If you've been reading along, you know I've got a soft spot for Colorado's back roads. I wrote up those Amish markets down in the San Luis Valley a few days back, and now here comes another one, this time on the Western Slope. Ever After in the Woods just did a writeup on a farm market out that way that's loaded with homemade food, and I'll tell you, it's the kind of stop that makes a drive worth taking.

My whole philosophy on road food is simple: I'll take a jar of jam made by a woman whose name I can ask for over anything shrink-wrapped at a gas station. Baked goods from somebody's kitchen, canned goods from somebody's garden, cider pressed from apples off trees you can point at from the parking lot. Friend, that's the difference between fueling up and actually having a meal.

The Western Slope is good country for this kind of thing, too. That's peach and apple country around Palisade and Grand Junction, orchards and farm stands strung along the river valleys, and when fall rolls in the whole place smells like woodsmoke and ripe fruit. My trip through the North Fork Valley last month reminded me how much of that country still runs on folks selling what they grow and make themselves, right out of buildings that have been there longer than most subdivisions.

What makes a good farm market, though, isn't only the food, even if the food's the reason you stop. It's the people behind the counter who can tell you which peach is ready today and which one needs two more days. It's the pies that came out of an oven at five that morning. You can't get that at a rest stop, and you sure can't get it at a drive-thru window doing 75 on the interstate.

The timing works out nice too. September on the Western Slope is about as good as Colorado gets, cool mornings, gold creeping into the high country, and the harvest coming in heavy. If you're the type who waits for a reason to take a drive, this is a reason.

My fall trip through the Ozarks is still on the books, but I'm telling you, a second run out to Colorado is starting to look likely. Good homemade food has a way of rearranging a man's plans.