Happy 4th!

A little bit late, but here's our report from the last week:


I got the day off on Wednesday for the 4th in the middle of a quiet week at work as many people were out on vacations. Fort Collins had some downtown live music and some art stands, similar to the Taste of Fort Collins event (although much smaller), so we walked around there for a little while, and then came home for some typical July 4th cuisine (hot dogs, watermelons, and chocolate chip cookies) before the fireworks.



The Fort Collins fireworks were at the City Park, which is just a few minutes walk from our apartment. We met up with Matt, one of the other AMD interns, who is another recent Michigan graduate, and sat out on a blanket at the foot of City Park Lake in time for a performance by the Fort Collins Symphony, who treated us (and thousands of others!) to the usual 4th songs, including "Stars and Stripes Forever", the "1812 Overture", and "America the Beautiful", before the fireworks began. They even continued their final song "Liberty", which included some spoken sections of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and some famous U.S. speeches about halfway into the fireworks, which was neat. After a great fireworks grand finale that actually lit up the sky, it was just a short walk back home.


On Thursday, we headed back down to Boulder to see my friend Kevin from California and his girlfriend Kate (both recent Notre Dame grads). Kate lives near Denver, so Kevin was in town for a week and we were able to meet up and catch up over a nice Italian dinner at Pasta Jay's on Pearl Street in Boulder. We also checked out some shops and stopped for dessert at Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Kevin and Kate: Thanks for meeting up with us! That was a great time!



Here's Whitney at the Haagen Dazs (she's a handful sometimes, I tell you!):

Also, some neat origami from one of the Boulder art boutiques:

Over the weekend, we saw Ratatouille, the new Pixar movie, which we enjoyed. We've also played some tennis at the City Park since getting some cheap rackets at Target. Whitney (former high school tennis player) has been teaching me (took 3 lessons at the YMCA in 6th grade) as we go, so it's interesting, but certainly a fun thing to do to get out of the hot apartment at times. Luckily, it's supposed to cool down this week to the regular summer average of 85 (from the 95 degree weather we've been having lately).

Only five weeks left in Colorado, but still many things left to do and see!

(Humorous anecdote: As we were walking home from the Walrus Ice Cream shop in Old Town tonight, I saw many bikes outside the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant and noted: "Wow, look how many people boke in for dinner tonight!" Good thing I'm an engineer and learned my English well!)

Yee-haw! Rodeo Time!

Last Saturday we went out to the Greeley Stampede to see a rodeo! Whitney was not too enthused about seeing a rodeo, but she's now glad we went!

Greeley is named after Horace Greeley, the 1800s newspaper editor who advised "Go west, young man". It's the next town east of Fort Collins, about 30 minutes away. We drove out there with two other summer interns from AMD, arriving a few events into the rodeo. The arena was outdoors, but had a cover over the horseshoe-shaped grandstand, keeping us out of the sun and cool on a near-100 degree day.

We missed various types of bronco riding, but still got to see some great events. We saw a few of the calf-roping cowboys, and then it was time for the rodeo clown's intermission special. A clown drove out into the arena with a "police officer" with him, claiming they were looking for an escaped convict dressed as an American Indian. Because they were chasing an Indian, the clown claimed he was a "cowboy". After driving around for a few minutes, their car broke down and a "construction worker" walked out onto the arena floor. Suddenly, an "Indian" jumped out of the trunk of the car, all four characters lined up, and the first strains of YMCA boomed out of the speakers. The entire crowd, including me, groaned that they didn't see the Village People reference coming, before standing up to join the Y-M-C-A-ing!

The second half of the rodeo led off with team roping, where one cowboy lassos a steer around the neck, and his teammate lassos the steers back feet, all in about 5 seconds. Pretty impressive skills.

