6.30.2012

Colorado Vacation: Day 5

When we woke up on Day 5 in Longmont, the smoke was starting to get a little thicker from the wildfire that was burning while we were there.  It smelled like a campfire outside.  Though we could vaguely see the mountains, I'm pretty sure we didn't get the true, beautiful picture the whole time we were there because it was always so hazy.
We took our time getting ready in the morning, then drove up to Fort Collins.  We checked into our hotel early and stopped at a really incredible beer store to stock up on some beer at a little better price than the breweries had it for.  Then we drove down to tour New Belgium.  By far, this was the best brewery tour I have ever been on!  The tour guide was really cool, pretty funny, and the minute you start the tour you are handed a small glass of beer.  And you continue to get small glasses of different kinds of beer throughout the tour...awesome!
It was at this point, during the New Belgium tour, that I realized something happened to my camera.  We still cannot figure out what happened.  But outdoors, it started making every single picture way overexposed.  I don't know if it had something to do with the ash in the air, but it really bummed me out!  I could still take decent indoor pictures, but everything outdoors was awful.  Check it out:
Uck!  We're still working on trying to figure out what happened, luckily I'm still under warranty with it.  Anyway, after New Belgium, we went to the tap room at Odell and sampled some of their delicious beer!  We stopped at Fort Collins Brewery for a quick snack and Ryan tried their stout.  And our last stop was Funkwerks, and honestly is was a little disappointing (for Ryan anyway), but I did have an Italian soda, since I was the driver, and it was pretty yummy.
Ryan was, umm, feeling "good" at this point, so we headed back to the hotel.  Luckily, they had free dinner that night, so I enjoyed a burger and went swimming and just relaxed the rest of the night.  This day concluded our brewery tours, and before I forget, I want to list my favorite beers at each brewery we went to:
1. Coors - Blue Moon Belgian White
2. Great Divide - Wild Rasberry Ale and Belgian Yeti
3. Avery Brewing - Lilikoi Kepolo (only on tap), Ellie's Brown Ale, and Out of Bound Stout
4. Boulder Beer - Hazed and Infused, Kinda Blue, and Sweaty Betty
5. Lefthand Breweing Co - Good JuJu and Milk Stout Nitro
4. New Belgium - Abbey and Tart Lychee
5. Odell - Hiveranno American Wild Ale and Levity Amber Ale
I didn't drink at FCB or Funkwerks, so no opinions there.  Next post: How the wildfire changed our plans, but we still had a great time!
Happy Saturday everyone!

6.27.2012

Colorado Vacation: Day 4

We woke up in Denver on another beautiful day, so we walked to breakfast instead of driving.  We headed to Snooze, which was highly recommended by Kristin of Iowa Girl Eats.  Thank you Kristin!  Best breakfast I have ever had...seriously.  I had the pancake flight: Pineapple Upside Down Pancake, Blueberry Blossom, and Sweet Potato.  I can't even begin to describe how incredible each one was.  I think the Pineapple Upside Down Pancake was my favorite.
After breakfast, we walked back and packed up the car.  Onto the next adventure!  We drove up to Boulder and stopped at the Avery Brewing Tap Room.  They had some fantastic beers, my favorite was their brown ale.  We headed down to the pedestrian mall in Boulder for a little bit.  It was really nice, full of cute shops, nice people, and pretty views.  Then we went to Boulder Beer Company and took a tour of their brewery.  Ryan and I have always liked their beer, his favorite is Flashback, and mine is Hazed and Infused (though I think my new favorite is Kinda Blue). 
After our 14 beer tasting tray at Boulder, we drove to Longmont to check out Left Hand Brewery.  We asked the bartender for a recommendation for dinner.  Our only stipulation was that it was not a chain, no Old Chicago please!  He recommended Georgia Boys...oh my goodness!  I normally would not want to go to a BBQ place, this place was a total dive (in the fantastic sense!).  We got our food to-go because the place was so small.  But when we opened up our boxes of food back at the hotel, it was like heaven!
Day 4 had plenty going on to deserve it's on blog post.  Stay tuned for the rest of the vacation. :) Happy Wednesday!

6.26.2012

Colorado Vacation: Days 1, 2 & 3

June 8-18, Ryan and I took a nice little vacation to Colorado.  We rented a car, packed up our stuff, and headed to Omaha for night number one.  We were excited to be Andy and Ashley's first house guests, hang out on the patio and watch some Game of Thrones! *Thank you for re-watching it for me guys*
Early Saturday morning, we packed up again and hit the road for a long drive full of road construction and cattle yards.  We made pretty good time though and got to Denver in plenty of time to check, have a fantastic pizza dinner, and grab a drink all before going to see Bob Saget that night!
On Sunday, we headed out to the Coors brewery!  The tour was kind of lame, but we got some free beer so I'm not complaining.  Then we headed downtown and checked into our next hotel.  It was beautiful outside so we took a stroll down to Great Divide, followed by a wine tasting, and then dinner at Sam's No. 3, a diner featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.  Yumm!  Later that night, we grabbed a drink at Yard House and strolled around the pedestrian mall.

The first three days were pretty great (minus the driving), I'll tell you about the rest soon. Happy Tuesday! :)

6.03.2012

Happy Birthday Emily!

This weekend could have been a big downer since I really should have been studying the whole time (and I pretty much did all of today), but last night was a nice little pick me up!  Nick and Emily came home to celebrate Em's 26th birthday with her fam and they were kind enough to invite us over for a BBQ!  Thank you Mom and Pop Dawson, the food was fantastic!
After dinner, we went bowling, glow bowling to be exact.  It was lots of fun, but we started feeling like old farts when 10:30 rolled around and we were tired and our arms/fingers hurt, lol!  Nevertheless, it was refreshing and wonderful to see two good friends this weekend!  Happy birthday Emily!