Stalking the Peach Guy

Every summer for the past few years I have written about the peach guy. He sets up a produce stall under a white tent somewhere in Santa Fe and his arrival -- and his whereabouts -- are an eagerly anticipated event. But it's an adventure hunt to find him.

Every year he appears in a different spot. For a few years he was out in front of Jackalope, a pottery import store on the main drag. One year I discovered him at the Motel 6 parking lot. Last year he was at the parking lot of an Italian restaurant on Agua Fria street. This July he showed up in front of a home furnishing store in an industrial-commercial strip. 

He just appears in different locations each year and everyone has to guess where he is. The Nextdoor app is filled with sightings in early summer and facebook posters start claiming they've seen him and that's how we find out where to locate him.

By the time I found out about the new location and went to visit, his stall was mobbed. Peaches were in, red cherries, melons and other produce were abundant and shoppers had located him.

He is Matt Hauser and his orchard and produce farm is in Palisade, Colorado. He never advertises, he simply shows up in town somewhere and we have to hunt all over for surprise discoveries of the white tent in randomly different parking lots each year. 

This year's location is the most inconvenient. It's off a busy multi-lane thoroughfare in a part of town with car dealerships and furniture stores. And the peaches so far this year were a little disappointing. Flavorful but watery. Colorado had a lot of rain recently.

But I'll go back over the next months and see if future crop pickings are better. In past years the peaches have been phenomenal, which is why everyone spends early summer driving around town looking for his stall and excitedly reporting sightings like wildlife photographers on safari. 

The hunt is worth it, though. They really are that good.