who are studying or have graduated from Boise State College.

Below are some images from my visit:

Cost: The Old Pen is open seven days a week, except state holidays. Memorial Day to Labor Day, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; Labor Day to Memorial Day, 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m. Adult,$5; 60 and over, $4; ages 6 to 12, $3; under 6, free. 

Location and information: 2445 Old Penitentiary Road, Boise, Idaho 83712; 208-334-2844.

US Passport Fees Set to Climb

If your passport needs to be renewed soon, if it needs extra pages for future travel or if you don't have  a passport but might need one (and now you do for neighboring Western Hemisphere nations), do whatever you need to before Tuesday, July 13. Post offices handle passport applications.

Passport Book

• New passport, adult, $135 (up from from $100).
• Renewal, $110 (up from $75). 
• Youth under 16,  $105 (up from $85).
• Extra pages, $82 (new fee). 

Passport Card

If you expect to travel only to Canada and/or Mexicom you can get a card instead of a book.

• Adult, $55 (up from $45).
• Youth, $40 (up from $35)

Reasons

  

No, the fee increases are not to help balance the budget. The US State Department says that passport fees cover the cost of actually producing the document but also but they also pay for emergency services provided to American citizens overseas by embassies and consular offices.

Travel on Sale; Flight Delays Drop

With fewer flights and fewer airline passengers, flight delays are down too -- but not by much

Anyone with the time and money to travel can reap the benefits of lower prices, frequent fare sales and discounts, discounts, discounts and, did I mention?, discounts. This reduction in both passengers and scheduled flights meant fewer airline delays in 2008 than in '07, according to a new report by George Mason University's Center for Air Transportation Systems Research. Academic types have gathered data to tell frequent flyers what we already know: air travel might be getting cheaper, but in many respects, the experience still, well, sucks.

The center calculated that airline passengers experienced delays totaling 299 million hours (34,000 years!) in 2008, which roughly translates to an annual cost of $8.2 billion in lost productivity. If the center had also quantified the impact of slow-moving security lines and slow-arriving baggage, the lost productivity numbers would be even higher.

“While passenger trip delay numbers are improved, the structural issues with the air transportation system remain,” said Lance Sherry, an associate professor at George Mason University and author of the report. “The reduction of flights should have taken some pressure off of the system. This did not happen."

According to Sherry, the average delay was down only two minutes for an average delay of 29 minutes. Twenty-nine or 31 minutes on anybody's watch is a half-hour delay. "Disruptions" seem to be worse than mere "delays." Dishearteningly for anyone heading for the airport, for the last two years, one-quarter of passengers experienced a travel disruption. In 2008 disruptions averaged "only" 108 minutes; in 2007, it was 112 minutes. The glimmer of good news is that this represents a 10 overall percent decrease in delays compared to 2007.

Contributing to the problems were that airlines reduced the number of flights by 6 percent and also switched to smaller, less expensive aircraft flying less frequently, according to Sherry. "The airlines cut the least profitable flights that operate at off-peak times of the day. Eliminating these flights did little to trim delays for the profitable flights that are still over scheduled in the peak hours at the major airports...Fewer flights were cancelled in 2008, but those passengers also had fewer rescheduling options because of the reduced frequency of flights and fully booked flights."

The fewest trip delays were experienced on Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Frontier Airlines, all with an average of 10 minutes or less. Passengers endured the most trip delays on American Airlines, with an average delay of 31 minutes.

For the third consecutive year, passengers experienced an average of trip delays of more than 30 minutes at New York's three airports: Newark, LaGuardia and JFK, and also at Chicago's O'Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth and Boston's Logan . Of the nation's busiest 35 airports the fewest delays were at Salt Lake City, Honolulu, Baltimore/Washington, Phoenix Sky Harbor and Chicago's Midway.

If you want to delve deep into the data, you can see the U.S. Airline Passenger Trip Delay Report online.