Mile High Adventures

So the title of this post might be deceiving, because the only thing we did in Denver was fly in, sleep at my sister's adorable (!) new house, and have brunch with some good friends. There aren't even any pictures of the Mile High City part of this adventure... but it was a nice place to start our Colorado visit. Deep down, it's always the place I consider "home" if someone asks me that complicated question, and it's always nice to visit. Joe and I agreed in the future we'll have to plan a Colorado visit when there's not any specific events going on, since we always end up back there for a busy weekend of wedding or graduation type activities. 

Thursday we took the scenic route to Fort Collins, driving up through Boulder and Estes Park.
Here's the view as we're driving in to Estes Park. The white building in the distance is the
famous Stanley Hotel, a beautiful historic hotel that is said to be Steven King's inspiration
 to write The Shining.

We had to stop more than once to enjoy the scenery!
We weren't dressed to actually hike, though,
so we stayed towards the beginning of the trails we stopped at.

We couldn't resist stopping at the original Oskar Blues brewery in Lyons.

We had some time Friday to explore around Fort Collins, and split our time between the great outdoors and the beer tasting indoors. First, we drove up Poudre Canyon. It was incredible! So beautiful, with the river running down the canyon. It was cold, though, and it actually started to snow while we were up there! Then, we went back down to Fort Collins, and met my dad and brother at O'Dell Brewery. We did a tasting, then a tour, then a little more tasting. It was fantastic beer-- really some of the best that I've had recently. The guys there were really cool, too, and traded us some Chicago beer we'd brought with us for a bunch of their brews. We were well saturated that night ;)  The rest of the weekend was full of graduation celebrations, and lots of laughing and crazy antics with my family. It's always fun when our whole group gets together! 

Cheers!