Roadtrip: Fort Collins and Denver

We woke up a few times in the middle of the night to the downpour of rain (luckily we put the rain fly on) but we stayed dry and warm.  In the morning we woke up to a chilly, overcast day at Horsetooth Reservoir without much of a plan except that my friend, Brett, was arriving in Denver that evening and we were going to try to meet up for some drinks with him and his friend.  We drove over to the showers at the campsite, which makes us sound lazy but it was pretty nippy out, our site was a good 10 minute walk over to the shower, and if we drove we could plug out phones in and get a little battery charge.  So ya, we might have been a touch lazy this morning.

Stout - known for it's growing population and breakfast burritos

It also came in handy that we drove because the showers were pay to use and we needed to have some cash to get the water going.  So we paid our $2 and got to enjoy 6 minutes of hot water.  I am a world-renowned quick showerer so 8 minutes would be plenty.  But that doesn't mean I wasn't stressed about how much time I had left.  I got in and quickly lathered up and rinsed off with fear that I would get caught with suds still in my hair as the water ran out.  So I was done with my shower in give or take, 9 seconds.  I then used the additional 351 seconds thinking, "should I try to scrub more soap on my body," followed by "no! There's no time!"  In the end, I just stood under the hot water waiting for it to end, probably the longest shower of my life.  If there was a glitch and the water didn't shut off, I could have easily been in there for 45 minutes and just thought that "wow, 6 minutes is a lot longer than I thought."

After we were both thoroughly washed and dried, Megan having no issues with the shower, we spotted a little shack that was the "town's" convenience store.  They were advertising $2 breakfast burritos with a coffee.  Neither of us are big coffee drinkers but hell, we're on vacation right?!  And we both really wanted the burritos.  So we picked up a couple and drove back to our campsite to eat our burritos and drink our coffees next to the lake.  We were in no hurry, as the only thing we had discussed doing was going over to New Belgium Brewery.  We had checked online and all the

Breakfast Burritos Next to Horsetooth Reservoir

tours for the day were filled up but we figured we could just stop by and get a fresh pint in the tasting room or buy a souvenir or two from the gift shop.

We got to the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins by about 11 a.m. and it was quite the bustling scene.  I guess in the Craft Brewing Capital it really is 5 o'clock somewhere.  We asked about getting on a tour and the hostess assured us that they could get us on a tour and she was glad that we came without a tour reservation.  She thought that we would either get on the 11:15 tour or the 11:30.  We wasted a few minutes sending a few coaster/postcards that New Belgium would send for you if you filled them out and before we knew it we were on a tour.

Fat Tire Bicycle

The tour consisted of many beer tastings, and not like here is 3 drops for you and 3 drops for you.  New Belgium was letting you try a full bottle or can.  They were quite generous with the tastings which was greatly appreciated by most all of the tour group.  They seem to be well aware of their image and try to stick to that with giving employees bikes to ride, running the facility off of solar energy, switching some beers from bottles to cans in order to encourage beer drinking outside.  They also have a program where their employees, after 5 years of working there receive a sabbatical where they can do whatever they want.  Then at 10 years they get a trip to Belgium to do a bike/beer tour of the country.  They also have a pretty sweet slide in their office to get from the 2nd floor down to the ground level.

Barrel Aging Beers

After our tour, we were feeling pretty good but we wanted to buy some beers straight from the source, so we bought a 6 pack of Blue Paddle and a mini growler of a sour beer that tasted pretty similar to wine.  We also spotted magnets that were New Belgium bottle caps and discussed how that was such a great idea and that we could try to make those ourselves.  An employee overheard us and informed us they were free so we took a couple and decided we needed to get lunch before we go too far.

New Belgium Chandelier

Using UrbanSpoon to find restaurants, which we became very good at picking the good ones, we found B&B's Pickle Barrel Deli which filled our stomachs' with a big BBQ turkey sandwich and some chips.  We then played rock, paper, scissor to decide who had to drive down to Denver and who got to sleep.  Let's just say that I was well rested when we got to Denver.

As we got close, we used Expedia to find a hotel on the south side of Denver that seemed like it would be a good place to spend the night.  The Crestwood Inn was perfect especially for $49.  We lounged on the bed, Megan napped as I watched multiple episodes of Storage Wars, YUUUUUPPP!  We showered and headed out to meet up with Brett and his college friend.  We were a bit early and slightly peckish so a quick burger and fries from Good Times gave us the energy we needed to have another round of drinks.  We met up with Brett and his friend Emily and her sister Anna at Ludo's. It was a huge bar and we enjoyed our drinks on the second floor patio looking over southern Denver.  We made plans to do a hike the next day with them and as Friday night turned into Saturday morning we made our way back to Aurora, CO and our cozy hotel bed.

Emily, Brett, Megan, Billy, Anna
at Ludo's in Denver, CO