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!

Friends and Fun!

Last weekend Andy and Karri, our respective roommates from Michigan and fellow MMBers, came to town. Andy is finishing up a 10,000+ mile sightseeing drive around the country before he starts a job in the real world and Karri just took the MCAT, so it was a good time for a vacation!

We met them for lunch on Friday at Old Chicago restaurant near my work and then Whitney showed them around Fort Collins until work was over. We grilled up some burgers and played some euchre and saw Andy's pictures from his travels.

Saturday's highlight was a trip to the Anheuser-Busch brewery. It was Clydesdale Day, so we got our picture taken with one!

After a quick game of horseshoes on the lawn, it was tour time. We were taken through the facility in a guided group tour and got to see all parts of the beer-making process, from the mash cookers and brewkettles to the enormous Fermentating Cellars.















My favorite part, however, was the production room, with the can filler. The large circle in the picture below was full of cans zipping around, being filled, and topped. Each can was filled and topped automatically in under 5 seconds before being routed down the assembly line to enter the pasturizer.















At the time of the tour, the Fort Collins brewery had produced over 1 billion cans worth of beer so far this year, accounting for 1/16th of Anheuser-Busch's production. After seeing the Clydesdales again, enjoying some free samples, and playing some more lawn games, we headed back to get ready for what was a delicious dinner at Enzio's Italian Restaurant in Old Town, and more ice cream at the local favorite: Walrus.

Come back soon to read about our adventure to the great outdoors of Rocky Mountain National Park!

Denver

For those of you following along, last Saturday we checked out Denver for the first time. This started with a trip to the upscale Cherry Creek Shopping Center where the anchors are Macy's, Neiman Marcus, Saks, and Nordstrom. Yes!!

Driving around downtown, we passed the capitol building. It has a distinctive shiny gold dome, and a marker on the steps denotes the exact height of 5,280 ft. above sea level for the Mile High City. (Also, a purple row of seats in the baseball stadium marks the same thing.)

The dome, shown below (pic from Wikipedia), was originally copper but since that oxidizes to a green patina I guess Coloradoans wanted something that would stay shiny! It's quite pretty in person. I'm sure we will go back another time to do a tour of the Capitol and the nearby Denver U.S. Mint.

We drove by City Park and the Denver Zoo, other popular attractions, before ending up at the 16th Street Mall. This pedestrian mall stretches about a mile in the middle of Downtown Denver, filled with shops and restaurants. There is a free trolley that runs up and down it regularly too. It was really a nice area. We walked around for awhile looking for some dinner before settling on a small corner Italian restaurant.

At one point we ducked inside a shopping center and ended up passing the ESPN Zone restaurant. Outside, they have a tiled wall mural depicting players from each of Denver's four major sports teams. Here's Simon! (I tried to get him to pose like the basketball player, but he didn't want to :)

I'm looking forward to going back to Denver another weekend!

We rounded out the weekend by having a barbeque Monday night in honor of Memorial Day -- burgers, peaches, corn on the grill, and potato chips, with brownies for dessert! Also last weekend we acquired two bicycles at garage sales, so we went for a ride Monday. Fort Collins is great for biking, with many designated bike lanes and generally an impressive number of people using this form of transportation.

More soon on what we've been up to the past few days to finally get this blog current. We had a great time this weekend visiting with our friends and (respective) former roommates Andy and Karri!

Last Weekend

As usual we're a little behind, but last weekend was Memorial Day so we had 3 days to relax and see some new sights!

Friday night started with dinner at Austin's American Grill downtown. They had a full week of special events to kick off the summer, and our night featured live music and blended drink specials. (Mmm pina colada!) Simon had Fat Tire, the famous beer of the local New Belgium Brewing Company.

The beer is so-called in honor of the founder's bicycle trip across Europe, where he became entranced by Belgium beer in the first place while at a bar in Brugge, Belgium. To this day, the company gives employees one of their signature "cruiser" bikes after one year of work, and a trip to Belgium after five!

An interesting point is that Fat Tire is actually served in a Belgian-style beer glass, which I recognized from my trip to Belgium last summer with my family! I was excited to make that connection. Here's a picture of Simon with his beer and one of me from last summer, straight from Belgium, for comparison:

Even though I've used this to educate you on one of the (many) local breweries, we did eat as well -- I had the house specialty Smoked Pork Tenderloin which had an amazing sweet soy/brown sugar sauce and was WELL worth the money, and Simon had a combo chicken/ribs plate that he liked.

Coming up next is a trip to Denver on Saturday!