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Now…where were we?  Oh yes, Boulder, Colorado.

While we were in Boulder we wanted to do some beer tastings.  One of the days our friends had a double rehearsal (meaning two rehearsals in one day) so Chris and I had some time to kill.  We decided to drive to Longmont to visit the Left Hand Brewery Company and also hit up Oskar Blues Brewing Company, which neither of us had heard of until the night before, but figured two breweries were better than one.  Then we planned to return to Boulder (30 minute drive) and meet our friends at Avery Brewery Company.

If you’re saying, that sounds like a lot of beer, you’d be correct. (Mike gave me a little bit of a lecture today about the beer drinking and whatnot on vacation.  Yes, yes.  I know.)

The more beer I tasted, the more photos like this magically appeared on my camera.

Anyway, we headed northeast to Longmont, getting to travel on a fantastic highway called the Diagonal Highway, which was like the hypotenuse of a triangle.  Oddly Google maps gave us the option of taking the what-should-be-named “right angle” highways, but that would have added ten minutes to our drive.  (And don’t confuse that with he-who-shall-not-be-named.  That’s when the real trouble would start.)

We started at Oskar Blues.  They had a tasting deal, 5 samples for $10 or $12, so we both ordered that.

The bartender was awesome and helpful, and made recommendations.  She gave me an extra sample of her favorite, and then later gave Chris a few more to try.  We ended up at the restaurant rather than the brewery I guess, but there were plenty of beers to try.  I particularly loved the first one, Dale’s Pale Ale, and Chris liked the Deviant Dale’s IPA best, but we enjoyed all of them, even the dark ones, which I usually don’t care for.  (I’m a hops gal.)

Then it was time to go to Left Hand Brewery Company.  That was a different experience, but still nice.  It’s soured a bit by the fact that we ended up leaving Chris’s credit card there (we had to give them a card to hold the tab, then when we cashed out I ended up paying and they didn’t give us the card back, we had forgotten, and ended up having to go back the next day to retrieve it AND discovered they had charged his card for the tab as well as my own…super annoying.)

4 samples for some price.  I can’t recall but it was cheap.  I don’t remember what my favorite was.  It might have been the pretzels, honestly, because by this point I had definitely had PLENTY of beer already.  But we were having fun.

I debated buying a purple tee shirt with a cow on it.  But do I really wear tee shirts?

So, after we finished our samples, we headed back to Boulder.  It was time for our third and final brewery of the day, Avery Brewing Company.  Avery was cool because you could order small sample size beers, just one if you wanted.  I ordered a couple, of course.

Dave and Chris

My beers.  Alls I know is that they were IPAs, or at least pale ales.

What is your favorite sort of beer?  We tried to tell some people at the bar that here in St Louis we have a fancy brewery called “Budweiser” that they should come visit if they like beer.  Not sure why they laughed at us and then slowly backed away.

When you tell people you are going to the mountains for vacation, they generally tend to assume you are planning to do a lot of hiking.  My one issue with hiking is that I have a pretty bad fear of heights.  To clarify, I have a pretty bad fear of falling, and the higher I go, the more that fall is going to hurt.  That said, I wanted to get an "easy" hike in just to be able to tell people, why, yes, I did hike in Colorado.

Leslie and I decided to hike up to the Royal Arch.  The trail started near where the orchestra rehearses, which is at Chautauqua in Boulder.  I had been to Chautauqua in New York before, but didn’t realize the connection until that day.

The sign said to read the important information below so we did.

Anyway, the hike started pretty easy and then got harder.  It was pretty rocky and went pretty uphill.  Here in St Louis I’m used to running uphill, particularly at the ends of races (I’m looking at you Benton Park 5k and Go Half Marathon) but not QUITE as steep.

I made Leslie take a picture of me "Hiking".  You can see the path ahead.  It looks harmless, doesn’t it.

Then it was a bit rockier. Ultimately we were just climbing up "steps" of the rocks.  It wasn’t easy.

The sign pointed that way, so I decided to point.  This picture was more effective in my mind, like most things I do.

 

That’s the sort of rocks we had to climb up.  FUN, right?  (not fun).

View from the top!  We made it!  Now we just have to hike down, right?

Oh, yeah.  That’s the Royal Arch.

The way down was easier, though not EASY.  My feet were hurting…and I was tired…and we were hungry and wanted Taco Bell.

So, yeah, that was my view most of the way.  Leslie’s backside (I hear her backside is her best side though!).  We got to the bottom and decided we needed to get Taco Bell.  I didn’t take any pictures there, but it was delicious.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the true highlight of the trip was Leslie attempting to drive Peter’s car, which is has a stick shift.  She didn’t stall out but I think she may have run over some pedestrians because she was afraid to stop.  It was hilarious.  And by hilarious I mean frightening.  I offered to drive but I think she enjoyed the challenge of it. 

Later that day we went to a couple of different Boulder restaurants for Happy Hour and then dinner.

Kir Royales at the Kitchen Upstairs.  Very French of us.

Leslie and Peter at the Bitter Bar.

Me being a starfish while waiting for our table at Pizzeria Locale.  Dave and Chris met us there after golf.

Me being fairly normal.  Light pants are not super flattering.

 

Apparently Leslie took a lot of pictures there, because there were about a dozen more on my phone.

Do you like to hike?

Do you like to take pictures of yourself when you are bored?