Long long ago, in a state far far away, the Tiger and I went on a little ride called the "Brewery 100 3.0." Here's what happened.
I found this weird stuff in my house. I think it belongs to my sister. I found it while I was packing.
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| How Easy-E Rolls. |
The Tiger has some very peculiar packing habits. He always packs a LOT of socks. Then, he really only wears one outfit when he travels.
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| Notice, new socks. |
We woke up really early, like 4am, to begin our drive. Holiday was not ready to wake up.
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| Nope. |
The Tiger took the first shift at the wheel. Actually, he took all the driving shifts, at least on the drive out. Control freak.
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| Notice the shadow cast by that stache! |
Driving to Colorado with the Tiger and Holiday was different than driving by myself, because we stopped about every four hours or so and took Holiday for a little walk and the Tiger smoked and stretched our legs. It was pretty nice.
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| Moon light over I-80. |
We did find a little mini-dog park at the rest station just across the Colorado border, but these people wouldn't let their dogs play with Holiday. Haters.
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| Little Reich on the Prairie |
Then, we were in Colorado and it was great!
Surprise #1: Beaver-decorated cupcakes! I ate about 16 of these over the weekend, and I very much enjoyed the way the peanut butter nut shaped cookie got a little soggy. Awesome.
Holiday and Tuque became instant friends and spent the entire weekend either biting each other in the neck, chasing each other around the house (but not outside), or getting into mischief. Holiday was particularly enchanted with the balls in the baby's ball pit. I think she crushed about 67 of them.
We decided to ride over to a local brewery for dinner. It was a closed. So we went to another place.
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| Surprise #4: Super Stache on a Super Smile |
The next morning, Steven had to pick her mom up from the airport, so we would have a baby sitter. And, then she returned with Surprise #2: Brewery 100 T-Shirts: Comin' In Hot! With all 8, count 'em, breweries listed on the back. Awesome!
Then, went out to lunch with Mag-a-cita. Lunch featured misters! Awesome.
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| Dueling Staches! |
Later, Steven and I sneaked up to Fort Collins to figure out a place to stash our lunch makings for the next day. Precedence was set for lunch at O'Dells, so we started there.
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| Note the last option! Good sign. |
The good folks at O'Dells were more than happy to help us. They said they would take good care of our bag of peanut butter and jelly goodies. Then, we had a pint and got caught up.
We had to go to bed early, so we could be ready for our 5am start the next morning. But, Steven had one more surprise in store: Fanny Packs featuring Team Beaver and gems! Awesome.
We would roll through the front range rocking Team Beaver t-shirts and Team Beaver fanny packs. The only problem was that my fanny pack caused my tshirt to roll up over my "skin belt." Sexy.
The first part of the Brewery 100 winds through neighborhoods and hobby farms. It's quite lovely. Less dead snakes than last year. We did have a minor mishap not too long after the sun came up. The Tiger flatted.
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| Flat stop. |
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| Sexy and Elmo knows it. |
Rather than get into trouble with our hilarious commentary, Steven and I used the flat stop as an opportunity for a photo shoot.
We stopped outside of Loveland for a snack. I was a little miffed at the Tiger. Even though I filled his tires and made coffee, he still complained that I was "ready on time" in the morning. And, then, he didn't bring his own snacks. He never brings his own snacks! Maybe he thinks that he can just ride a 60 miles on nothing but coffee but his cranky attitude on our bike ride says otherwise. Once we rode to Martensdale and back, about a 50 mile ride. I brought a granola bar, but the Tiger brought nothing. So we had to split it. 50 miles on 100 calories. No wonder we were cranky at the bar tender that afternoon. Tiger: if you are reading this bring your own snacks.
I digress. We rode on. We stopped at an awesome gas station just north of Fort Collins for water and a bathroom break. Then, we did the glorious ride just north of Fort Collins. I love that stretch.
We stopped at mile 50 for a picture.