The next event was my favorite: "Mutton busting" This event was the kids' event. 10 6-7 year old boys and girls, equipped in hockey helmets and flak jackets, took turns climbing onto the back of an upset sheep, who then ran the kid around the arena. If they could stay on for 6 seconds, they received a score. Only 2 or 3 of the kids stayed on for the required time, but they all had a great time. Here's a picture of the eventual winner:

(Click the pictures for a larger view)

After the mutton busting, the rodeo continued with the women's event of barrel racing, where horseriders navigate their horses around 3 large barrels before racing back to the start:

The rodeo wrapped up, as most rodeos do, with some bull riding. Always a fun event to watch, since there's nothing like an angry bull to create some action. Only about 4 of the riders stayed on for the full 8 seconds, but it was still fun to watch.

As a bonus event, they rolled out some very large ramps, and 3 dirt bike riders took turns soaring above the arena, climbing over their handlebars, spinning the bike sideways and back, and completing a backflip, all while 50 feet above the arena floor. Neat way to wrap up the rodeo!

Did Whitney have fun? Looks like it (especially after a super-large rodeo lemonade!)

Trolley

Hey all -- it's been awhile, but I just thought I'd throw up some pictures from last weekend. Saturday we went to Broomfield, CO for a trip to the bank (closest location for me) and later ended up at their shopping mall, Flatiron Crossing. As I told my sister, I thought it was funny that one of the anchor stores was a sporting goods store (Welcome to Colorado!) but overall it was a nice mall. We ate dinner at CPK, which I was nostalgic for because I used to go a lot with my mom.

Sunday was an important local tradition, the Colorado Brewers' Festival. Held in Downtown Fort Collins, this was its 18th year running. My parents will probably scold me for writing about beer again ("not another beer story!") but it's weird because beer really IS just a bigger part of life here. There are a TON of local breweries (many represented at the festival in their line-up of 32 companies), and I swear, there's beer at every event. Taste of Fort Collins? Beer tent. Tasting of restaurants at a local mall? Beer garden. 4th of July? TWO downtown beer gardens. It's kind of crazy, actually!

The festival is known for its long lines, but we went later on Sunday so it wasn't too bad. It was about a 100 degrees out, and I can't say I completely enjoyed myself, but I guess it was interesting to see. I wouldn't need to go back if I were here next year.

What I actually really liked about the day was getting there -- we took the Fort Collins trolley! This old restored trolley car runs from City Park (right next to our house) to downtown on weekends and holidays. Usually we bike to downtown, but we've wanted to check out the trolley and since it was so hot it gave us the perfect chance. It was actually really fun to ride. I couldn't believe what a nice breeze there was! Much better than you would expect for driving so slowly -- I don't know how they do it. Here are pictures of us on the trolley before it left:

The car cost $6000 when it was purchased in 1919. It was one of 4 bought by the city. At one time Fort Collins was the smallest city in the country to have a trolley, and they charged the lowest fare too (5 cents). A funny story is that the 4 cars, which weigh 8 tons each, were LOST during shipping. They showed up a few months later, and no one ever knew where they had been during that time!

I think it's great that the city put in the effort to have this historical ride. To wrap up, here are pictures of us at the park with the trolley:

This weekend so far, I've been to my first rodeo! We'll put up stories and pictures from that eventually!

Craigslist!

Found a nice deal on Craigslist today.

We grabbed two sets of old golf clubs (21 clubs in all) for $15 total. Might have to make a few trips to the city's 9 hole golf course and driving range that is about 100 yards from our place.

Out and about for a fun weekend in Fort Collins!

Typical Night At Our House

Want an up-to-the-minute update on what we're doing right now?!

Check out this picture for an example. (You can also see a bit of our living room, M flag proudly flying)

Photo credit: Karri

Wednesday News Round-Up

I love Target.

The Economist's take on Barack Obama. What do you think?

How does your state (or county) compare for gas? We're at about a light orange, which is pretty accurate.

Trying to be more eco-friendly? Check out this new site.

Looking for love?

Boulder

Last Saturday we went to Boulder. We were really impressed by how nice the city was. They have a downtown mall thing, kind of like Denver, only a lot better. It's called Pearl Street. Many unique stores, and no cars, bikes, pets, or "aggressive" panhandling allowed. There were lots of street performers though -- some really good live music every 50 feet or so the whole way! We saw bands, a banjo, a cello, a guitar, a long windpipe thing -- you name it, it was there.

