Day 22/23...Denver/Cortez

Sorry we're a little late!  We wound up spending most of our day yesterday sampling the great micro beers of Denver (none of that Coors), which can be an exhausting activity.

We started our day walking into town from our hotel (bonus for our beer drinking) with the intention of visiting Coors Field, home of the Rockies.  Unfortunately, the 10:00 AM tour was already sold out, so we decided to move on.  We found the state capitol building (one of many we've had the pleasure of seeing on our trip), but this time we decided to actually go inside.  Being the Mile-High City, we had some great views from the top steps outside, so after taking a few photos, we headed in.  The building's architecture is really beautiful and it's quite amazing how freely they let you walk around.  It's filled with tons of tourists wearing jeans and sneakers (like us), interspersed with actual employees and government officials wearing their fancy suits.  We wound up taking the tour up to the dome of the building, which is pretty short, but offers even better views than those outside.  The fog was pretty crazy during our entire visit, so the mountains weren't terribly clear, but it was still beautiful.  After you visit the dome, you're invited to tour a small museum, so we checked that out.  After our tour, we saw that the House was actually in session, deciding on whether or not to make April 30 an official state holiday to honor Vietnam Veterans, so we sat in for a little while...it was actually really cool to be able to do...and we realize that it's probably possible in all states for pretty much all sessions...so, if you get the opportunity, definitely take it.

Denver has a Mint, which we decided to tour after the Capitol.  Unfortunately, when we arrived, we realized tickets sell out fast and it was already terribly crowded outside (more school trips, it seemed), plus signs outside stated that you couldn't bring anything in with you (cameras, purses, etc.) and there were no lockers, so we were kind of stuck there.  No Mint for us.

Luckily, Denver is a beautiful walking city and has an outdoorsy market called the 16th Street Mall in LODO (Lower Downtown...), which seemed to be closed off to traffic, with the exception of a free shuttle.  There are a ton of restaurants and stores and food vendors...not that we went into any of them, but it was a nice walk anyway.

Andy had scoped out the breweries, so we chose four (even though Laura told us to stop at three...we shared, so it was okay.)  Our first stop was the Denver Chophouse & Brewery, a kind of fancy-pants steakhouse, but made more affordable by the fact that we were only getting lunch.  We had some delicious salads with avocado vinaigrette (the avocado abundance alone out west is almost enough to make me never want to leave) and, of course, the beer sampler.  Ten decent-sized samplers arrived at our table...first one of the day, so we knew it wouldn't be a problem...we had even considered getting one each at this point.  Everything was pretty good...it seems Denver has much more flavorful ales and pilsners than some of the others we have tried.  They even have a Wild Turkey Barrel Conditioned Stout, made in actual used Wild Turkey barrels, so it has the aroma and flavor of WT!

Next was Wynkoop Brewing Co.  We sat down at the bar and ordered up our sampler...the bartender was a bit concerned for our welfare as he asked "are you sure you want them all?"  Yes.  There were twelve.  Including a chili beer, which was not unlike drinking nachos, but good.  Then, in the middle of enjoying our twelve samples, Andy had to go and ask about some other beer on the menu that wasn't part of the sampler...sure, the bartender would let us try it...thirteen.

From there, we moved onto Great Divide Brewing Company, the only non-restaurant of the places we visited.  We thought they offered tours, but there didn't seem to be any going on...just a room packed with people happily drinking beer, so we joined in and took some seats at the bar.  We told the bartender we wanted to sample everything, so she got to pouring our eight samples.  As we tasted, we came across a chocolate stout not on our menu, to which the bartender said we needed to compare to the other stout...no problem, number nine. 

We moved along to our old friend Breckenridge, from the night before, to get some nachos and a sampler.  It was about 5:00 by now, so our intention was to have our nachos and head back to the hotel to hang out for a while before the Rockies game (they were away) and then go to a bar for dinner and tv.  It was evident that by this time, Breckenridge's beers were not going to have our full attention...luckily they only offer six. 

By the time we walked back to our room, we were pretty exhausted (at 6:30), so we figured we'd take a quick nap and then wake up.  None of this happened and eventually our night ended pretty unexcitedly, just hoping to have set the alarm properly to make sure we woke up in time for free breakfast.

Well, luckily we did.  We were able to extend our check-out time, so we left all of our luggage in the room and walked back downtown for today's 10:00 Coors Field tour.  Coors Field is actually 15 years old this year, but isn't terribly different than Citifield.  It's really nice and you can tell how much the fans care about their team, especially being that they've only existed for such a short time.  We got to tour the usual areas...seats, press area, fancy clubs and restaurants and the visitor's locker room area.  One of the cool things they do have there is a brewery at the stadium...the first stadium to have one.  The two brewmasters on staff are always trying to come up with new beers and actually invented Blue Moon there...who knew?

We headed back to our hotel to pack up and hit the road for Cortez, CO.  Cortez is actually a small town outside of Mesa Verde National Park.  We decided last-minute to cut a day out of the Denver area, since we realized we weren't going to be able to hike in the Rocky Mountains or even really visit the park (we weren't prepared to winter sport, and it turns out a lot of the park is closed to regular hiking until July because of snow), and start heading the direction of our next major stop, the Grand Canyon.  Cortez has definitely helped break up that long drive by about halfway.  The drive was about 6.5 hours and was less windy-mountain-road than we anticipated, but there were still some crazy spots and some snow...but the views were amazing...I can't imagine my car photography doing it any justice.  Can you guess which mountain range is called the Sleeping Ute?

We arrived at our EconoLodge around 6:30 and headed to dinner...Tequila's Family Mexican Restaurant & Cocktails.  Andy thinks I'm going to get tired of Mexican food, but I just can't imagine.  Of course, even after all the reviews we read that mentioned how huge the portions were, we made the wrong decision and ordered way too much food.  It was pretty good, though...just too much.  After dinner, we decided to "explore" the town a little.  I had read an article that included a mini review of a coffee place called the Silver Bean...and cafe operating from an antique Airstream trailer, so we drove by to get an idea of where it was for tomorrow morning...and sadly learned they are not open on Sundays :(  Luckily, we have two other possibilities, so hopefully something will pan out as we head out to Mesa Verde tomorrow morning.