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

RoadTrip Day 3: Mountains!

We finally get to play in the mountains!


We slept in today, Thursday, as we had had a few beers the night before.  The days are already starting not to matter, Monday, Saturday, Wednesday, Friday, they were all the same.  It was going to be a great feeling not having to dread Mondays.

Boulder Mountain Park

The weather had passed through while we slept and the sky was bright blue and the sun already high as we showered and packed the car.  The Rodeway Inn Boulder had a decent breakfast, some cereal, fruit, pastries, and juices.  We filled up on that and took a little something extra for a snack that we might want on a hike later in the day.

Over breakfast we discussed possible activities for the day and decided on doing a hike in Boulder Mountain Park.  We also had read about Boulder Falls, possibly going to Estes Park or trying to get a tour at New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins.  But Boulder Mountain Park is close to town and we could do some light hiking as we got acclimated to being at 6000 feet.  We drove over to the park and found the office because we needed to find a map of some trails.  We had read that the Royal Arch was a pretty decent hike and you can make it a big loop trail instead of an out and back.  The guide in the office agreed and if we went to the Flatirons first you could hike along the base of the giant rocks as you approached the Royal Arch.

The Flatirons

Boulder Mountain Park is an awesome city park with a lot of locals using the trails.  There were a few people running, a couple others taking their dogs for walks, and some more just heading out for a leisurely hike on a beautiful day.  We made our way up to Royal Arch, which was more strenuous than we had expected.  Luckily, I am super annoying when it comes to elevation and staying hydrated, so we had packed enough water to refill Lake Superior if we needed to.  We took lots of water breaks and there were many times when we stopped to rest because the scenery was so pristine that it deserved a picture.

When we arrived at our turnaround spot, the Royal Arch, there were a couple other groups enjoying the views created by the large natural arch.  We were happy to follow along and find a spot to relax and take in nature.  We snacked on a few granola bars and fruit snacks as chipmunks played around us hoping to get a snack for themselves.  All the signs said "Do Not Feed Animals" but a few people were happy to feed the little guys whatever they had with them.

I tried as hard as I could without hurting myself to get on top of the arch.  It is what I do in situations like this when anyone can get to a spot on a trail, I want to find a way to get to the place that others can't reach.  This time I was stuck looking through the arch, instead of looking down from the top.

Looking Through the Royal Arch

We made our way back to the car taking a different much less scenic route and thoroughly enjoyed the downhills as our quads had received a pretty good workout on the way up.  We were starting to get hungry but wanted to go check out Boulder Falls which was just going to be short detour before having lunch.

The Falls are a few miles outside of town and only a few steps off of the road so the trip to them only took 30 minutes roundtrip.  But this little guy got us started for some much bigger falls that we were expecting to see later on the trip, like the ones in Yosemite and Yellowstone

The parking situation at the falls is not ideal leaving you to cross the 1 lane state road with cars going pretty fast up and down hills and around curves.  There were a lot more cars parked than what we saw walking around the falls so there might have been other stuff to see in the area but we were hungry and I get cranky when I'm hungry, so we headed back towards town to find a place to grab a late lunch.

In town, we decided that a filling Italian meal would suit us best after hiking and walking a fair amount to start the day.  We found a place that had some outdoor seating in the sun, which felt great as the air was a touch cool.  We split a salad and then both got an entree which was a lot of food but as we were coming to the conclusion that we ordered too much food we also figured that we could keep a box of leftovers in the cooler and could snack up on the remains for dinner.  We also decided that even though we couldn't get a reservation for a tour at New Belgium Brewery that we should still go up to Fort Collins to check out that town and we could still stop by New Belgium if only just to get a souvenir.

As we started driving the 45 miles or so up to Fort Collins, we used the All Stays App on my phone to find the campsite at Horsetooth Reservoir just outside of town.  We took some back roads to get up to Horsetooth and made it by late afternoon.  We had our pick of campsites and choose one off by itself with a beautiful overlook of the Reservoir. It was a great place to relax and we both tried to take a little nap and read some of our books.  We needed to get some supplies, like firewood and ice so we left our site and headed towards town.

Dusk at Horsetooth Reservoir

We got our essentials at the gas station on the way in to Fort Collins but decided that we wanted to check out the main drag in town.  As we were driving, we spotted a mini golf place and I love a game of Putt Putt so we stopped.  After a demolition of Megan during the first 18 holes, we decided that a bet was in order.  I beat her by 8 strokes so I would give her an 8 stroke lead to start the second round of 18 holes.  I knew I was in trouble as Megan started making putts off the bricks, with her eyes closed, and I think one time she tripped as she was approaching her ball and it went in.  She also drained two hole-in-ones that easily propelled her to victory even without the 8 stroke handicap that I had given.

Pizza Cowboy Style

After my poor performance on the golf course, I was not going to have any more fun in this town so we went back to our campsite to have a little late night dinner.  We got the fire going and after reading some more I cooked up the leftovers from lunch and the remaining pieces of pizza.  I dubbed this meal Pizza Cowboy Style.
After filling our bellies with hot leftovers and enjoying the fire a bit longer we turned in to have a peaceful night under the stars.