We had burgers for dinner at a sports bar (delicious) after walking around awhile. Then we walked some more and rounded out the night at Cheesecake Factory for dessert (even better). The highlight was definitely the Boulder Bookstore. A local bookstore, it was like something I might have dreamed up. Three stories of books -- the top level being an old ballroom -- and atmosphere to spare. I took a picture or two, but really, you just have to BE there. It was amazing.

Every place should have a Pearl Street. It's one of the best of its kind that I've seen. And lots of people there -- children, families, couples, etc, of all ages.

1. The biggest Jelly Bean machine I've ever seen, in the bookstore. Was this store made for me, or what?

2. 3rd floor ballroom of the bookstore. See that little girl reading? That would have been me as a kid.

3. Cheesecake! I got White Chocolate Caramel Latte -- like Starbucks, but in cheesecake form. Mmmmmm. Simon got Chocolate Raspberry. Also good.

4. Leapfrog!

3-for-1

They say good things come in threes, and our recent activities are no exception! Without further ado, here are three cool things we did in the two weeks between the weekend Andy and Karri came and last weekend.

1. Rockies Game

Tuesday the 5th we went into Denver for a baseball game with people from Simon's work (mostly interns, a few full-timers). Andy had stopped back into town for an extra night, so he came too. You might remember us talking about the row of purple seats in the stadium that marks a mile high, and you can see them in the picture. (zoom in for a better look)

The game wasn't too exciting except for the part where there was some fighting, causing everyone from both teams to jump off the bench and run onto the field. The boys tell me this doesn't happen every day. Naturally, they thought it was sweet.

2. Texas Roadhouse Dinner

We went to eat at Texas Roadhouse because they were having a specials night featuring New Belgium. They had games to win prizes, and (given their documented focus on bikes) one was racing tiny bikes on a "course" around the restaurant. Yeah, fun times. Simon won a t-shirt, and it was funny to watch. The waiter was really good!

3. Taste of Fort Collins/Old Town Car Show

Saturday, June 9th was the annual Taste of Fort Collins festival, featuring food and live music. It was actually kind of like Ann Arbor's art fair because there were artists and local businesses set up too. The food area had lots of restaurants represented, but all the food cost extra. Instead, we mostly filled up on the three rounds of free appetizers at the Whole Foods tent, along with mini samples of Starbucks (see pic!). The music headliner for the night was Sister Hazel of "All For You" fame, so we got to hear them play for about an hour before biking back home.

In the middle of the afternoon we took a break to go to the other event happening downtown -- the Old Town Classic Car Show. There were some awesome cars on display. I'm going to put up a bunch of them since they looked so cool. The first place winner was the bright orange car -- a 1956 Chevy Del Ray (yes I had to look that up). It WAS a beauty!

Last weekend was Boulder, and I'll have a post up about that soon -- it's already half done!

Rocky Mountain National Park!

Finally wrapping up Andy and Karri's trip to see us, we drove out to Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday the 3rd. The park is about an hour and a half from us, on a beautiful drive through the Big Thompson River Canyon. Unfortunately, as we drove into the canyon, the clouds turned black and we even had a bit of hail fall. But the sky looked blue ahead, so we continued on....and it was worth it!

Here we are just outside the park!

Andy and Karri planned to stay and camp for a few nights, so we stopped at the Visitor's Center for some useful information, and then headed up Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest continuously paved road in the U.S. ! The highest point is over 12,200 feet elevation. Along the way we stopped for a picnic lunch and at several turnoffs to get some amazing pictures!

This was a shot from the side of the road about 5 minutes into the park. You don't have to travel far in the park to see some great sights.

After stopping for lunch, there was a great turnoff in a switchback part of the road that let you see mountains in a 270 degree view. The tallest peak in this picture (partially obscured in the clouds) is Longs Peak, which is the tallest peak in the park and can be seen from Fort Collins.


The next stop had one of the best rainbows we've ever seen! As we pulled into the parking spot, we saw 30+ people pointing and taking pictures of something, and when we got out the car, we knew why...there was a huge rainbow "growing" across the valley. As the clouds moved through, the rainbow started just at the left side of this picture, and grew towards the right until it crossed as much of the valley as we could see. What a sight.

