Colorado Trip: Days 2-5

On Friday morning we woke up in our comfy hotel bed to some very sad news coming from Aurora and praying that no friends or family were involved. I knew there was always a chance because I grew up close to there and have family in the area. I found out later that my cousin was invited to be there so I am really grateful that he did not go. It was a bit of a somber drive back to Golden as understandably every radio station was covering the story at all times. It was definitely a flashback to Columbine.

After we got Amanda and Tyler and all of the camping stuff loaded up in the car, we went downtown to Woody's Pizza for lunch. Then we went to the Coors Brewery, Golden's claim to fame. We were going to do the tour but the wait was an hour and a half, so fortunately we were able to do the little-known "short tour" and just head straight into the tasting room for three free beers! They had a few new beers we hadn't tried that weren't distributed outside of Colorado, as well as the classic Coors and Blue Moon varieties.

After Coors, it was time to head up to the mountains! About two hours later we were at our campsite at Green Ridge Campground on Shadow Mountain Lake. My sister and I have actually camped there before, but it is much different now. The pine beetle has killed so many of the trees in the area, it is really sad. We still had a great time. That night we hung out by the lake while Tyler and Amanda fished, made dinner over the campfire, and enjoyed roasting some marshmallows and seeing unbelievable stars.

               

On Saturday we woke up and made breakfast burritos and got ready to go head out for our hike. We hiked to Cascade Falls, which was about seven miles round trip. It was challenging. The best part was just taking our shoes off and dipping our feet in the freezing cold water and enjoying the rest and the incredible view up there when we got to the falls.

 Sunday morning, it was time to say goodbye to the mountain air and head back to Golden :( On Sunday afternoon Aaron and I went to Great Divide Brewing in downtown Denver. It was pretty insane there- we got there before they opened and as soon as they opened, a flood of people came and it was crazy in their tap room. We ordered a flight but it didn't come labeled and by the time Aaron got it back to our table, of course he didn't remember which beer was which. The beer was good, but we were pretty disappointed in our experience and the service there... there's not much of a point to tasting beer if you don't even know what it's called so you can have it again in the future. Sunday evening we had an enjoyable family dinner at my aunt's house.

Monday we went to Boulder and hung out around Pearl Street mall for a while, and then visited two breweries. The first was Twisted Pine, which was awesome. We really loved it, the bartender was very friendly and gave us a few free samples. We loved most of the beers we tried there and we certainly tried a lot! The only bummer is that Aaron bought a pint glass and forgot it.

After Twisted Pine we went to probably our most anticipated of all breweries.. Avery! It certainly did not disappoint. Avery has several beers that I absolutely love and I'm craving them all frequently however have no means of getting them here in Texas. My favorites were the Lilikoi Kepolo ("a truly authentic Belgian-Style wheat cleverly infused with a copious amount of passionfruit"), Salvation ( "luscious apricot and peach aromas are delicately interwoven with spicy suggestions of nutmeg and cinnamon in this heavenly soft, champagne-like elixir"), and Wheel Sucker Wheat (Bavarian hefeweizen).