We spent Tuesday evening through Monday morning in Lakewood, Colorado, which is a suburb of Denver. We stayed with my aunts Kim and Deb, who had a large and lovely home and were a blast to spend time with.
On Wednesday evening we went to a tapas restaurant in downtown Denver called Linger, which used to be an old mortuary. The water was served out of old formaldehyde bottles and the dessert menus looked like toe tags. It was, again, very yummy.
Friday was my birthday, so we went to WaterCourse Foods, a vegetarian restaurant with great dinner and amazing desserts. Yum.
Saturday was our big day to go to Fort Collins, which is about an hour and a half north of Denver. Fort Collins is home to New Belgium brewery, our favorite brewery in the whole world. I am not lying when I say we spent almost 7 hours there.
Red Hoptober is their fall seasonal.
Bicycle art. It spins!
There were so many beers to try! They had all of their regular beers on tap, and then 10 of their "Lips of Faith" series beers, which are special small batches that are not distributed regularly.
We did do an actual brewery tour around noon, which was amazing. New Belgium is honestly a really fun and beautiful brewery, and their tour guides and bartenders are incredibly friendly and knowledgeable.
Disco ball hanging sculptures inside one of the brewhouses.
There are lovely mosaics around some of the brew tanks. This one says ,"To make our love and talent manifest", which is their motto.
These are some giant ass recycled oak wine kegs that are used to ferment and flavor their sour beers.
New Belgium has three core goals that they adhere to. The first is to brew really good beer, the second is to be an environmental advocate, and the third is to have fun!
They have about 20,000 solar panels up on the roof!
A light fixture made out of the 4 beers they put in cans.
Sorry, can't talk, drinking beer.
Another map to place your hometown.
We had a damn good time. On our way back to Lakewood we stopped in Boulder for dinner and a sunset.
Sunday was spent on Mount Evans, a 14, 265 ft. mountain that boasts the highest paved road in North America.
Mount Evans is home to multiple groves of Bristlecone Pines, which are the oldest living trees. The oldest Bristlecone Pine is called Methuselah and is found in Eastern California in the White Mountains. Methuselah is approximately 5,000 years old! The Bristlecones we saw were around 1,500 years old.
Mount Evans is also home to a whole bunch of mountain goats and horned sheep. They are everywhere and have no qualms being around people.
Baby horned sheep! It made a "baaa" noise and I almost died.
This is at the top of Mount Evans in the parking lot. You know, just hanging out.
At the top!
Eric is overlooking Summit Lake.
This is the highest point we could climb to!
More Summit Lake.
We found more marmots!
I decided to do a little more climbing because I am really stupid.
Totally worth it for the picture, though.
Then we started to notice some rain rolling in and it was time to get the hell out of there.
Before leaving Colorado on Monday we stopped by Red Rock Amphitheater.
Red Rock was full of crazies doing some serious workouts, but this was definitely the weirdest.
We made the 9 hour drive to Lawrence, Kansas and are staying with our friends Allen and Heather Eastlund for a few days. This is our last real stop on the trip, can't believe it's almost over!
iPhone roundup:
Stopped at Voodoo Doughnuts on the way out of Portland, ate a giant pile of vegan doughnuts.
Wahkeena Falls.
Salted butterscotch pudding with toasted sesame seed topping and LEMONGRASS COTTON CANDY at Linger. Sooooo good.
Gracie belongs to my aunts. She is adorable and sweet.
Bottling at New Belgium.
The 10 Lips of Faith series beers.
Having a glass of 1554. Yum.