From this point, it was up, up, up into the tundra. You might say we were a bit high up at this point, after looking at the next picture.

There's another visitor's center and giftshop just after the highest point on the road (and we could feel the thin air as we stopped to shop for a minute). We didn't see a sign on the road indicating the actual highest point, but we found this sign.




On the way back from the Alpine Visitor's Center, we stopped for short hike on the Ute Trail.




With views of mountains, the blue sky, and even some elk, it was a very neat experience walking around at close to 12,000 feet. On the way back, I scampered up some rocks for a better view:




Whitney's at the bottom of the rocks on the right, and Andy and Karri are back on the trail somewhere in the middle of the picture.



After the hike, the black clouds rolled back in and we were glad to be off the trail, and headed back down below the tree line. As we were just about to leave the park, we found a few elk enjoying the park as well.



Whitney and I bid goodbye and headed back to Fort Collins while Andy and Karri enjoyed the park for two more days. What a fun weekend!

Next time we'll mention a couple fun things we've up to the past few weeks and get caught up to today!

A-B Facts

Alright readers, you may have been asking yourself, "Where's Whitney been?" (or not) . . . But in the answer to that question lies some exciting news! Namely, I have been fortunate to work several temp JOBS the last few days. (Friday and Mon-Wed) So that was fun, from a financial standpoint, but I had today off and now I'm back in action on the blog.

Simon did a great summary of the Budweiser Tour, but I'm just going to throw in a few details I found interesting.

First of all, Anheuser-Busch has 12 breweries in the U.S., but only 5 of them do tours so this was actually a pretty unique thing to see. And the famous Clydesdales are only in three locations: Missouri, New Hampshire, and here. Go Fort Collins!

Anheuser-Busch is famous for their Budweiser brand, but they actually manufacture a ton of other products too. They had a neat display case showing every kind of drink they make:

Additionally, you might guess that the company owns Busch Gardens, but they also own SeaWorld and -- someplace I went when I was young -- Sesame Place! I remember how we stumbled upon this small themepark somewhere in Pennsylvania while on a family trip, so I was certainly surprised to the kiddie park advertised here!

That wraps up fun facts about the Anheuser-Busch Corporation; now on to the beer. The company has a 50% market share. That's right -- that means that one out of every two beers sold in the U.S. is an Anheuser-Busch product. Wow. They manufacture 125 million barrels of beer annually, of which 9 million are made right in Fort Collins. (1 barrel = 2 kegs)

The process for making Budweiser beer uses 5 key ingredients: barley, hops, rice, water, and yeast. They say the rice is unique and is what gives Budweiser its light, crisp finish. The other unique part of their brewing process, shown below, is the beechwood aging process. When the beer is fermented with yeast, adding the alcohol content, it's technically done -- but Budweiser calls this "alpha beer." It goes through another whole aging process that takes about 2 weeks, or about half the total time required to manufacture a batch of Budweiser (30 days). The addition of beechwood chips is supposed to allow the yeast more surface area and let the beer ferment better without affecting flavor.

Now a word on cans: as can be noted on the sign in this picture, the company is the "world's largest aluminum recycler" and recycles enough every year to make all their cans. Guess how many cans are in this block? . . . . . . 800! And here's the process by which the metal becomes a can, which I thought was kind of a neat display.

The very last step is putting the top on the can. Simon showed you the can filler, and here you can see the tops going into the machine on the right. They come in those big paper rolls to the left, and a worker was continually unwrapping and loading those. The filler goes really fast.

The last thing we did was see the Clydesdales in their barn -- there were about 6 of them, but it was hard to get a good picture because the lighting was poor. Here's one. The original Clydesdale-led beer wagon was a gift from August Busch, Jr. to his father in 1933 to celebrate the end of Prohibition.

And for you animal lovers, don't worry -- the horses had a gorgeous pasture outside with plenty of room to stretch, and Clydesdale Camera Day is only once a month for 2 hours, so we were very lucky it happened to be while our friends were in town!

Finally, I leave you with the boys enjoying their free samples and Karri with her soda. A great day!