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| 50! |
The Mayor, the route master, planned on us getting our first 60 miles done in time for the opening of New Belgium. A quick jaunt around some industrial sections of Fort Collins got us to the brewery, just as they were opening up.
New Belgium was awesome. Part brewery, part bar, part museum, part cool hangout, we settled in and sampled some rare flavors.
Then, we met this guy, who told us a story about how they used to shoot marijuana kits out from pneumatic guns during Grateful Dead concerts.
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| That's Mushstachtastic! |
Then, he showed us how to play this super-huge skeeball game.
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| Steven is always game. |
Then, we had to roll. We moved on to O'Dells. It was only a 1/2 mile away.
It was sandwich time. O'Dells was crowded, but we found a stop to make our peanut butter and jelly. The bartenders, true to their word, had kept the food safe. In the refrigerator. So, our peanut butter, nutella, and marshmallow fluff was rock solid. I worked on defrosting the goods while Steven composed sandwiches.
Then, we had to move on to Fort Collins Brewery, less than a 1/2 mile away. I mean, they practically share a parking lot. Everyone was feeling a bit silly, but we had more beer!
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| Fort Collins! |
Three breweries in less than 2 miles was pretty intense. Things got more intense as the route took us a new way down a busy-ish road through central Fort Collins. The traffic, after several brews, was a bit unnerving. And, I tried to kill myself with a van, but fortunately, we all survived and made it out of town.
On to Surprise #5:
Big Beaver Brewery! What? What you say? Yes, it was amazing. Tucked into the back of a weird warehouse, we found Big Beaver just before a massive summer storm overtook the country side. Thankfully, we were tucked safely inside.
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| The Menu! Amazing. |
And, oh, how the beaver puns refused to cease.
While the tempest raged outside, we drank beer, made friends with locals, I think got into a malt-fueled argument? Perhaps, I remember not much of what we talked about. But, we were there for a long time, hoping the rain would abate.
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| Where are we? |
When it did, we headed to
Brewery #5 City Star in Berthoud, CO. The roads were wet, so we were all pretty damp by the time we reached Berthoud and got a beer and shivered outside on the patio, but whatever.
City Start was fine, though, I vaguely remember feeling too squashy to sit inside. They did have nice bathrooms.
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| Random picture of a bike tire. |
On to Longmont, in the rain! It rained pretty steadily through the remainder of the ride. There were some dark moments for me, just feeling tired and slow and wet, in my cotton tee-shirt, but before long, we were warming up in
Pumphouse with Magacita and the small one over big plates of food.
The misters we had enjoyed the day before were no longer necessary, as we were misting the whole restaurant. We also managed to cover a booth in wet sand.
Onward we pressed, though, with the dark and the damp, we were all getting a bit tired and full of beer. To Left Hand! We drank beer, almost begrudgingly.
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| Can't. Drink. More. Beer. |
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| I forgot, another surprise! The first edition of the Beaver Tale! |
Then, finally, we made our final stop at Oskar Blues, exhausted.
We slumped back to the house, after taking our fill of beer and bikes, showered, and went to bed.
The next morning the Mayor and I went and rounded up some breakfast tacos for the crew. Then, everyone chillaxed for a while. I took a sleeping pad outside for some shade and a reading time and passed out, exhausted.
The Mayor woke Steven up from her nap, and somehow, they managed to go for another bike ride. I don't know how, because I was freaking exhausted.
We met them for lunch in Lyons. Then, the Tiger and I drove up to Estes Park to see some mountain action.
That night, the Mayor and the Tiger and I drove up to Loveland to try a brewery we missed, Grimm Brothers. The beer was really good, but we barely survived the drive because of the torrential down pours. We had dinner in a weird Greek-ish pizza joint, which made their own beer, before heading back to base camp.
I do remember listening to
Seabiscuit all the drive home, and eating at Arby's, which has way more choices than it used to.
And, the Brewery 100 3.0 was over for another year. And, it was magical.
Can it be topped? There are always more breweries in the Front Range!
